Questions about GIGABYTE products > Motherboards with Intel processors
GA-Z87X-UD3H. Cant disable fast boot. Now lost main bios.
fisyyma:
Gigabyte motherboard GA-Z87X-UD3H rev1 Bios ver3.
Bought a few years ago. Enabled fast boot in the bios at the time, but now I need to disable it. With fast boot enabled I couldn’t use the DEL key at startup.
Things I’ve tried so far:
Shorting the cmos reset pins, pressed the cmos reset button, left the cmos battery out all night, tried various combinations of the BIOS-SW and SB switches, Downloaded and run fastboot.exe. Fastboot shows normal boot is enabled. If I change it to fast boot and back to normal again. Fastboot shows the changes have been made each time when rebooted, but the PC still boots straight into windows without showing the GigaByte logo and DEL, F2, F12 still don’t work so I can’t use those options. Disconnected all drives thinking that may force it to display the bios settings, but it just says ‘Reboot and select proper boot device.
Final possible solution was to flash the bios with the latest ver10b update using the @BIOS utility. All seemed to complete OK. After reboot I am just left with a flashing cursor in the top left corner of the screen, with 'A9' displayed on the led display. Have managed to boot the PC up again by using the BIOS-SW switch on the motherboard to select the backup bios.
So here I am with what I thought was the most reliable motherboard (Ultra durable, dual bios) and I can’t get into the bios or use the Function keys to select boot device, etc. and now it looks as if the main bios is no longer viable even though I used the correct file and followed the correct procedure.
This motherboard would have done me for a few more years to come so I want a solution to what is, in my opinion, a bios software problem.
Now afraid to do anything in case I lose the backup bios. Was thinking maybe I could start the PC using the backup bios then flick the bios switch to MAIN BIOS and then flash with an earlier bios file. But would that flash the bios the machine was booted with, or the one currently selected by the switch.
Instrumentation/electronics engineer whose been building and maintaining pc’s since the early DOS days so not someone who doesn’t know his way around a PC. But this has me beat. This has to be some glitch in the original bios, which once fast boot is selected it can’t be undone, or even when it shows it as undone, it makes no difference.
HELP!
shadowsports:
Greetings,
I saw your post yesterday and wanted to think about it a little before replying. My very first recommendation. If this system contains any important data, back it up now.
What OS are you running?
Are you using a wired or wireless keyboard? Your best chance of getting into the BIOS on a system with Fast Boot enabled is with a wired keyboard. This one thing alone might put you back in control.
The keys you can press to initiate a function on the board are DEL, END, F9 & F12. F2 doesn't do anything on Gigabyte boards (Z87) series anyway. There is one other combination we can discuss later.
Flashing the BIOS as a solution was not a good idea. Using @BIOS instead of QFlash is also not recommended. You cannot quickly switch between the two chips on the fly. The switch position determines which chip the system starts from.
Please answer this question:
There are 2 BIOS switches. "BIOS_SW" and "SB" - How are yours set?
I assume BIOS_SW is set to 2 (up position) and SB is set to 1 (down position) if not make this change and let me know if the system will start like this.
But back to the first thing:
What OS are you running?
Using a wired keyboard yes/no?
Make a back up if you care about anything
Will the system start with the switch settings referenced above?
fisyyma:
Thanks for taking the time to look at this.
OS is Windows 10 pro. Version: 1803
Normally wireless keyboard, but have tried several times with a wired PS2 keyboard which I always keep handy for when I need to boot into the bios and the wireless one doesn’t work.
Created a backup of the original bios before flashing it with the latest. This was done using the option in @BIOS. @BIOS may not be the safest option but couldn’t initiate QFlash because the PC booted straight into windows, which is the problem I’m trying to overcome. Don’t need to back up anything else because I use a separate drive for my data, and have a backup copy on a raid configured server as well.
System was booting up with BIOS_SW set to 2 (backup bios) and SB set to 2 (single bios). Changed the SB switch to 1 (dual bios) as you advised and it still boots up ok. Wont boot with BIOS_SW set to 1 (main bios).
shadowsports:
--- Quote from: fisyyma on June 23, 2019, 06:07:25 pm ---Thanks for taking the time to look at this.
OS is Windows 10 pro. Version: 1803
Normally wireless keyboard, but have tried several times with a wired PS2 keyboard which I always keep handy for when I need to boot into the bios and the wireless one doesn’t work.
Created a backup of the original bios before flashing it with the latest. This was done using the option in @BIOS. @BIOS may not be the safest option but couldn’t initiate QFlash because the PC booted straight into windows, which is the problem I’m trying to overcome. Don’t need to back up anything else because I use a separate drive for my data, and have a backup copy on a raid configured server as well.
System was booting up with BIOS_SW set to 2 (backup bios) and SB set to 2 (single bios). Changed the SB switch to 1 (dual bios) as you advised and it still boots up ok. Wont boot with BIOS_SW set to 1 (main bios).
--- End quote ---
Thanks for the helpful info.
1. Settings > Update and Security > Recovery > Advanced Start Up
This might get you into the BIOS
2. Try cold boot, press and hold ALT+F10 (be pressing and holding those keys) down from the moment the power button is pressed. If successful, you can synchronize the BIOS chips. You'll see what to do if it works.
fisyyma:
--- Quote from: shadowsports on June 24, 2019, 03:41:49 pm ---
--- Quote from: fisyyma on June 23, 2019, 06:07:25 pm ---Thanks for taking the time to look at this.
OS is Windows 10 pro. Version: 1803
Normally wireless keyboard, but have tried several times with a wired PS2 keyboard which I always keep handy for when I need to boot into the bios and the wireless one doesn’t work.
Created a backup of the original bios before flashing it with the latest. This was done using the option in @BIOS. @BIOS may not be the safest option but couldn’t initiate QFlash because the PC booted straight into windows, which is the problem I’m trying to overcome. Don’t need to back up anything else because I use a separate drive for my data, and have a backup copy on a raid configured server as well.
System was booting up with BIOS_SW set to 2 (backup bios) and SB set to 2 (single bios). Changed the SB switch to 1 (dual bios) as you advised and it still boots up ok. Wont boot with BIOS_SW set to 1 (main bios).
--- End quote ---
Thanks for the helpful info.
1. Settings > Update and Security > Recovery > Advanced Start Up
This might get you into the BIOS
2. Try cold boot, press and hold ALT+F10 (be pressing and holding those keys) down from the moment the power button is pressed. If successful, you can synchronize the BIOS chips. You'll see what to do if it works.
--- End quote ---
Tried both options, but still boots straight into windows.
Fastboot exe shows fast boot as disabled. If I change it to enabled and then reboot, it shows status as enabled. Change it back to disabled and reboot the PC and its back to disabled. That tells me the changes I make using fastboot.exe are happening. fastboot.exe must be questioning the bios for the boot status to be able to report it. So if fast boot is disabled as reported by the bios, then why is it ignoring the setting and booting straight into the operating system, bypassing any Function key I press during startup.
Bios has always been set to boot from a bootable usb (if present). Tried it with a bootable usb linux distro. Again it ignored any attempt to enter the bios and booted straight into the linux setup, so doesn’t seem to be a windows related problem.,
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