Gigabyte GA-EP43-S3L (with dual bios) Black screen after bios update

[meelis]

Hi

After installing new bios with @BIOS for my GA-EP43-S3L my pc is not working (black screen).
Why dual bios doesn't fix my main Bios. How to restore bios.

My default Bios F8 didn't work. Ubuntu and Vista didn't woke up without pressing power off power on.

 

[meelis]

So how do i blind force Backup bios to rewrite Main Bios. Most known instructions i have allredy tested.

 

[Phaeilo]

There is a way to "force" boot from the backup flash. Do you still need to know or did you fix the problem by now?

 

[Guest]

hi

can you please tell me how to force boot from backup bios?

thanks a lot

richy

 

[Phaeilo]

Take a look at this datasheet: http://www.sst.com/dotAsset/40504 especially the chip graphics on page 3. The left diagram should look just like your two bios chips on the mainboard. You will have to connect the HOLD# and the VSS pin. You can figure out the correct pins on your board by looking for the dot on the chip case which is also drawn in the diagram.
You'll need a paperclip, steady hands and a friend to help you. Use the paper clip to connect the two pins. Make sure you got a good grip and a strong connection on the pins. While you are doing this make sure the POWER IS DISCONNECTED and you have drained any left over power from the supply by leaving the little switch on the back turned on and then pressing the power on button of your system once. If you have connected the two pins, tell your friend to turn the power back on and press the power button. The system should start up now. When you hear a beep quickly remove your paperclip. The backup bios will then attempt to flash your primary bios.

I hope you'll be able to recover your bios with these instructions.

 

[fatihtolgaata]

I don't know have somebody ever find this, but I've found a new and quick solution for loading backup bios I've tried a lot of solutions for loading backup bios over main bios, but none of them is a quick solution. Every solution was taken hours. But I've found a qucik way.
I must mod bios with gpxe, so I'm updating bios regularly. Sometimes, modding bios with gpxe is failed, so my machine doesn't start because of dead bios. So everytime I must recover bios with backup bios. But it is interesting thing that gigabyte's dual bios algortihm can't detect sometimes that main bios is started or not. So, we should disable the main bios awhile for loading the backup bios. I tried a lot of things, connecting VSS and HOLD# pins(previous post), shortening 5-6 pins, floppy, usb, etc.. I've been success with 5-6 pins method two times. But this method takes one hour or more, and it is some tiring. So I decided to examine the diagram of the flash spi chip that @Phaeilo gives the link (http://www.sst.com/dotAsset/40504). After I examine it, I've realized that if I connect CE(Chip enable) and SCK(Clock), the main bios's CE cycle will be broken. If you look at the document you'll see that the chip starts working when the CE cycle goes to low from high state. If I connect to SCK with CE, then every cycle(beat) of the clock the CE's state change low to high then high to low, etc.. So backup bios can see that the main bios is not enable.

I'm not responsible if your mb is dead, I don't give any guaranty. if you want to fix your dead bios which has a backup bios and if the backup bios is not loading, then you can try this method. In Brief, you should have steady hands, a piece of wire(maybe paper clip). Power off the machine. Connect CE and SCK pins(1 and 6 pins). Then turn on the machine, but you should remove the wire after a second. I don't know excatly when you should remove the wire, but wou shouldn't wait long than 2 second. After that you should hear a beep sound. And you should see that backup bios wirtes on the main bios. Wait until the process is finished. After that the machine will restart.

My mb is Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H(rev 1.0). A final notice is that don't touch VDD pin never(I was shocked ).

Regards.

 

[Phaeilo]

Then turn on the machine, but you should remove the wire after a second. I don't know excatly when you should remove the wire, but wou shouldn't wait long than 2 second. After that you should hear a beep sound.

I removed the connection to the Hold pin right after I heard the beep and the backup bios was activated with no problems. It seems that timing is not that crucial

 

[Piney84]

I don't know have somebody ever find this, but I've found a new and quick solution for loading backup bios I've tried a lot of solutions for loading backup bios over main bios, but none of them is a quick solution. Every solution was taken hours. But I've found a qucik way.
I must mod bios with gpxe, so I'm updating bios regularly. Sometimes, modding bios with gpxe is failed, so my machine doesn't start because of dead bios. So everytime I must recover bios with backup bios. But it is interesting thing that gigabyte's dual bios algortihm can't detect sometimes that main bios is started or not. So, we should disable the main bios awhile for loading the backup bios. I tried a lot of things, connecting VSS and HOLD# pins(previous post), shortening 5-6 pins, floppy, usb, etc.. I've been success with 5-6 pins method two times. But this method takes one hour or more, and it is some tiring. So I decided to examine the diagram of the flash spi chip that @Phaeilo gives the link (http://www.sst.com/dotAsset/40504). After I examine it, I've realized that if I connect CE(Chip enable) and SCK(Clock), the main bios's CE cycle will be broken. If you look at the document you'll see that the chip starts working when the CE cycle goes to low from high state. If I connect to SCK with CE, then every cycle(beat) of the clock the CE's state change low to high then high to low, etc.. So backup bios can see that the main bios is not enable.

I'm not responsible if your mb is dead, I don't give any guaranty. if you want to fix your dead bios which has a backup bios and if the backup bios is not loading, then you can try this method. In Brief, you should have steady hands, a piece of wire(maybe paper clip). Power off the machine. Connect CE and SCK pins(1 and 6 pins). Then turn on the machine, but you should remove the wire after a second. I don't know excatly when you should remove the wire, but wou shouldn't wait long than 2 second. After that you should hear a beep sound. And you should see that backup bios wirtes on the main bios. Wait until the process is finished. After that the machine will restart.

My mb is Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H(rev 1.0). A final notice is that don't touch VDD pin never(I was shocked ).

Regards.

Didn't work for me the stupid thing just won't work.. what's the point of dual bios if its not even going to kick in... it should have a jumper to turn it on manually.

 

[der_baranator]

hi,
I had the same Problem as the Thread-Starter.

I can confirm that Phaellos solution works! I did as described, which caused my pc to reboot twice (during that i kept the HOLD# and VSS pins connected with forceps without any interruption) and after the third reboot i heard the salvific short, normal BIOS-Beep and the Dual-BIOS-mechanism took control and sucessfully repaired my BIOS; now everything works fine again and even the bios-update which provoked the problems works now!


(I've got a GIGABYTE EP43-S3L and updated to BIOS F9c )

 

[happybunny_101]

I don't know have somebody ever find this, but I've found a new and quick solution for loading backup bios I've tried a lot of solutions for loading backup bios over main bios, but none of them is a quick solution. Every solution was taken hours. But I've found a qucik way.
I must mod bios with gpxe, so I'm updating bios regularly. Sometimes, modding bios with gpxe is failed, so my machine doesn't start because of dead bios. So everytime I must recover bios with backup bios. But it is interesting thing that gigabyte's dual bios algortihm can't detect sometimes that main bios is started or not. So, we should disable the main bios awhile for loading the backup bios. I tried a lot of things, connecting VSS and HOLD# pins(previous post), shortening 5-6 pins, floppy, usb, etc.. I've been success with 5-6 pins method two times. But this method takes one hour or more, and it is some tiring. So I decided to examine the diagram of the flash spi chip that @Phaeilo gives the link (http://www.sst.com/dotAsset/40504). After I examine it, I've realized that if I connect CE(Chip enable) and SCK(Clock), the main bios's CE cycle will be broken. If you look at the document you'll see that the chip starts working when the CE cycle goes to low from high state. If I connect to SCK with CE, then every cycle(beat) of the clock the CE's state change low to high then high to low, etc.. So backup bios can see that the main bios is not enable.

I'm not responsible if your mb is dead, I don't give any guaranty. if you want to fix your dead bios which has a backup bios and if the backup bios is not loading, then you can try this method. In Brief, you should have steady hands, a piece of wire(maybe paper clip). Power off the machine. Connect CE and SCK pins(1 and 6 pins). Then turn on the machine, but you should remove the wire after a second. I don't know excatly when you should remove the wire, but wou shouldn't wait long than 2 second. After that you should hear a beep sound. And you should see that backup bios wirtes on the main bios. Wait until the process is finished. After that the machine will restart.

My mb is Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H(rev 1.0). A final notice is that don't touch VDD pin never(I was shocked ).

Regards.

I don't know have somebody ever find this, but I've found a new and quick solution for loading backup bios I've tried a lot of solutions for loading backup bios over main bios, but none of them is a quick solution. Every solution was taken hours. But I've found a qucik way.
I must mod bios with gpxe, so I'm updating bios regularly. Sometimes, modding bios with gpxe is failed, so my machine doesn't start because of dead bios. So everytime I must recover bios with backup bios. But it is interesting thing that gigabyte's dual bios algortihm can't detect sometimes that main bios is started or not. So, we should disable the main bios awhile for loading the backup bios. I tried a lot of things, connecting VSS and HOLD# pins(previous post), shortening 5-6 pins, floppy, usb, etc.. I've been success with 5-6 pins method two times. But this method takes one hour or more, and it is some tiring. So I decided to examine the diagram of the flash spi chip that @Phaeilo gives the link (http://www.sst.com/dotAsset/40504). After I examine it, I've realized that if I connect CE(Chip enable) and SCK(Clock), the main bios's CE cycle will be broken. If you look at the document you'll see that the chip starts working when the CE cycle goes to low from high state. If I connect to SCK with CE, then every cycle(beat) of the clock the CE's state change low to high then high to low, etc.. So backup bios can see that the main bios is not enable.

I'm not responsible if your mb is dead, I don't give any guaranty. if you want to fix your dead bios which has a backup bios and if the backup bios is not loading, then you can try this method. In Brief, you should have steady hands, a piece of wire(maybe paper clip). Power off the machine. Connect CE and SCK pins(1 and 6 pins). Then turn on the machine, but you should remove the wire after a second. I don't know excatly when you should remove the wire, but wou shouldn't wait long than 2 second. After that you should hear a beep sound. And you should see that backup bios wirtes on the main bios. Wait until the process is finished. After that the machine will restart.

My mb is Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H(rev 1.0). A final notice is that don't touch VDD pin never(I was shocked ).

Regards.

@Phaeilo and fatihtolgaata:

You guys rock!!!! Thanks a million: tried Phaeilo first, but nothing seemed to happen (no BIOS beep), and fatihtolgaata: BOIIING immediately! I'm in my eeny-teeny BIOS now and happy as a kid. Thank you soooo much for sharing.

BTW, Gigabyte also has a procedure (but didn't work for me).

Dear Mr. Mulder,

>Thank you for emailing GIGABYTE.
>We are delighted with your interest in our products.

> The way to force the system to boot from the other BIOS chip is as follows:
> 1) turn off the system
> 2) press and hold the power button until the system switches off again.
> 3) boot the system. it should now boot from the backup BIOS.

> In some cases, this procedure may fail. In that case, you should contact your dealer to start an RMA procedure.

> Kind regards

> GIGABYTE-Team


Regards, Bob

 

[paultomasi]

OMG. Problem SOLVED.

After hours and hours of researching my dead GA-MA770T-UD3P motherboard and following MANY suggestions (and shedding a few tears) I have now solved this problem with help from happybunny_01.

I pressed and held the ON button until the system powered up then powered back down again. I then powered it up a second time and voila! The beep of success!!

Thank you so very much everyone for your efforts and for this thread.

History. HDD died. Played around with UBCD to diag system. Graphics intermittently corrupt when booting to full-screen logo (in BIOS) and system hung therefore, stripped PC, cleaned away dust and reseated all components. Flashed BIOS from F1 to F11C. PC died.

No signal to monitor (blank screen), no beep, no POST, no FDD seek - just CD-R spin and CPU fan and graphics card fan spin.

Thank goodness for the DualBIOS facility.

 

[osxfr33k]

I have a somewhat different issue on my Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P v1.6. I needed to grab one of the ACPI tables called DSDT from each bios version FB, FD, and the beta bios FFB. I was able to upgrade to each Bios then downgrade to Bios FD. I wanted to go back to FB but now, no matter what I do including trying the steps here to short pins # 4 and # 7 My bios remains FD. The DUal Bios backup Bios is FB.

I went a little ahead of myself. The reason I am trying the pin short method is because Qflash nor booting to a USB flash and executing flashspi will successfully flash any bios. I also cannot save user profiles with the F11 command. THey remain empty. I can however save the profiles to USB flash.

There is also some slight problems with the ACPI/DMI as Linux messages tell me during boot so something is corrupt maybe in the ACPI block and whatever other area in CMOS that allows for changes to be made and saved.

I am sending this back to Gigabyte but was there any option for me to somehow completely wipe the Bios purposely hoping that would clean it in some ways or unlock whatever BIT in the bios got locked or corrupted.

Its funny how the board would still POST and run OS's ok.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I have been building and flashing almost anything you can think of for over 20 years PC experience and never ran into a problem like this ever.

 

[maw2k]

I'm not responsible if your mb is dead, I don't give any guaranty. if you want to fix your dead bios which has a backup bios and if the backup bios is not loading, then you can try this method. In Brief, you should have steady hands, a piece of wire(maybe paper clip). Power off the machine. Connect CE and SCK pins(1 and 6 pins). Then turn on the machine, but you should remove the wire after a second. I don't know excatly when you should remove the wire, but wou shouldn't wait long than 2 second. After that you should hear a beep sound. And you should see that backup bios wirtes on the main bios. Wait until the process is finished. After that the machine will restart.

just wanted to say thank you!! you saved my day with this. worked perfect with my GA-MA790X-UD4P

 

[cool_recep]

Ok guys. The method works perfecly. I made a video in Turkish. I will upload the english version later:

http://alternatifblog.com/2011/04/20/gigabyte-dual-bios-kutarma-rehberi/

 

[TheoTester]

Take a look at this datasheet: http://www.sst.com/dotAsset/40504 especially the chip graphics on page 3. The left diagram should look just like your two bios chips on the mainboard. You will have to connect the HOLD# and the VSS pin. You can figure out the correct pins on your board by looking for the dot on the chip case which is also drawn in the diagram.
You'll need a paperclip, steady hands and a friend to help you. Use the paper clip to connect the two pins.

Make sure you got a good grip and a strong connection on the pins. While you are doing this make sure the POWER IS DISCONNECTED and you have drained any left over power from the supply by leaving the little switch on the back turned on and then pressing the power on button of your system once. If you have connected the two pins, tell your friend to turn the power back on and press the power button. The system should start up now. When you hear a beep quickly remove your paperclip. The backup bios will then attempt to flash your primary bios.

I hope you'll be able to recover your bios with these instructions.

I tried a lot of things, connecting VSS and HOLD# pins(previous post), shortening 5-6 pins, floppy, usb, etc.. I've been success with 5-6 pins method two times. But this method takes one hour or more, and it is some tiring. So I decided to examine the diagram of the flash spi chip that @Phaeilo gives the link (http://www.sst.com/dotAsset/40504). After I examine it, I've realized that if I connect CE(Chip enable) and SCK(Clock), the main bios's CE cycle will be broken.

If you look at the document you'll see that the chip starts working when the CE cycle goes to low from high state. If I connect to SCK with CE, then every cycle(beat) of the clock the CE's state change low to high then high to low, etc.. So backup bios can see that the main bios is not enable.

Could it be that this refers to a PDF data sheet which NOW may be at
http://www.sst.com/dotAsset/40504.pdf ? The cited link http://www.sst.com/dotAsset/40504 now seem to end in an error page of a distributor (Microchip) now?

Unfortunately I have trei both things, and die not succeed yet. I have two SOIC on the board, one marked MAIN_BIOS and one BP_BIOS; I assume the hold PIN1/6 method should be applied on MAIN_BIOS, since I'd assume thats the one clobbered. Or can the failed re-programming have clobbered BOTH?

I basically did the same thing that many folks were warning from: Trying to upgrade a fully functional GA-EP35-DS3P from BIOS version F3 to BIOS version F6 with @BIOS instead of using the BIOS Built-in function. @BIOS claimed it had flashed everything fine, asked me if I wanted to reboot; yes, i wanted to reboot -and since then the board only runs up to the Graphic Card BIOS Text, then dies (before it shows a single character POST screen of the board).

 

[TheoTester]

These folks http://www.tek-tronics.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=53 claim they have programmers which can do reprogramming of a soldered-in SOIC Serial Flash EEprom Chip while it remains in place.

I wonder why there is no mail in service for that...

 

[TheoTester]

Hey - i did both pin bridgin attemts and both approaches failed first, but to my surprise NOW my board WORKS again... I can't tell you which of two approaches really DID the trick - but hey: Thats a secondary question to me now... i recommedn simply to try both until it works...

THANK YOU ***SOOOOOOO*** MUCH !!!

 

[sappy_231]

Take a look at this datasheet: http://www.sst.com/dotAsset/40504 especially the chip graphics on page 3. The left diagram should look just like your two bios chips on the mainboard. You will have to connect the HOLD# and the VSS pin. You can figure out the correct pins on your board by looking for the dot on the chip case which is also drawn in the diagram.
You'll need a paperclip, steady hands and a friend to help you. Use the paper clip to connect the two pins. Make sure you got a good grip and a strong connection on the pins. While you are doing this make sure the POWER IS DISCONNECTED and you have drained any left over power from the supply by leaving the little switch on the back turned on and then pressing the power on button of your system once. If you have connected the two pins, tell your friend to turn the power back on and press the power button. The system should start up now. When you hear a beep quickly remove your paperclip. The backup bios will then attempt to flash your primary bios.

I hope you'll be able to recover your bios with these instructions.

Thanks big Phaeilo..., only this method above works for me....,

...press and hold the power button until the system switches off again isn't working...., clearig CMOS with jumper also not working...

Yesterday.., wanted to update bios on this MBO with Gigabyte update utility (from Gigabyte update server) and twice the same..., black screen after upgrade, nothing working).., and as you described this method with paperclip works with my MBO bios chip (M_bios), and thanks God i hear a beep (big smile on my face)....
But I really want to upgrade to latest beta bios F9c from Gigabyte webpage http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2848#bios, and now I download file and do the update from file....(not from server), and boom..., everything went fine, now I have latest bios, and I download all drivers upgrades for same MBO...., so now I am happy.., and I do this all by myself..., with one hand holding paperclip, and with other do the power back on and press the power button....

Page with graphic isn't working.., so thanks to TheoTester and link to .pdf - http://www.sst.com/dotAsset/40504.pdf, and picture on page 3. with pin description..., this is all somebody need to have, steady hand and a little luck...

 

[dimar]

Connecting CE(Chip enable) and SCK(Clock). Solved my problem. You people are super ultra awesome!!!!!!!

 

[regiman]

This work for me:

> The way to force the system to boot from the other BIOS chip is as follows:
> 1) turn off the system
> 2) press and hold the power button until the system switches off again.
> 3) boot the system. it should now boot from the backup BIOS.

After system boot you must wait about 1 minute and then reboot again with default settings.

Thank you guys

 

[pobrecheetah]

I just went through this with my Gigabyte X58a-UD3R rev. 1.0.

I flashed the bios to F6 from F1, it came back fine once, but on another restart after resetting the bios to "optimized settings" it didn't come back. Black Screen, no POST beep, but the fans, HDs, videocard, dvd all spun up fine. After trying to reset CMOS, messing with attached hardware, I couldn't get it to POST. I tried the "hold the power button down until it starts and then shuts back down" which did work for me, once, but upon restart it was the same no POST issue.

After going through this thread and others, what finally fixed it for me was on this page:
http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/33904-how-fix-dead-dual-bios-motherboard-if-flashing-failed-3.html
--

"It is possible to make the BIOS Auto-Recovery kick in (Dual BIOS) and re-flash the MAIN BIOS with the contents of the BACKUP BIOS.

This is a simple and easy method for anyone to try before having to resort to other more difficult methods, or a RMA.

1. Shut off the power supply using the switch on the back of the PSU, wait 10-15 seconds.
2. Press and hold the case Power On swtich, then while still holding turn on the power supply from the switch on the rear.
3. Still holding the case power on switch, the board will start, once it does release the case power on switch and shut off the power supply via the switch on the read of the unit. (Do the latter two parts as quickly as you can once the board starts)
4. The board will shut down.
5. Turn the power supply back on using the switch on the rear of the unit.
6. Turn on the motherboard by pressing the case power on button.

Once the board starts this time you should see the Gigabyte splash screen, or POST page, then the Auto-Recovery from Dual BIOS will kick in. You will see a checksum error, and then recovery from BACKUP BIOS will begin. Once it is done reboot your machine and enter the BIOS and load optimized defaults then save/apply/reboot back to BIOS.

Now you are done, and will be using whatever BIOS was in your BACKUP BIOS, From there you can attempt whatever you were previously trying, or update your BIOS to the latest version."
--

I hope this helps.

 

[xeonox]

so i am a little confused and the original link to the PDF no longer works. I have a GA-Z68AP-D3 (rev. 1.0) ...do i short pints 5&6 or 4&7 on the main bios???

 

[ghostrider09]

Hi guys! I just solved a black screen scenario with the method provided by fatihtolgaata (I owe you a sixpack).

I flashed a new BIOS with @BIOS from Gigabyte and decided to clear the CMOS just in case. Well, because of that, I've spent 5 hours fiddling around until I've found this thread.
After clearing the CMOS (by shorting the pins) and turning on PC, the screen was completely black. I heard a beep which means the POST was successful, but the screen remained black. I figured the BIOS was corrupted. So by searching for methods on how to reset it, I landed here. As xeonox said, the links are not available but I found a diagram and uploaded it to Imgur which will hopefully last longer than the other links.
I took a paper clip, bent it so that pins 1 and 6 can be connected. I held this in one hand and operated the power switches with the other.

- PSU switch to OFF
- position the clip on the pins (M_BIOS chip)
- PSU switch ON
- press the power button on the case (the paper clip is still placed on the pins)
- it took me 2 tries to get it; timing was really important in my case: as soon as you see the lights, hold the paper clip for half a second more and release immediately

Here's the diagram http://imgur.com/Y5rbm7j

If you hold the paper clip indefinitely, the machine will enter a boot loop. As chip select (pin 1) and clock input (pin 6) pins are bypassing the main BIOS. This way you can make sure that you're touching the right pins.

Good luck!

 

[badragaz2]

Hi, I recovered my Bios following all the steps above, at the beginning nothing happened,the same black screen,so I was disappointed and tried the last thing that came to my mind - to remove the battery and when I switched on again - voila - everything worked fine. So my solution is to do the actions mentioned above and then to remove the battery for 2-3 min.