I just toasted my DS3 flashing F4e!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

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08-09-2006, 10:23 PM
Brahmzy

I just toasted my DS3 flashing F4e!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Brand new BIOS came out and I flashed it and BAM! PSU just cycles over and over again. I just tried 2 different sticks of cheap RAM I grabbed from work to see if GB reverted back to the whole 1.8V VDIMM F1 BIOS problem and NO-GO!

And I lost some data because my RAID0 array is GONE. My last backup was Friday. This sucks.

So, I need a new mobo. I'm gonna RMA this thing back and get a new board. I've got an E6600...

PLEASE help me decide which board to buy tonight. I've gotta overnight a new board in.

My options are:

1. Another DS3
2. ASUS P5W DH (prolly my best option, considering I've got an E6600)
3. ASUS P5B Deluxe

PLEASE HELP ME! I can't believe this. DO NOT flash to the new F4e BETA BIOS. It told me it flashed successfully and everything-I performed the exact same steps from F1 to F3 to F4c.
08-09-2006, 10:35 PM
Brahmzy

WTF?!?! NOBODY has the P5W in stock???

Oh this really sucks. Wow. What the f am I gonna do now.
08-09-2006, 10:38 PM
syne_24

Word on the street some places got P5W coming in Friday. They're harder to find than some Conroe atm.
08-09-2006, 10:42 PM
Shonky

That makes 2 boards that have been killed with the F3E bios, just got an email from a mate that has exactly the same problem Brahmzy as you have described. :(
08-09-2006, 10:45 PM
SilveradoJ442

Sorry to hear about that man, i've been there. Very frustrating. I read this earlier someone posted that this place has p5wdh in stock. I dont know much about them though. Take a look

Antares Digital

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brahmzy

WTF?!?! NOBODY has the P5W in stock???

Oh this really sucks. Wow. What the f am I gonna do now.
08-09-2006, 10:47 PM
Gun_Strife

wow that sucks
since this happened id think to not get another ds3
where did u order it from
08-09-2006, 11:03 PM
Brahmzy

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilveradoJ442

Sorry to hear about that man, i've been there. Very frustrating. I read this earlier someone posted that this place has p5wdh in stock. I dont know much about them though. Take a look

Antares Digital

Thanks for the link - I saw that site while froogling tonight and they've got some crazy return policies and no phone contacts!:(

Ugh.
08-10-2006, 12:08 AM
kiwi

What did you do after flash copleted? Did you enter bios, load optimized defaults, save, exit, power off, clear cmos, power on, and load optimized defaults again?

The board has virtual dual bios and you should be able to recover it
08-10-2006, 12:22 AM
Chri$ch

if i load the F4e Bios into @Bios i get this message :stick:

http://people.freenet.de/chris07071985/Bios-F4E.jpg
08-10-2006, 12:43 AM
eklipze

Brahmzy since you have an E6600 get the P5W-DH they're better overclockers for the E6600 and E6700 etc. and bad idea going for the F4e bios why didn't you just stick with the F4C ?
08-10-2006, 04:47 AM
Brahmzy

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiwi

What did you do after flash copleted? Did you enter bios, load optimized defaults, save, exit, power off, clear cmos, power on, and load optimized defaults again?

The board has virtual dual bios and you should be able to recover it

All the above.
08-10-2006, 04:49 AM
Brahmzy

Quote:

Originally Posted by eklipze

Brahmzy since you have an E6600 get the P5W-DH they're better overclockers for the E6600 and E6700 etc. and bad idea going for the F4e bios why didn't you just stick with the F4C ?

Why did just stick with F4C??? Why not stick with F3? Why not stick with F1? C'mon dude, why not try the new BIOS? My only thing is, I should've waited a day or two to do it. I will never make this mistake again.
08-10-2006, 05:04 AM
kenofstephen

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri$ch

if i load the F4e Bios into @Bios i get this message :stick:

http://people.freenet.de/chris07071985/Bios-F4E.jpg

better hold on at the moment
08-10-2006, 05:05 AM
kenofstephen

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brahmzy

Why did just stick with F4C??? Why not stick with F3? Why not stick with F1? C'mon dude, why not try the new BIOS? My only thing is, I should've waited a day or two to do it. I will never make this mistake again.

hi brother, somebody did flash the F4e BIOS and the board is still alive, so yours should be still alive too! the problem is to boot it up again
08-10-2006, 05:09 AM
kenofstephen

do you have friends having the ROM machine?

ask him to burn one BIOS for you dude
08-10-2006, 05:09 AM
Dumo

Switch to the 2nd. bios.
08-10-2006, 05:16 AM
Shonky

I just performed a hex compare using Hex Workshop on 965pdq6.f3g and 965pds3.f4e and the 2 bios files are identical.

The latest beta DS3 (F4E) bios is the latest DQ6 beta (F3G).

That is the reason why boards are dieing with F4E bios, no other.
08-10-2006, 05:24 AM
Lestat

doesnt matter if you have a rom machine.
the bios is not removeable.
infact there isnt a dedicated bios chip.
i believe the bios chip is the one that says GSATA II.
thats the only chip on the baord that can actually be a bios rom.

shonky good work man,

Kenofstephen please inform gigabyte that they possibly named the wrong file.

this could simply be an attempt to localize all bios's into one bios though. but i HIGHLY doubt it. highly doubt it.
08-10-2006, 05:28 AM
kenofstephen

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lestat

doesnt matter if you have a rom machine.
the bios is not removeable.
infact there isnt a dedicated bios chip.
i believe the bios chip is the one that says GSATA II.
thats the only chip on the baord that can actually be a bios rom.

shonky good work man,

Kenofstephen please inform gigabyte that they named the wrong file.

this could simply be an attempt to localize all bios's into one bios though. but i HIGHLY doubt it. highly doubt it.

yes lestat, I have sent an email to them when I saw the 1st failure case.
but haven't get any reply until I left my office at night on my side.
08-10-2006, 05:48 AM
MDboyz

Like others say, it does have Virtual Dual BIOS. Use that to recover the board.
08-10-2006, 05:51 AM
Brahmzy

^^And how theheck do you do that? When it won't even POST?^^

The manual says NOTHING about the Virtual Dual BIOS.

AFAIK, you have to at least be able to get to the BIOS/CMOS screen to use this "feature."
08-10-2006, 05:52 AM
Shonky

Quote:

Originally Posted by MDboyz

Like others say, it does have Virtual Dual BIOS. Use that to recover the board.

From what I've been told by a friend that lost his motherboard to the F3E bios, the Virtual Bios is only usable on a board that will actually boot. :(

There's a lot to be said for 2 real bios chips.
08-10-2006, 05:55 AM
drwowe

DQ6 has dual BIOS. DS3 does NOT. So that won't help.
08-10-2006, 06:28 AM
aldamon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shonky

From what I've been told by a friend that lost his motherboard to the F3E bios, the Virtual Bios is only usable on a board that will actually boot. :(

There's a lot to be said for 2 real bios chips.

WTF is the point of the feature then? I believe I'm done with beta BIOSs for the time being.
08-10-2006, 06:38 AM
Lestat

the failure recovery on the DS3 is the cdrom bootup option to go to the quick recovery.

this wont work if the system wont even POST.

this is the cheapy board guys your not gunna get all the bells and whistles of the more expensive bios.

you know the rules of flashing to a beta bios.
send the board in for a reflash by gigabyte and be happy the board isnt 100% dead.
just call them and let them know what happened.

also let them know that the DQ6 bios and the DS3 beta are identicle, but this is the beta bios. which means they mislabelled the DS3 bios.
08-10-2006, 06:47 AM
Shintai

Shouldn´t the BIOS have been F4C instead of F4E? For what i can tell, one is for DS3, other is for DQ6.
08-10-2006, 07:01 AM
aldamon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lestat

this is the cheapy board guys your not gunna get all the bells and whistles of the more expensive bios.

Obviously, if you have to send an entire board back just to recover a BIOS, somebody made a poor decision in R&D. If the BIOS were on a socketed chip, they could just send a new chip. Is a soldered chip really that much cheaper than a socketed one?
08-10-2006, 07:13 AM
Lestat

yeah i know aldamon i poo'd myself when i saw there wasnt a socket'd bios rom.
thats very old school of them to do that. but it saves them money.
and thats what this boar dis about, saving you, the consumer money.
i gotta say though this is the best money i have spent in a long time.
and i been thru 4 conroe boards. and this by far is the best.
the quirks it has are minor considering its the best clocking conroe board right now with the Biostar right behind it, and the Bad Axe following. but the bad axe has to be modded. so...
08-10-2006, 07:20 AM
Brahmzy

Id the BioStar 975X or 965P?

I'm trying to get a new board for my E6600 and the P5W DH is sold out EVERYWHERE for at least 2 weeks.

If I had an E6400, I'd just RMA this DS3, but now that I'm forced to get a new mobo, I might as well get the best one for my E6600.

Is the P5W DH still my best option?
08-10-2006, 08:57 AM
Lestat

biostar is 965 check out some of the posts here about it, its turning out to be a great clocker oalso for the lower conroe's.
no matter what baord your on the 6600 and above still have some nasty limits on the FSB when overclocking in the bios. the windows app's can typically take them further. but thats a sucky way to overclock.

i wouldnt get a DH unless you really want SLI and the wireless.
if your using a single video card then the DS3 is still the best way.
the P5W DH isnt going to give you the higher overclocks that the DS3 is showing.
BUT asus has been kicking out alot of bios's lately so who knows. but i personally dont look for it to be anything special for the 6600's and above.
i have one, its a nice board, the wireless was nice,, yada yada...
but for overclocking i still stand behind my DS3.
08-10-2006, 09:05 AM
Brahmzy

I thought the 975X's OC'd the E6600's and up a little better. At least that's what I've been reading.

I guess I'll find out 'cause I just ordered a P5W DH that will hopefully ship tomorrow 2nd day air. I like the RAID/SATA support better on the ASUS boards than the DS3. The DH has Silicon, ICH7 and Matrix intel SATA/RAID support. We shall see - it'll be an expensive mistake if it doesn't work out.
08-10-2006, 09:26 AM
aldamon

How would Gigabyte re-flash the BIOS if it's soldered onto the board? Do they de-solder the chip and install a new one or is there another connector somewhere? There has to be a way to fix these boards without returning them.
08-10-2006, 09:38 AM
UZ7

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brahmzy

Thanks for the link - I saw that site while froogling tonight and they've got some crazy return policies and no phone contacts!:(

Ugh.

Quote:

Call our toll free at 1-888-269-8868, or 732-346-9500
Tech Support email to: support@antarescomputinginc.com

And I called and emailed them about it but not 100% sure yet. "yes we shall have them coming in tomorrow late afternoon or Friday morning for sure for the next batch"
08-10-2006, 10:06 AM
darkandlong

I usually wait until a large amount of people have tried beta BIOSes. I guess that makes you the guinea pig? :(
08-10-2006, 11:57 AM
RatusNatus

Winflash is a noobiest thing to do with any mobo and since a lot of people over here do a winflash bios update, we will see a lot of this around.

On the next time, do a dos flash but:
Don't use a floppy to flash from! Use a ramdrive to it!!!
MSI's staff says:
Hi there,

LiveUpdate was safe before, but be carefull how you use it.....
They added the Windows-flash in there....
Do NOT use this option, if it fails it renders your board dead!!!!
Use the DOS-based flashing when LiveUpdate gives you the option....
DOS-based is the old full-proof version, the Win-flash option flashes your BIOS from within Windows, but if your Windows does something strange while flashing, you could be left with a dead BIOS...

I asked MSI to remove the Win-flash option again and asked them to add a CDburn option in there to burn from CD if you don't have a flopy-drive.
08-10-2006, 12:04 PM
ruler22

the p5w was in stock at newegg earlier today, not sure if it still is

edit: it still is...
08-10-2006, 12:11 PM
aldamon

I don't think you read the thread RatusNatus.
08-10-2006, 01:09 PM
RatusNatus

Yeah, i really dont read but i saw a big pic of winflash on it :)

There are a lot of people on this forum using it and Nobody is telling to dont do it... so, im here.

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