Tried to update BIOS, bricked PC.

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baterax

baterax

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Aug 28, 2013
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Hi!

So I have a brand new Rampage V Extreme board, bought it in May this year.

Everything was working perfectly until yesterday, when the external overclocking display stopped showing any CPU temp or anything else, so I decided to update the BIOS to see if it would fix that.
So I used the ASUS Windows app to do this, and the machine restarted. I saw a progress bar and things seemed to be doing fine so I started watching a movie in the other room. When I came back I saw a black screen and two lines of text: BIOS updating. Do not restart or power off the computer etc etc etc

Thinking about it for a few minutes, and watching the screen never leave that state for over half an hour, I decided to hit the reset key, because how could it be stuck there for over 2 hours and then some?

Turns out that was a stupid idea because now the PC is bricked. I turn it on, hear things spin up, and then it shuts off again, turns on again, rinse repeat.

I've tried a couple things:
- Booting with a USB drive in a port, containing the BIOS file
- Booting with the CD that came with the Motherboard in the drive (external USB 3.0 drive though)

No luck so far.
HELP.
 
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baterax

baterax

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Aug 28, 2013
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Ok so watching the thing try to boot, I notice the MB Q-Code is 04.
And, I'm failing to find in the manual, instructions on how to reset the BIOS. I see, though, that there's a button to alternate between 2 BIOS. Since I've never used it before, I figured the alternate BIOS would be working so I tried that. Nope.

So how do I reset the MB to full default?
 
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bgunner

bgunner

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Feb 13, 2009
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3 ways

1 if there is a button labeled as CLR CMOS you can push it and it will instantly reset the bios.
2 there is a 3 pin jumper on all motherboards that when the jumper is switched from pins 1-2 to 2-3 and back to 1-2 will wipe the bios and set them at default. usually labeled as CLR_CMOS or just CMOS
3 remove the power cord fro the wall, remove the button battery for 30 seconds and put it back in. The battery folds the settings in the cmos and prevents them from resetting to default.

Try the bios flashback. I'm not sure on your board but mine I need to rename the file for it to work properly. this will be in the manual. once the file is on the drive put the drive in the marked USB slot on the back of the machine and push and hold the button for the specified amount of time and let it do its thing as described in the manual.
 
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baterax

baterax

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Aug 28, 2013
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Yeah I have some progress. I did both: Followed the renaming convention in the manual, turned the PC off.
Inserted the USB drive with the file on it, pressed and held the ROG connect button for a while but never saw a blinking light like the manual says. Let it go.
Pressed the Clear CMOS button, turned it on.
Now it boots to the ROG logo again, and I saw the black screen about the BIOS updating and not to power it off etc. Then it shut off and powered on again a bunch of times, with different messages like "Updating Firmware" etc.

Yup, it's booting properly into Windows now! YAY fixed.
 
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bgunner

bgunner

Judicious
Feb 13, 2009
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32,515


If you did not see the blinking light then that part did not work. It flashes many times as it reads the mem stick and writes the new bios. This is just for further information on how it works and I'm glad your up and running.
 
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