Hello,
I've been a long time Tom's Hardware lurker and feel that I used to have an account, although I couldn't figure it out when logging in just now, so I present as a newbie even though I am quite experienced!
Anyhow, on to my problem! I am attempting to build a PC for a friend and he has a couple of requirements, one being that it will run Windows 11 and the other being that he can use a Legacy PCI sound card (not PCIe). I know this may sound ridiculous, but it does make sense because it is a professional multichannel card. No matter how ridiculous you think that is, please try to overlook that element and focus on what comes next. I just feel a little back story is necessary.
So, I purchased an AM4 Gigabyte motherboard from eBay - AB350M-D3H. I go to update the bios and find that it has a version that does not even appear on Gigabyte's support page. Furthermore, the revision of the board is 1.1, yet Gigabyte only lists 1.0 as an option. So I do some digging and find someone else on reddit that encountered this. Apparently the board was used by a builder named ACE Computers and it has some sort of locked bios installed. I speak to a very nice guy there that is genuinely helpful (rare these days) and he sends me instructions for flashing an unlocked bios via EFI Shell, which I managed to figure out how to boot into, etc. etc. After a lot of trial and error, it worked and I got the motherboard to a point where I actually had Gigabyte bios installed. I started with an older one F20 that was from like 2017 or something. Then I incrementally flashed about 15 different bios versions up to the point where I had F51c working. I skipped ahead to F52h (the most current bios) and now the board just displays the bios splash screen (says Gigabyte Ultra Durable or whatever with the F-key commands / DEL to bios / etc. at the bottom of the screen). It seems like the keyboard does not do anything and the display remains stuck on this screen forever.
Some things I have tried so far to fix this are: clearing the cmos, removing the battery and clearing the cmos for 10 minutes, holding the power button for over 10 seconds, holding power and reset for over 10 seconds, turning off and on repeatedly for 3 or 4 times in a row, moving ram to different slots, unplugging the keyboard, plugging the keyboard to different sockets, rebooting with the USB EFI shell drive inserted, moving the video card to a different slot, replacing the original CPU (2700X) with a 1700X, used different RAM, and possibly another one or two that I can't think of at the moment.
So, if you have read this far and enjoy a challenge, I invite you to make some suggestions on how I may bring this motherboard back to life. One last thing. This is just set up on a bench at the moment. I have only the motherboard AB350M-D3H, 1700X cpu, one DDR4 8GB ram module, GTX 1030 video card, and a 550W EVGA PSU connected. There is no nvme installed and no other storage for that matter.
Thanks for any suggestions or help.
murky66
I've been a long time Tom's Hardware lurker and feel that I used to have an account, although I couldn't figure it out when logging in just now, so I present as a newbie even though I am quite experienced!
Anyhow, on to my problem! I am attempting to build a PC for a friend and he has a couple of requirements, one being that it will run Windows 11 and the other being that he can use a Legacy PCI sound card (not PCIe). I know this may sound ridiculous, but it does make sense because it is a professional multichannel card. No matter how ridiculous you think that is, please try to overlook that element and focus on what comes next. I just feel a little back story is necessary.
So, I purchased an AM4 Gigabyte motherboard from eBay - AB350M-D3H. I go to update the bios and find that it has a version that does not even appear on Gigabyte's support page. Furthermore, the revision of the board is 1.1, yet Gigabyte only lists 1.0 as an option. So I do some digging and find someone else on reddit that encountered this. Apparently the board was used by a builder named ACE Computers and it has some sort of locked bios installed. I speak to a very nice guy there that is genuinely helpful (rare these days) and he sends me instructions for flashing an unlocked bios via EFI Shell, which I managed to figure out how to boot into, etc. etc. After a lot of trial and error, it worked and I got the motherboard to a point where I actually had Gigabyte bios installed. I started with an older one F20 that was from like 2017 or something. Then I incrementally flashed about 15 different bios versions up to the point where I had F51c working. I skipped ahead to F52h (the most current bios) and now the board just displays the bios splash screen (says Gigabyte Ultra Durable or whatever with the F-key commands / DEL to bios / etc. at the bottom of the screen). It seems like the keyboard does not do anything and the display remains stuck on this screen forever.
Some things I have tried so far to fix this are: clearing the cmos, removing the battery and clearing the cmos for 10 minutes, holding the power button for over 10 seconds, holding power and reset for over 10 seconds, turning off and on repeatedly for 3 or 4 times in a row, moving ram to different slots, unplugging the keyboard, plugging the keyboard to different sockets, rebooting with the USB EFI shell drive inserted, moving the video card to a different slot, replacing the original CPU (2700X) with a 1700X, used different RAM, and possibly another one or two that I can't think of at the moment.
So, if you have read this far and enjoy a challenge, I invite you to make some suggestions on how I may bring this motherboard back to life. One last thing. This is just set up on a bench at the moment. I have only the motherboard AB350M-D3H, 1700X cpu, one DDR4 8GB ram module, GTX 1030 video card, and a 550W EVGA PSU connected. There is no nvme installed and no other storage for that matter.
Thanks for any suggestions or help.
murky66
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