[SOLVED] Failed BIOS update - Bootlooping like crazy

Poroto

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My BIOS was outdated so I figured Id update to the last version. I opened the Gigabyte BIOS update app, selected the newest BIOS and flashed, the program asked me to reboot, so I did. Mid rebooting it showed this.
It then rebooted by itself and the bootlooping ocurred, PC would just try to boot, fans would spin up just fine, light would shine for a while, only to shutdown and turn itself back on again and repeat the process. I left the PC trying to boot and went to google for possible troubleshooting steps. After like 10 failed boots, the PC booted just fine, so I figured it was fixed.

Flash forward to today, I unplugged the GPU to wipe some dust off of it, plugged it in again and am now bootlooping like crazy, I left the PC trying to boot for the last hour to no avail.

My guess is the BIOS flash messed up and now my BIOS is either completely borked or at least partially incomplete.

  • Tried unplugging everything but 24-pin, CPU power and displayPort, yet I keep bootlooping.
  • Tried clearing CMOS by both touching the CMOS jumper with a screwdriver as instructed in the manual as well as removing the Motherboard battery for 15min.
  • Tried changing RAM slots and booting with both sticks individually.
  • Tried booting off of Integrated graphics.
  • Tried searching for 01 on motherboard error code as thats what it displays prior to rebooting, found nothing on it, it isnt even mentioned on the manual.
Is there any way to re flash the BIOS of this board or anything else I could try here? I cant even get a signal on my monitor.

Video
Specs: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GWDjcq
 
Solution
Hi,

For bad BIOS flash recovery, you may find this thread to be helpful. I should probably write a guide on that.
Otherwise, you can always try to RMA it with Gigabyte if it is still on warranty.

Poroto

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Hi,

For bad BIOS flash recovery, you may find this thread to be helpful. I should probably write a guide on that.
Otherwise, you can always try to RMA it with Gigabyte if it is still on warranty.

You mean physically removing the BIOS chip and tinkering with it on another PC? If thats the case, Im afraid I do not have such skills.

My BIOS has that Dual BIOS technology for this specific scenarios, however it seems it doesnt have any switch to switch back and forth, Ive been trying multiple power button combination presses found online but I keep failing.

Anything I could try is welcomed. Thanks!
 

QwerkyPengwen

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So to clarify, it doesn't show the bios splash screen at all during this boot looping?
Try shutting completely down and reseating the ram.
Perform a cmos reset too.
Consult motherboard manual for any specific instructions on doing this, and as stated, how to manage dual BIOS still also be in the manual
 

Poroto

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So to clarify, it doesn't show the bios splash screen at all during this boot looping?
Try shutting completely down and reseating the ram.
Perform a cmos reset too.
Consult motherboard manual for any specific instructions on doing this, and as stated, how to manage dual BIOS still also be in the manual

correct. My monitor isnt even getting any sort of signal.
Sadly, I have already resetted CMOS as well as re positioned RAM in multiple combinations.
Manual for my motherboard mentions dual bios as a feature, just doesnt mention how to use it which sucks.


appreciate it! I dont really want to be removing any chips for now, Id need tools I dont have nor know how to use and something tells me ill screw the board even more. Thanks anyway!
 

QwerkyPengwen

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Did a Google search for some info and found this

Method 1
  1. Shut off your computer
  2. Hold the power button until your computer starts and shuts down again
  3. Press the power button again, your backup BIOS should kick in now and should re-flash the backup BIOS if there's anything wrong with the new one.
Method 2
  1. Shut off your computer
  2. Hold the power AND the reset button for about 10 sec, than release.
  3. It should boot into the backup BIOS now.
Method 3
Doing whatever the other people are talking about, or if you have a warranty use it.
 
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Poroto

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[/QUOTE]
Did a Google search for some info and found this

Method 1
  1. Shut off your computer
  2. Hold the power button until your computer starts and shuts down again
  3. Press the power button again, your backup BIOS should kick in now and should re-flash the backup BIOS if there's anything wrong with the new one.
Method 2
  1. Shut off your computer
  2. Hold the power AND the reset button for about 10 sec, than release.
  3. It should boot into the backup BIOS now.
Method 3
Doing whatever the other people are talking about, or if you have a warranty use it.

Sadly I did method 1 and 2 and it did nothing.

Method 3 was shorting pin 1 and 6 on the main bios while booting. I did that last method, and surprisingly my computer does not bootloop, however I get no image either nor it seems to be booting off of any bios at all, all I can see is the PC running with fans spinnig and all but not much else, sadly.
 
Sadly I did method 1 and 2 and it did nothing.

Method 3 was shorting pin 1 and 6 on the main bios while booting. I did that last method, and surprisingly my computer does not bootloop, however I get no image either nor it seems to be booting off of any bios at all, all I can see is the PC running with fans spinnig and all but not much else, sadly.
I was trying to warn you about the last one. You might have messed it up more. Boot looping was a sign of life.
Edit: I regret cleaning up the post now... if you are not comfortable with RMA or following the guide I have posted, your best bet is a new mobo.
Edit2: Without that wire does it still do what you call the “bootloop”? If it does, you probably can still recover it with 12$ spendings (and a digital multimeter). If it does not - the clock source might be messed up and your chances are rolling south...
 
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Poroto

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I was trying to warn you about the last one. You might have messed it up more. Boot looping was a sign of life.
Edit: I regret cleaning up the post now... if you are not comfortable with RMA or following the guide I have posted, your best bet is a new mobo.

Oh I didnt seem to have messed up anything (at least not further, lol), everything works as before apparently.

Shorting pin 1 & 6 while booting doesnt bootloop but I get no image anywhere nor any signs of life besides fan spinning and lights turning on.

Booting normally without shorting anything just bootloops, exactly the same as before.

As for RMA, sadly this is a z170 board bought like 3 years ago, so the warranty should be well expired by now.

As for the guide, Ill check it, but Im not really comfortable on any of that honestly. Got nothing to lose though I guess!
 
As for RMA, sadly this is a z170 board bought like 3 years ago, so the warranty should be well expired by now.

As for the guide, Ill check it, but Im not really comfortable on any of that honestly. Got nothing to lose though I guess!
Connecting inverted CS to the clock source per method 3 was a really bad advice.
As for your hesitation, It sounds more complicated than it actually is. Worst case it would have to be flashed off the board, I could probably flash it in 15-30 minutes for no fee (out of kindness) if you would bring it. I know at least one more person on this forum that can do it too @lga1156_ftw
 

Poroto

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Connecting inverted CS to the clock source per method 3 was a really bad advice.
As for your hesitation, It sounds more complicated than it actually is. Worst case it would have to be flashed off the board, I could probably flash it in 15-30 minutes for no fee (out of kindness) if you would bring it. I know at least one more person on this forum that can do it too @lga1156_ftw

I checked the guide a bit.

Sadly, I do not have access to ebay or amazon in order to grab the tools needed as they do not operate where I live. I tried to search for the equivalent in my countries top marketplace and found close to none, which was honestly what I expected, even more during a world wide pandemic.


As to sending the board in for you to look at, while Im super grateful a total stranger would do this to a random internet fella out of kindness, I cant ship it to you since Im probably way too many kilometers away from ya. Thank you so much though.

Whats really weird is after the bios flash, I used the PC fine for an entire day. Next boot the loops started again and this time I wasnt able to get out of any of them. Super weird.
 
I checked the guide a bit.

Sadly, I do not have access to ebay or amazon in order to grab the tools needed as they do not operate where I live. I tried to search for the equivalent in my countries top marketplace and found close to none, which was honestly what I expected, even more during a world wide pandemic.
eBay is just a website, you probably can find someone who will ship worldwide.

As to sending the board in for you to look at, while Im super grateful a total stranger would do this to a random internet fella out of kindness, I cant ship it to you since Im probably way too many kilometers away from ya. Thank you so much though.
True. That is entirely up to you. It does not look like you have much to lose though. I would only do it to top my list of good deeds. Now, where I leave, we use miles for distance, so it seems to me that the shipping will cost you more than the motherboard 100%.

Whats really weird is after the bios flash, I used the PC fine for an entire day. Next boot the loops started again and this time I wasnt able to get out of any of them. Super weird.
That is entirely new information. Did you restart it after BIOS flash? (the important bit)
Since SPI Flash is slow in terms of today's memory speeds, it gets "shadowed" i.e. copied into a much faster RAM during POST. So if you did reboot right after flashing and ran the computer for the whole day - your issue has nothing to do with the BIOS.
 

Poroto

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eBay is just a website, you probably can find someone who will ship worldwide.


True. That is entirely up to you. It does not look like you have much to lose though. I would only do it to top my list of good deeds. Now, where I leave, we use miles for distance, so it seems to me that the shipping will cost you more than the motherboard 100%.


That is entirely new information. Did you restart it after BIOS flash? (the important bit)
Since SPI Flash is slow in terms of today's memory speeds, it gets "shadowed" i.e. copied into a much faster RAM during POST. So if you did reboot right after flashing and ran the computer for the whole day - your issue has nothing to do with the BIOS.

Oh, I thought I left that clear on the thread. So what happened was:

1) Flashed latest BIOS via the official BIOS app from Gigabyte (maybe Q-flash or whatever the standard for flashing BIOSes directly from the BIOS instead of from Windows was a better idea, I honestly dont know, Gigabyte recommended that app and it was provided from the manufacturer, so I just procedeed).

2) The progress bar completed and I was asked to reboot. Of course I did.

3) The usual "Restarting" with white font and blue background appeared. Everything seemed to be good.

4) Before actually restarting, I got the classic blue error with qr code, just like this.

5) Error went away and the pc restarted.

6) It bootlooped.

7) While I was in bed searching for possible troubleshooting steps in my phone, I turned it off by pressing the power button and back again, expecting it to bootloop again since I literally did nothing to fix it.

8) It booted fine, even checked BIOS version and it said f23g, the latest BIOS version for my motherboard.

9) I figured the error was related to something else then and went to sleep.

10) Woke up and removed the GPU to clean it a lil bit since it had quite a bit of dust.

11) Replugged the GPU and booted.

12) Bootlooped again, this time not breaking out of the loop. I literally went to take a shower and left the PC trying to boot, all it did was shut itself off and on again with fans spinning and all.

So yeah, this is seriously weird, its super odd that I legit checked the BIOS version and it said f23g which is the latest, so afaik that should mean the update was solid. Can the update be like " incomplete"?.

I literally did everything not involving removing chips or soldering or stuff like that. I tried:

  • Tried unplugging everything but 24-pin, CPU power and displayPort, yet I keep bootlooping.
  • Tried clearing CMOS by both touching the CLR_CMOS jumper with a scredriver as well as removing the motherboard battery for 15min as instructed in the manual.
  • Tried changing RAM slots and booting with both sticks individually.
  • Tried removing the GPU and booting off of Integrated graphics (although integrated graphics were disabled in BIOS when everything was fine, but a CMOS reset should enable them back as far as I know, right?)
  • Tried a friends PSU.
  • Tried searching for 40,39 and 01 error codes meaning as thats what it displays on the motherboards tiny led-display prior to rebooting (in that order), found nothing on it, those numbers arent even mentioned on the manual.
Im legit going nuts over this one as I cant seem to be able to narrow it down to a single component, everything is so odd. Sorry for the lengthy post man, at this point Im just trying not to miss any detail on anything.

edit: Just realized the steps I tried were already in the original post. Theres a video of the thing happening as well.
 
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Poroto

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, I got the classic blue error with qr code, just like this.

5) Error went away and the pc restarted.
Still sounds to me that it did not flash properly or the spi chip died on you... Pity.

87Tq5ko.png


I honestly just wished I read the sticky before flashing, seems @ BIOS is a straight NO.