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AB350N soft brick?

exia

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AB350N soft brick?
« on: February 10, 2018, 12:32:02 pm »
So, after updating the Radeon software from AMD website i restart my pc and now it wont boot. As in no post, not even reaching bios. I did all the standard procedure; remove ram, reseat cpu, unplug psu, paper clip test, reset and jump the cmos, bare board test etc.
I think my board has met its death..the soft/full brick
Now, is this problem can be remedied or RMA is the only way?

shadowsports

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Re: AB350N soft brick?
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2018, 05:37:04 pm »
So, after updating the Radeon software from AMD website i restart my pc and now it wont boot. As in no post, not even reaching bios. I did all the standard procedure; remove ram, reseat cpu, unplug psu, paper clip test, reset and jump the cmos, bare board test etc.
I think my board has met its death..the soft/full brick
Now, is this problem can be remedied or RMA is the only way?

Sounds like you have performed the correct troubleshooting steps, going as far to ground the PSU via paperclip.  If you have cleared the CMOS with the PSU disconnected and MB battery left in place, and tried POST with one stick of RAM without luck...  there is only one thing left....  try invoking boot from the back up BIOS.

Truthfully I am not optimistic as the board does sound dead, but if this fails, you'll know you've done all that you could.   
Z390 AORUS PRO (F10) \850w, 9900K, 32GB GSkill TriZ RGB - 16-18-18-38, RTX 3080Ti FTW3 Ultra, 960 Pro_m.2, W11
Z370-HD3P (F5) \750w, 8350K, 8GB LPX 3200 - 16-18-18-38, GTX 970 FTW SC, Intel SSD, 2TB RAID1, W11
Z97X-UD5H \850w, 4790K, 32GB Vengeance, RTX 2080 FTW

exia

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Re: AB350N soft brick?
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2018, 07:10:05 pm »
So, after updating the Radeon software from AMD website i restart my pc and now it wont boot. As in no post, not even reaching bios. I did all the standard procedure; remove ram, reseat cpu, unplug psu, paper clip test, reset and jump the cmos, bare board test etc.
I think my board has met its death..the soft/full brick
Now, is this problem can be remedied or RMA is the only way?

Sounds like you have performed the correct troubleshooting steps, going as far to ground the PSU via paperclip.  If you have cleared the CMOS with the PSU disconnected and MB battery left in place, and tried POST with one stick of RAM without luck...  there is only one thing left....  try invoking boot from the back up BIOS.

Truthfully I am not optimistic as the board does sound dead, but if this fails, you'll know you've done all that you could.

Yes, ive cleared the cmos with the battery on and psu disconnected plus booting with 1 stick of ram, changing between slots each time but still no luck. I guess the soft brick because I've seen a YT video showing the same symptom, rgb leds only flash white once when usually it would light red continuously until window login. I even now try leaving the board disconnected from all power sources for 6 hours now, can only hope. I think the board bricks its own bios, pointing to the next biggest problem..the board exclusively dont have dual bios as i only see M_BIOS chip in the schematic  :'( really out of luck

Sorry for the wall of text and thank you for your reply :)
« Last Edit: February 10, 2018, 07:17:17 pm by exia »

shadowsports

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Re: AB350N soft brick?
« Reply #3 on: February 11, 2018, 08:48:42 pm »
Ouch..  ya, didn't realize it wasn't a full size board with two chips...

1 x 128 Mbit flash
Use of licensed AMI UEFI BIOS
PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.7, WfM 2.0, SM BIOS 2.7, ACPI 5.0

She's bricked.  Only options are RMA or surgery with a chip re-programmer.
Z390 AORUS PRO (F10) \850w, 9900K, 32GB GSkill TriZ RGB - 16-18-18-38, RTX 3080Ti FTW3 Ultra, 960 Pro_m.2, W11
Z370-HD3P (F5) \750w, 8350K, 8GB LPX 3200 - 16-18-18-38, GTX 970 FTW SC, Intel SSD, 2TB RAID1, W11
Z97X-UD5H \850w, 4790K, 32GB Vengeance, RTX 2080 FTW

exia

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Re: AB350N soft brick?
« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2018, 11:44:12 am »
Ouch..  ya, didn't realize it wasn't a full size board with two chips...

1 x 128 Mbit flash
Use of licensed AMI UEFI BIOS
PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.7, WfM 2.0, SM BIOS 2.7, ACPI 5.0

She's bricked.  Only options are RMA or surgery with a chip re-programmer.

Yeah, i think so too. Its been days since i left it and still no signs of life. As im not that well versed in electrical works, i guess  RMA for the board is the last choice.

Gigabyte still havent updated about this problem?

shadowsports

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Re: AB350N soft brick?
« Reply #5 on: February 12, 2018, 01:46:19 pm »
Yes.  Stripping the board for bench testing usually tells you if its going to come back or not.  RMA is easier than removing the BIOS chip.  I am not aware of any fix once this behavior occurs.
Z390 AORUS PRO (F10) \850w, 9900K, 32GB GSkill TriZ RGB - 16-18-18-38, RTX 3080Ti FTW3 Ultra, 960 Pro_m.2, W11
Z370-HD3P (F5) \750w, 8350K, 8GB LPX 3200 - 16-18-18-38, GTX 970 FTW SC, Intel SSD, 2TB RAID1, W11
Z97X-UD5H \850w, 4790K, 32GB Vengeance, RTX 2080 FTW

Re: AB350N soft brick?
« Reply #6 on: March 12, 2018, 04:58:58 am »
I had this same issue with 3 of the GA-AB350N-Gaming WIFI board, and return each and everyone of them and I also had the same issue with the AB350-GAMING board. I am using the Ryzen 5 2400G APU. I came across this https://www.extremetech.com/computing/264097-amd-shipping-free-processors-customers-address-apu-firmware-update-issue

And I wonder if this is the issue?
On the second board I was able to install Windows 10 and started using the Gigabyte App Center to install software and driver updates when the system locked up and wouldn't post after a hard reset.

So pretty much what this website is stating is that AMD will send a working CPU then you update your bios firmware and then put your APU back in to get it working right?

shadowsports

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Re: AB350N soft brick?
« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2018, 04:38:25 pm »
I read more about it and see that you can request a "Boot Kit" from AMD allowing you to flash the BIOS and repair the incompatible BIOS which supports the newer Radeon code updated previously.
Z390 AORUS PRO (F10) \850w, 9900K, 32GB GSkill TriZ RGB - 16-18-18-38, RTX 3080Ti FTW3 Ultra, 960 Pro_m.2, W11
Z370-HD3P (F5) \750w, 8350K, 8GB LPX 3200 - 16-18-18-38, GTX 970 FTW SC, Intel SSD, 2TB RAID1, W11
Z97X-UD5H \850w, 4790K, 32GB Vengeance, RTX 2080 FTW