Gigabyte Z170-HD3P How to boot in Backup BIOS or both corrupted?

First, let me express how terrible GIGABYTE BIOS flashing utilities and face-wizard are. Such sensitive task as flashing BIOS is a total failure here. Unreliable and faulty.

Background story:
I have flashed my BIOS to the latest rev. F20 and included face-wizard picture of mine which was a 256-color png image with resolution 1024x768. Everything worked out well except the Booting image was quarterly all messed-up in colors. So I repeated the process trying different colors, different resolutions etc. RANDOMLY this process of flashing boot image causes the display driver to fail PC goes into looped bursts of lags and sound disruptions and the flashing process fails. Luckily logging of the Windows session and logging in back returns everything back to normal and you can repeat the process again hoping that this time it succeeds.

I have tried several re-flashings of the boot image but it always came messed-up. Maybe if Gigabyte bothered to explicitly note what are the requirements for the picture loaded or prevented to load one which does not meet requirements this would me much less painful and time consuming.

At one of the failed attempts where display driver failed I had to log off and log in again just to see unexpected prompt from AppCenter if I wish to update firmware. I selected update and during the process again display driver failed for reasons unknown but the flashing continued to the end. then without any prompting it said Rebooting in 5 seconds. And that was my doom.

Current Problem:
Since then I cannot boot up. There are 3 beeps a pause and another 3 beeps. I have searched for methods on how to boot up in Backup BIOS but none of them resulted in anything else than those beeps and bootloops.

Methods tried already:
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...-Forcing-backup-BIOS-on-Gigabyte-motherboards
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=9462.0

I haven't tried those suggesting to short-circuit pins yet and I want to avoid that. Is it possible that corrupted Backup BIOS was flashed in the process? Are there any other tips how to get to Backup BIOS?

What can I expect to do if I was to claim RMA warranty? I have custom cooler on CPU installed. Is it necessary to replace the cooler when the issue is obviously in BIOS?

1. What the hell is "face-wizard"

2. I don't know about your Gigabyte board, but I have the GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK... and there are like 12 ways around that problem. It actually has dual bios and you can select which bios you want to load via two dip switches on the motherboard. So you can check if you see those (near the CPU). You can also try removing the CMOS battery and my board actually has a CMOS reset switch.

If you look at my thread, my board is half destroyed and it somehow still works.

So there should be a way to fix yours. Even if you have to solder some wires to a USB flasher and flash the bios manually... (I learned how to do this because I build drones) there's ALWAYS a way to get it back up and running.

1. It's a boot logo changer with stupid name. It comes bundled in @BioS app for flashing BIOS and allows to flash the logo either while updating the whole firmware or separately (saving little time in the process while still being at the same risk)

2. I've done CMOS reset already and this board apparently has no dip switches for choosing which BIOS to load this way... But I can see both chips B_BIOS and M_BIOS.

You could call this situation soft-bricked if it was a phone but as desktop it's more like soft-bouldered. I am not familiar with any procedures how to flash those BIOSes from external device.. you seem to be skilled in this. Any pointers?

miracle.flame said:

1. It's a boot logo changer with stupid name. It comes bundled in @BIOS app for flashing BIOS and allows to flash the logo either while updating the whole firmware or separately (saving little time in the process while still being at the same risk)

2. I've done CMOS reset already and this board apparently has no dip switches for choosing which BIOS to load this way... But I can see both chips B_BIOS and M_BIOS.

You could call this situation soft-bricked if it was a phone but as desktop it's more like soft-bouldered. I am not familiar with any procedures how to flash those BIOSes from external device.. you seem to be skilled in this. Any pointers?

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Well yeah... I mean first there are probably a few methods (though you'd have to google) of flashing the bios from USB even if the board won't boot.

Failing that you would find the schematics for your bios like so: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?1637522-Ideal-USB-AVR-flasher

Then you would get the appropriate flasher for your bios chip like so: (This is the one I use for drones) https://hobbyking.com/en_us/usbasp-avr-programming-device-for-atmel-proccessors.html

Then it's just a matter of plugging it into your laptop, connecting some cables from the pins on the USB to your bios chip, and flashing the latest bios.

Well......? Yeah... I have read those now and thanks really... I would probably need more technical knowledge, skills, patience and nerves for this...

I think I'd rather buy a brand new chipset H270 from MSI this time and hope for RMA to accept my demand and refund the board. If they return a working one I'd sell it at online bazaar.

GIGABYTE never again. I hated that board since day one till day 400. Backup BIOS kicking in randomly after a normal reboot and other strange behaviors. What good is having a dual-BIOS when it all can come completely screwed up like this after such harmless attempt as to flash a boot logo.

miracle.flame said:

Well......? Yeah... I have read those now and thanks really... I would probably need more technical knowledge, skills, patience and nerves for this...

I think I'd rather buy a brand new chipset H270 from MSI this time and hope for RMA to accept my demand and refund the board. If they return a working one I'd sell it at online bazaar.

GIGABYTE never again. I hated that board since day one till day 400. Backup BIOS kicking in randomly after a normal reboot and other strange behaviors. What good is having a dual-BIOS when it all can come completely screwed up like this after such harmless attempt as to flash a boot logo.

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Well just to play devils advocate (which I *never* do... so enjoy! ) it wasn't the boot logo thing that did you in... it was the BIOS flash while you were doing something else. If you'd said "Umm... NO!" when the prompt came up to fix your bios... then you'd be fine right now.

Since you mentioned your MB has dual bios as well... I'm SURE there's a way that you can boot into the alternative balance. Maybe some key combination or something. Don't know where all the other members of this site are right now... Maybe a weekend vacation or something?

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Also I would try the pin short method. (Really... what do you have to lose at this point?)

I am pretty sure I have already triggered the Backup BIOS by now trying various methods, also one given here http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=18167.0. Before that I was able to get there even unintentionally as I have said. I believe both are corrupted as there were two failed flashing procedures in a row, 1. the boot logo 2. the unexpected offer. In past I have seen my Backup BIOS having another customized logo which I have flashed back then so it looks like with dual BIOS you can flash corrupted BIOS twice in a row to kill them both. I don't understand why Backup BIOS shouldn't be just read-only factory firmware being there just to provide restoration of the main BIOS.

Hell it's not like I was doing some highly experimental fancy geek risky and dangerous move there. I was merely using official directly available tools designed to do relatively common task. Gigabyte cannot be pardoned for this.

Pin shorting front panel, I don't know, I think I might screw up even more and lose RMA. I am actually looking forward to MSI board now.

tYPICALLY THE "b" OR BACKUP bios IS UNFLASHABLE and should still have the original BIOS file on it. The only time the "backup" is flash is if the Main BIOS is updated for new CPUs such as a Z170 board being updated for the KabyLake CPU. What I'm saying is that it should still be fine. Here's a link to help with tips for "forcing" the backup when it's being stubborn. http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...-Forcing-backup-BIOS-on-Gigabyte-motherboards

Thanks Johan45, I have mentioned the same link in my first post. I am enjoying my new MSI H270 PC MATE now and I must say it is a noticeable difference. Definitely a step forward. GB MB is on RMA and I am hoping to get it refund as the shop is very client friendly in these matters.

You just had bad luck with that Gigabyte motherboard, I'm sure if there was a problem with those boards the would of been a recall.

I think MB was not to blame but more likely the Gigabyte flashing software which was apparently conflicting with something in my system to the point it could just crash graphic driver and whatnot. The latest version of AppCenter and TuneUP is just fine but a year ago the previous version was complete trash. The software was just so poor in terms of reliability and stability in W10 back then I definitely knew I don't want to stick with Gigabyte products.

miracle.flame said:

Gigabyte flashing software which was apparently conflicting with something in my system to the point it could just crash graphic driver and whatnot.

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In the future do all your flashing through the BIOS. Personally I don't trust any windows based motherboard flashing SW to be 100% reliable every time. Doing it through BIOS is easy and this avoids any type of conflict with drivers/ windows and PC stability all of which can brick a board.

Johan45 said:

In the future do all your flashing through the BIOS. Personally I don't trust any windows based motherboard flashing SW to be 100% reliable every time. Doing it through BIOS is easy and this avoids any type of conflict with drivers/ windows and PC stability all of which can brick a board.

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Absolutely! Some of the OEM mass producers give you no choice but to use their Windows-based flashing tools but when you do have a choice, do it in bios.

Gigabyte motherboards are TOUGH. My GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK is like 5% destroyed... it's missing two capacitors... it's got conductive thermal paste under two of the pins.... it's missing an entire audio chip (audio... STILL WORKS!), but it still boots after a couple of tries and it's rock solid once it's up and running.

I've worked on this thing with a soldering iron... and I am OUT of practice. I have *slipped* with that soldering iron... a few times. Not so much as a scratch on the PCB surface. Really I've never seen anything like it. Best of all it only cost me 20 bucks.

More than likely I'll replace it on the final build (when I get my case and my 16gb of RAM and all that...) Or who knows? Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll see how long it will run before it dies. (All this talk is premature of course... I only have 2 GB of RAM to work with because only 2 RAM slots are working... so I haven't REALLY been able to put this board under any load heavier than Age of Empires II HD.)

But I went from being certain this thing wouldn't work at all, to being just as certain that, once it boots, it's not going to crash.

miracle.flame said:

I think MB was not to blame but more likely the Gigabyte flashing software which was apparently conflicting with something in my system to the point it could just crash graphic driver and whatnot. The latest version of AppCenter and TuneUP is just fine but a year ago the previous version was complete trash. The software was just so poor in terms of reliability and stability in W10 back then I definitely knew I don't want to stick with Gigabyte products.

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Like was said before don't flash the BIOS in windows, also set all the BIOS settings to optimized default then flash in Bios only. I never have a problem with my Gigabyte motherboards unless I flash with a slightly unstable settings in BIOS.