Force revert to old bios?

[toran0x]

Hello - I made the mistake today of moving to the F21a from F2f bios on my Gigabyte X99 Gaming 5p. Until now, I've been overclocking at 4.25 and 4.37 very well at fairly low vcore - around 1.2. Now, with the same settings as before, things seem much less stable.

In the case of this bios, it says "This BIOS prohibits updating to earlier version BIOS". I'm guessing this means I'm stuck with this one? Or is there a way to somehow force an old bios? When I try to reflash using a bootable USB, it prevents me from doing so.

Any ideas?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Second BIOS?

Every board I've seen with two BIOS chips has an option to copy B->A.

 

[toran0x]

Second BIOS?

Every board I've seen with two BIOS chips has an option to copy B->A.

Yes I think there's a way to have the backup kick in (there's no switch on my board to go A->B). Something like this http://hardforum.com/archive/index.php/t-1831140.html

However, I noticed that DualBIOS can initiate the backup bios, but the manual says that "users cannot update the backup BIOS manually". That seems to be a problem as I'd need to update it to F2f.

 

[toran0x]

Anyone know of a proper way to initiate the backup bios?

 

[Johan45]

Funny that you wouldn't have any option to go back. I couldn't find any mention of switches etc.. All I found was Q-Flash plus on page 89 of your manual but it seems that only works in the event of both BIOS being corrupt. On my Champion board I have no issues going forward and back with the BIOS versions. But I also have switches for backup/dual bios operation.

 

[knoober]

Is there any chance that is a "dummy" warning? What I mean is, have you tried to go through with the rollback anyway? Just curious.

 

[toran0x]

Is there any chance that is a "dummy" warning? What I mean is, have you tried to go through with the rollback anyway? Just curious.

Yes when the notification comes up it stops the flashing process.

 

[Johan45]

There's a huge thread here http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/28441-gigabyte-latest-beta-bios.html
This may take some reading and courage. They talk about flashing the bios through DOS. These things I have done and usually are painless but understand you always stand a chance of killing the board. You could contact support and find outif there's a way to force the backup bios or flash back on the main bios.

 

[toran0x]

There's a huge thread here http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/28441-gigabyte-latest-beta-bios.html
This may take some reading and courage. They talk about flashing the bios through DOS. These things I have done and usually are painless but understand you always stand a chance of killing the board. You could contact support and find outif there's a way to force the backup bios or flash back on the main bios.

I did notice this on the OP from the link you provided:
Backup BIOS reflash: ALT+F12 - AWARD BIOS ALT+F10 - UEFI BIOS

Does that mean it reflashes the main bios with backup by pressing ALT+F10?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

It means it flashes B->A by hitting Alt+F10, yes.
This is what I was asking if you could do, but I didn't know the shortcut for that board.

 

[toran0x]

It means it flashes B->A by hitting Alt+F10, yes.
This is what I was asking if you could do, but I didn't know the shortcut for that board.

Honestly I'll be shocked if it's that simple based on what I've been reading. I called Gigabyte and they said there's a possibility that the backup bios may also have been flashed with the new bios I installed. I'll circle back here once I've made some progress.

 

[toran0x]

It means it flashes B->A by hitting Alt+F10, yes.
This is what I was asking if you could do, but I didn't know the shortcut for that board.

No just tried it - that copies the main to backup.

Not sure what else to try. Even tried shorting out the Main Bios using jumpers.

Gonna work with what I've got! Just will have to change my overclock - I'm sure I'll be able to tweak it somehow to work like before.

 

[toran0x]

Alright folks. After days of digging around on this, I found the quickest solution ever that worked. FPT. Took 10 seconds to flash back to F2f in Windows.

More here: http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/62479-force-revert-older-bios-x99-gaming-5p.html

 

[Johan45]

Yes I did some more reading on this and it seems that Gigabyte's latest BIOS is for the upcoming Broadwell E chips. They even say on the site that you won't be able to flash back once this is done. I did some reading around my board and people were having similar problems. To make things worse the BIOS was almost useless for the Haswell E chips and crippled things like Cache OC and mem straps. Thanks for the follow up and it seems that this was the method others used for the SOC Champ as well

You can flash back BIOS with FPT-Win32/64- X99 in Windows mode:

Read more: http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/62479-force-revert-older-bios-x99-gaming-5p.html

Is that what you used ?

 

[toran0x]

Yes I did some more reading on this and it seems that Gigabyte's latest BIOS is for the upcoming Broadwell E chips. They even say on the site that you won't be able to flash back once this is done. I did some reading around my board and people were having similar problems. To make things worse the BIOS was almost useless for the Haswell E chips and crippled things like Cache OC and mem straps. Thanks for the follow up and it seems that this was the method others used for the SOC Champ as well

Is that what you used ?

Yes that's what I used. Regarding the language used by Gigabyte, I think a firmer warning for those with Haswell E chips would have been nice.