GA-MA770-UD3 Phenom II 940 Bios question

[thelastpriest]

Having a little trouble, installed a Phenom II 940 in my GA-MA770-UD3 and Flashed to the F4 bios per the manufacture recommendations, problem is this bios doesnt recognize the processor, it refers to it as "AMD processor unknown, agena core, 65nm" I know the board supports the chip, are there any other MA770-UD3 users out there that have found the website is incorrect in their recommendations of bios, if so what is everyone else using and is it working better then the F4?

 

[bilbat]

Indeed, it says F4, but I'd advise going straight to F8, as the last three revs have all been to 'fix processor IDs'

 

[thelastpriest]

Please dont take my questioning the wrong way as my respect for your knowledge increases every time you post an answer to a question of mine, which has been pretty frequent recently but isnt there an element of concern when it comes to flashing the correct/incorrect bios? If it doesn't work/is not correct wouldn't that "brick" my motherboard so to speak?

 

[bilbat]

Never a worry - I stand by LSD's statement on TweakTown: "I don't know everything; I make misteaks alll the time, and my spelling is often atrocious!"

If you were to try to flash a truly 'incorrect' BIOS, i.e., one from another board or some such, you might wind up with a disaster on your hands, but, then again, I doubt it. You have the 'dual BIOS' setup, and my experience with 'dumped' flashes has been superlative; I have flashed a single bad file twice (mainly, because I didn't believe it could be bad, and still pass the checksum process), and had another try crash - and my board simply 'reverted' to the 'as shipped' BIOS, two revs back! There is always risk - the best way is with a floppy and the 'built-in-the-BIOS' flasher, on a UPS, just in case of power failure at (as Murphy and his Immutable LAW would have it) at the absolutely wrong moment. The reliability of the dual BIOS has me seriously wondering WTF is with @BIOS, as numerous people have managed to 'brick' boards when it (inevitably, if you use it enough) screws up? Something in @BIOS seems to me to be capable of trashing the actual dual-BIOS 'recovery' code - dunno what else it could be!

 

[thelastpriest]

Yeah, I will stick with Bios flashing from outside the OS myself, I dont trust the stability of windows at the best of times, certainly not during something touchy like that. Same reason I refuse to use the Overdrive or even my mobo's built in "Easy Tune" to OC, just not something I want to leave up to a loose collection of low flying contradictory code. I will give the F5 Bios a shot, its actually what I had right before because of the Kuma core I had in before, if that doesn't work I will move successively up the list. Thanks again for all your help.

 

[bilbat]

just not something I want to leave up to a loose collection of low flying contradictory code

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Reminds me of something my favorite flight instructor recited for me: "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are not a lot of old, bold pilots!"

 

[thelastpriest]

Its actually a variation on a saying from one of my model airplane mentors, something to say about a kit that isn't quite up to par. "That Revell 1/48 P-61 Black Widow isnt so much a model as a loose collection of low flying parts". Just to make everyone aware, heard back from Gigiabyte this afternoon and was made aware THE CORRECT BIOS FOR THE PHENOM II 940 ON THE GA-MA770-UD3 IS THE F8 BIOS. Why that isnt up on their website I dont know, but hopefully now anyone running into the issue will be able to find the right answer here on toms...where the right answer ends up being most of the times anyway. Thanks for being right bilbat...again

 

[thelastpriest]

here was their exact message "Hello,
Please flash bios update to F8 for Phenom II processor suppor. Bios download available from this web:
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/BIOS_Model.aspx?ProductID=2982
After bios updated, reset bios to load fail-safe defaults, and load optimized defaults, save setup exit bios will detect the correct cpu speed.
Check cpu detection in bios, boot system to bios setting press F9 key cpu and memory information will show."

 

[bilbat]

Ya know - you'd think that, compared to the effort to actually 'patch' a BIOS, adding three cogent lines to a changelog wouldn't be a big deal - but it certainly always seems to BE! That's one reason, when there's a choice available, I usually pick 'open source' solutions - take a peek here:
http://www.openmedialibrary.org/
Now that's a changelog! Why can't any manufacturers seem to manage this process coherently?