Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L, @bios flashing problems

[ahdrage]

Hi and Merry Christmas
A few weeks ago I bought this mobo with Q6600 and 2*2gb ocz PC2 6400 DDR2 RAM. When I put it all together I booted up and got the message:

Award BootBlock BIOS v1.0
Copyright blah blah

Scanning BIOS image in Hard Drive.

After a restart it dissapeared and I was able to boot to windows.
Every now and then the same message would come, but it dissapeared when i rebooted.

Yesterday I was going to flash my bios. I didn't do any research on the @bios utility that Gigabyte offers, so I just used it to flash my bios.
Everything seemed fine until I restarted the computer where I just got the message:

Award BootBlock BIOS v1.0
Copyright blah blah

Scanning BIOS image in Hard Drive.

No matter how many times i restarted the computer it would not go away.
So I copied the f5 bios version on a usb stick (formated with fat32). I also plugged out the harddrive and took out one RAM. I also removed all pci cards so only the pci-e VGA card was left.

This time i managed to get into the Q-flash (it took alot of restarts, many times the computer screen would just be black and the computer would not post) utility to flash the bios, flashing went fine and restarted.
After alot of attempts to restart where the machine would not post, I was finally able to get into windows (this was with one piece of RAM and the harddrive connected again).

If I put the second piece of RAM inside again I only get the message:

Award BootBlock BIOS v1.0
Copyright blah blah

Scanning BIOS image in Hard Drive.

That's basically where I am now. I takes me atleast 10 restarts and poweroffs to get the computer to post at all. I also tried to up the voltage to the RAM to 2.0 V.
I also tried to burn out a dvd with memtest on to test the memory, but the computer won't boot it.
I've pulled out the battery a couple of times to reset bios, but that hasn't helped much.

Could it be my mobo that is somehow damaged, as I atleast could post the computer every time I turned it on before flashing?
Could it be something with my RAM since it only boots to windows if only one piece is in?
Could it be my VGA card since it very often simply won't post?

If anyone has any tips or ideas to what my problem could it would be greatly appriciated

 

[bilbat]

First thing (and I cannot repeat this often enough) DO NOT USE @BIOS - EVER - NEVER - if you haven't 'bricked' your board yet - YOU WILL!!!

That said, if your problem is fixable, you will find your fix in the long, thorough BIOS flashing article at:
http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/bios-flashing-how-qflash-guide-27576/

Good luck,

Bill

 

[Shadow703793]

^+1. Well said! DO NOT FLASH BIOS THROUGH WINDOWS!

 

[bilbat]

Thank you, Shadow. Usually, when I post this warning, two or three lucky (and we all know, when it comes to computers, it's 'better to be lucky than good'!) souls pop up and say "I've been using it for years..." (whatever THAT means: I mean, how often are you flashing your BIOS, anyways?) or "I've used it four times, and never had a problem..." - well, it's like playing Russian roulette - the cartridge may not come up this click, and it may not come up next click, but, if you keep pulling the trigger - eventually you will blow your brains out!

 

[ahdrage]

I ended up buying exactly the same mobo.
Put it in the computer booted it into bios and flashed it to f5 with the qflash utility.
No errors whatsoever. When I tried to reboot it I only got "scanning harddrive for bios image".

Could it be something else than the mobo that is not working?
The only thing that I changed was my motherboard.


Thansk for your help guys.

 

[bilbat]

It sounds like, somehow, the MOBO has become 'convinced' that the Express Recovery function has been activated. I am completely unfamiliar with this, as it doesn't work with RAIDs, so I can't 'play' with it... I would post over at:
http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69
LSD there will most likely know offhand waht's really going on, and, how to fix it...

 

[ahdrage]

Thanks