GA-H61M-S2V-B3 Rev. 1.0 F2 to F5 BIOS causes startup problems and BSOD?

[steviejay]

I have updated two different boards one was giving no end of problems but after a couple of weeks is BSOD again.

Another has been a fresh build Win7 and after updating F2 to F5 BIOS wants a startup repair.

Can't get into reliable Windows arena to flash BIOS back to F2. Is there a way of using B-BIOS to restore F2 over F5 M-BIOS. Suggested on here that Alt&F12 gets you M-BIOS>B-BIOS but I want other way and this didn't seem to work anyway. All I got was the Boot Menu (F12)

Keyboard is USB. TIA.

[Aussie Allan]

     I'm assuming it's asking for a MBR repair...... any problem in giving it what it's asking for and see if it fixes the problem under the F5 BIOS ?

  as in the install Disc Repair!.....would be nice to know what board/s you're talking about

  Aussie Allan

[steviejay]

     I'm assuming it's asking for a MBR repair...... any problem in giving it what it's asking for and see if it fixes the problem under the F5 BIOS ?

  as in the install Disc Repair!.....would be nice to know what board/s you're talking about

  Aussie Allan

Same board but two of them. Both are GA-H61M-S2V-B3 Rev 1.0.

It's Win 7 Startup Repair. The info sent to MS is a BAD DRIVER error, but the drivers are all from the Gigabyte site - Intel INF, HECI, IRST and GbE (Realtek). It's feebly trying to repair and giving the same error. Two boards with the F2 BIOS (ie. unchanged) are working perfectly.

Startup Repair Offline, Signature 6.1.7600.16385, Signature 6.1.7600.16385, unknown, 21200379, AutoFailover, 3, Bad Driver, 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1, Locale 1033 - meaningless to me apart from probably the OS version.

[Aussie Allan]

  When you flashed..... and rebooted back into BIOS...... did you select "Optimized Defaults" then save and reboot......back to BIOS......configure to suit your hardware and 32 or 64bit ......then save and reboot to windows ?

  Setting Optimized Defaults after a flash will set up the board to in a sort of hunt mode.....for hardware and applicable drivers list

  this could make a difference.

  Aussie Allan

[steviejay]

  When you flashed..... and rebooted back into BIOS...... did you select "Optimized Defaults" then save and reboot......back to BIOS......configure to suit your hardware and 32 or 64bit ......then save and reboot to windows ?

  Setting Optimized Defaults after a flash will set up the board to in a sort of hunt mode.....for hardware and applicable drivers list

  this could make a difference.

  Aussie Allan

Yes. It was a checkbox in @BIOS. It failed to boot so I checked the setup and just changed what I needed to.

All I did was change boot sequence to CD-ROM|HDD|Disabled, enabled HDD SMART (as it was in F2) set HPET to 32-bit (as Win 7x86 is installed), put power off to delay 4 sec., disabled Ser and Par ports as there are no cables on the headers (as it was in F2), and I have just found IDE in the SATA mode, when I set to AHCI......

...system boots - that's checking for you. The initial install was AHCI, I know this causes boot failure. It wasn't the case on the other board.

I'll continue with my efforts to revert to F2 on the other board (Win7x64). Board was configured the same except HPET was in 64-bit mode.

Thank you for making me check my work

[Aussie Allan]

  Optimized Default (second from the top ,right column in the main BIOS page) still should make a difference.

  I don't understand why you're trying to revert to F2 when you just established F5 seems to work with out problems.....but, whatever!

  Aussie Allan

[Dark Mantis]

For your information we always advise not using @BIOS for updating your BIOS versionbut the use of QFlash or even FLASHSPI instead. They are much safer, more robust and are not so prone to crashing and leaving you with a nice doorstop. I know that Gigabyte boards do have a Backup BIOS which we can usually reflash the Main BIOS from but best not to push your luck.

[steviejay]

So, with my initial question, is there a way to restore B-BIOS into M-BIOS if it's not had a 'failure'?

Pretty sure my initial problems with this board were RAM related (even though it tested fine). I can re-image with Win7(x64) but I want to try reverting the BIOS image first in case the bad RAM affected the @BIOS flash (I'd updated before I noticed the reliability problems).

Install was clean no errors, no issues with driver installation, it BSODed a few hours later then every hour or so. I swapped the HDD, PSU, CPU, GPU, DVD all to no avail until I got more RAM and the problem went away. Pretty sure I clean installed the machine 1 more time before it went to work.

Hard drive diagnostic was clean. Might just be that bad flash or it's a faulty mobo or intermittent PSU.

[steviejay]

For your information we always advise not using @BIOS for updating your BIOS versionbut the use of QFlash or even FLASHSPI instead. They are much safer, more robust and are not so prone to crashing and leaving you with a nice doorstop. I know that Gigabyte boards do have a Backup BIOS which we can usually reflash the Main BIOS from but best not to push your luck.

QFlash needs a better tutorial on here. I can't get it to read my 8GB USB stick (FAT32). I realise you don't advocate the use of @BIOS but there is no AV installed yet on this test board. FLASHSPI I haven't tried.

I've done loads of BIOS flashes before, but in the good old days when BIOS fitted on a floppy and you got CMOS checksum data! Uniflash I used to like because you could boot block and blind flash. Windows makes things worse. Even the cashpoint at my bank has changed from one of those old green LED display terminals to a Windows cashpoint and it's slower and not working with a fault waaay more often! Still the pictures and graphics that extol the bank's products before the error message arrives are nice....I digress.

Can I have a 16MB FDD and Win 98 bootfiles please?

[Aussie Allan]

  Just one little helper.......big thumb drive ..... give problem....( UUG!) ..or it can be the brand too ..... if you have not a smaller, or spare.....try FAT16

  Aussie Allan

[Dark Mantis]

Normally the problem lies with the USB drive and compatibility with the motherboard for some reason. As Allan says usually a smaller drive of 2GB or less willl be likely to work better.

As for the reflash follow these directions but you might need to try more than once as timing is key.

You can kick in the backup BIOS by shutting down the PSU from the wall, then hold down your case power button in and then turn on the power supply button, a few seconds later the board will start, shut off the power supply then.   Then you can turn on the power supply again and power up the board normally and DualBIOS will kick in.

[steviejay]

  Just one little helper.......big thumb drive ..... give problem....( UUG!) ..or it can be the brand too ..... if you have not a smaller, or spare.....try FAT16

  Aussie Allan

Thanks for all your help, AA. I don't have a smaller drive - it would be only for this problem!

Normally the problem lies with the USB drive and compatibility with the motherboard for some reason. As Allan says usually a smaller drive of 2GB or less willl be likely to work better.

As for the reflash follow these directions but you might need to try more than once as timing is key.

You can kick in the backup BIOS by shutting down the PSU from the wall, then hold down your case power button in and then turn on the power supply button, a few seconds later the board will start, shut off the power supply then.   Then you can turn on the power supply again and power up the board normally and DualBIOS will kick in.

Thank you. I will try that.

[Dark Mantis]

Just one little helper.......big thumb drive ..... give problem....( UUG!) ..or it can be the brand too ..... if you have not a smaller, or spare.....try FAT16

Aussie Allan

Thanks for all your help, AA. I don't have a smaller drive - it would be only for this problem!

It would be worth buying one just for this sort of use. They are next to nothing now so is not a problem.