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

[Brahmzy]

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.

[Brahmzy]

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

Oh this really sucks. Wow. What the f am I gonna do now.

[syne_24]

Word on the street some places got P5W coming in Friday. They're harder to find than some Conroe atm.

[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.

[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

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

Oh this really sucks. Wow. What the f am I gonna do now.

[Gun_Strife]

wow that sucks
since this happened id think to not get another ds3
where did u order it from

[Brahmzy]

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.

[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

[Chri$ch]

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

[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 ?

[Brahmzy]

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.

[Brahmzy]

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.

[kenofstephen]

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

better hold on at the moment

[kenofstephen]

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

[kenofstephen]

do you have friends having the ROM machine?

ask him to burn one BIOS for you dude

[Dumo]

Switch to the 2nd. bios.

[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.

[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.

[kenofstephen]

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.

[MDboyz]

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

[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."

[Shonky]

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.

[drwowe]

DQ6 has dual BIOS. DS3 does NOT. So that won't help.

[aldamon]

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.

[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.