News Motherboard dies after marathon 100-hour BIOS update process, vigil attended by thousands online

[Admin]

A marathon BIOS update process ended as the ‘monitor lost signal,’ then the system became ‘completely unresponsive’ with 100+ hours down the drain.

Motherboard dies after marathon 100-hour BIOS update process, vigil attended by thousands online : Read more

 

[ezst036]

Back in the day I remember reading somewhere a process that I saw once referred to as a "hotflash", that is boot a similar/same motherboard, and with the motherboard running remove the good BIOS chip and install the failed.

Now flash the chip.

Once the process is complete shut down the board and swap the chips once more so the good chip is un-touched in the good board. Try the re-flashed BIOS back in the motherboard it belonged in and it might work. I never tried this myself seems fairly risky.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

The bigger question is what flavor of Linux they will be using, since those other specs are low to extremely low end, even for the day.

 

[Konomi]

The bigger question is what flavor of Linux they will be using, since those other specs are low to extremely low end, even for the day.

One of their previous posts said they were running Mint and using the hardware as a spare PC for friends to use for printing etc if I remember correctly.

 

[Giroro]

That mobo is toast, with or without a new bios chip.

I'd guess the flashing was taking so long because it kept trying to verify written data, but couldn't - probably due to some other hardware failure. Maybe bad solder or a bad data trace.
It could be a failure that somehow magically only affects writing to BIOS without affecting read, or at least without completely breaking boot.... Something where a new bios chip might actually revive the system - but is it really with the effort to attempt repair with the risk of the failure causing other problems?

If the point of running the update was for stability improvements, then presumably the board was already noticably unstable.

 

[zorgan.roman]

Note that if you are in the BIOS to the motherboard and the CPU, unregulated static voltage flows and the CPU usually runs at its full level. Even on a laptop. This could have caused the death of other components as well. Something couldn't run at full voltage with unused load. A clear failure of EPROM.

 

[LabRat 891]

Bad SPI ROM.
It happens, though fairly rarely unless the user was slamming BIOS mods onto the board.

Had similar happen to a FirePro V3700 I was trying to cross-flash into a HD 3470 GDDR3.
The chip started taking ages to read or write, and eventually only reads or writes garbled data (using a 3.3v CH341a).

 

[diminishedfifth]

I don't get it, why was it a "marathon"? Shouldn't a BIOS update take a few minutes?

 

[atomicWAR]

I don't get it, why was it a "marathon"? Shouldn't a BIOS update take a few minutes?

Normally yes but I've seen flashing issues take hours to resolve. I haven't had anything this long personally but yeah things like this can happen. This was just on the extreme end of things.

 

[diminishedfifth]

Thanks for the response, I was thinking I missed a previous article or it was an inside joke of sorts lol

 

[artk2219]

Bad bios chip, it happens, could be a fun little repair project though.

 

[Makaveli]

lol I posted in that thread and asked the OP why it took him 7 years to do a bios update on that board.

 

[wwenze1]

You can just remove the BIOS chip and flash with a CH341... or some people even flash the chips still attached to the mobo, ask those xbox360 modders.

But hey at this point the time spent to care is worth more than the entire PC. Might as well generate clicks from viewers who have never done these things without getting nervous.

 

[Dntknwitall]

The update process taking as long as it was, was a indicator that the board/cmos chip could be dying. To be honest it isn't totally dead all he has to do is get the same bios chip flash it with the bios it needs and solder it back on. It is a simple process for someone that knows what they are doing and will most likely bring it back to life.

 

[HardwiredWireless]

This thing was trash long before this happened.

 

[Alex/AT]

Motherboard without BIOS recovery procedure in 2025? That's trash.
Could also be a dead SPI flash chip, that's also trash and needs to be replaced. Preferably with better motherboard.
Anyways I don't see any necessity to wait for this 100h long. If it's dead it's dead, if there's no recovery option it's twice as dead. User error in terms of buying this.
I've flashed few SPI flash chips right onboard in the distant past, it's a tricky process not for everyone requiring small hardware investment (flasher, cabling, chip clips), but if enthusiasm is over the top, can be attempted.

 

[bit_user]

Note that if you are in the BIOS to the motherboard and the CPU, unregulated static voltage flows and the CPU usually runs at its full level. Even on a laptop. This could have caused the death of other components as well. Something couldn't run at full voltage with unused load.

I'm going to call BS on this. Yes, I've observed machines spin up their CPU fan while in BIOS, but I think all that's happening there is that the CPU wasn't going into the normal sleep states that an OS would put it into. I don't believe anything changes with its voltage regulation, as that's handled at a microcode level and doesn't rely on the OS.

 

[bit_user]

I'm a fan of Gamers Nexus (check the video in my sig), but their website seems to publish a story about every couple days. Toms publishes about a dozen news stories per day, not counting features & actual reviews. Yes, a lot of the news stories are fairly low value, with some even being filler, but there are plenty of gems mixed in. A lot of other tech sites still publishing written content do similar.

In my world, there's room for a Toms, Gamers Nexus, Chips & Cheese, Phoronix, SemiAnalysis, etc. They all have their niches - things they do well - and that's why I frequent them. Toms definitely has enough breadth of coverage that I feel like I know what's going on in the world, as far as it affects PCs and some other areas of tech. For deep, specialist coverage, I occasionally visit some of the other sites I mentioned.

 

[goslackware]

I once had a laptop take 16 hours to flash.

Another time I was walking someone else through the flash process and accidentally flashed my completely different system. Luckily, the bios chip was removable in a socket. So I identified the chip and latest bios version, then paid someone on ebay like $20 or so to send me a replacement bios chip with the latest bios version for my system. Swapped chips, then it booted again.

 

[Loadedaxe]

Note that if you are in the BIOS to the motherboard and the CPU, unregulated static voltage flows and the CPU usually runs at its full level. Even on a laptop. This could have caused the death of other components as well. Something couldn't run at full voltage with unused load. A clear failure of EPROM.

No sir. The chip does not run at a unspecified level, in bios flash mode they run at default settings even removing any OC. That includes ram speeds.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

I just love that it was using purple for its progress and purple yet wasn't in the legend.

I wonder if it even was the correct BIOS and wasn't for a similar variant.

 

[BossOfYourBoss]

Anyways I don't see any necessity to wait for this 100h long.

They’re just having a bit of fun over something they know has gone wrong. The world appreciates a sense of humor. Lighten up!

 

[BossOfYourBoss]

This thing was trash long before this happened.

Kid genius over here 🤣 I never thought of this site as the socially awkward type, but if people here don’t have the awareness to detect the point of this exercise—no-stakes entertainment—it’s no wonder the industry is on a sharp decline.

 

[SethNW]

If BIOS flashing takes much more than 5 minutes, there is good chance something went terribly wrong. Either board had faults already present before or chip itself is dead. I guess if he swaps it, we will see. Provided this was correct BIOS for this exact model and revision, if it has revisions.

So when I dust saw it, it was obvious that this motherboard is toast. Or at least BIOS chip is. I didn't need to see most of whole process.

 

[bit_user]

If BIOS flashing takes much more than 5 minutes, there is good chance something went terribly wrong. Either board had faults already present before or chip itself is dead. I guess if he swaps it, we will see.

Pretty much, but every time I've updated BIOS on a Dell desktop or laptop, in recent memory, the amount of time it takes is probably more like 10 minutes. It's definitely longer than a coffee break and more like a lunch break activity.