Black screen, capital accented N and a green block - Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD3P

[Cyclocius]

 Hello everyone

 I recently, about 2 months ago, built my first computer, everything was going well, but twice the computer would start up, display the Motherboard screen and give me the option to enter BIOS before going straight to a black screen, with a capital N and a small green square in the centre of teh screen.
 Rebooting fixed the issue, but today the issue has returned and after 15 reboots the issue remains the same. I cannot press F12 to enter the boot options to enter safe mode, last working configuration etc for some reason.
I'm using a Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD3P motherboard and an AMD processor, but I can't find the box for that so it's name shall remain unknown until I find it.
 Thanks in advance!

[absic]

Hi,

If you are not running the latest BIOS you might want to try updating it. You can download the latest version from here: http://www.giga-byte.co.uk/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3107&dl=1#dl in the early days of my GA-790XTA-UD4 I had similar problems and a BIOS update cured it.

[Dark Mantis]

You just beat me absic, I was going to ask what graphics card he was using?

[absic]

That can also be a problem but with a lack of info the best bet is BIOS.

[Cyclocius]

You just beat me absic, I was going to ask what graphics card he was using?

I'm running an ATI Radeon 3850X2.
 And I did think to update the BIOS, but I wasn't sure how, I'll try it now using the Q-flash doohickey.

[Dark Mantis]

I would have guessed nVidia as it sounded like their logo was trying to be shown on screen.

[Cyclocius]

I would have guessed nVidia as it sounded like their logo was trying to be shown on screen.

It isn't, the text is in ASCII, like this: .

[Dark Mantis]

Interesting, I will be ready to hear what happens when youn have done the BIOS update.

[Cyclocius]

 That may have to wait, I've ripped the latest BIOS update for my motherboard to a CD, yet Q flash is only accepting update mediums from a floppy drive, which I've not got, I'm typing from my Mums laptop and have been the entire duration.

[Dark Mantis]

Do you not have access to a USB stick?

[Cyclocius]

 I do yes, I didn't think to try, I just did but the file didn't show up, I have it saved as an exe, yet in the BIOS there is nothing?

[Dark Mantis]

I know that you understand mostly what to do but here is a step by step list of actions to take. The exe.file is for the windows @BIOS I think.

The first thing to do is go to the Gigabyte wesite and find the "Support and Downloads" section(http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/support-downloads.aspx).
Select your motherboard and revision number which can be found printed on the bottom left corner of the motherboard. Click on the BIOS tab. This will take you to the BIOS versions download page.The newest BIOS versions are at the top of the page. Click on your region under the Download Here section heading. A box will then pop up asking what you want to do with this file. Click on "save" and note where you are saving it to.

Take a USB pendrive and make sure it is formatted with a FAT32 file system. Unzip the file that you downloaded to the Boot sector of this drive and insert the pendrive into a USB port.

Re-boot.

Press the"End" key as it is POSTing and you will be taken into the BIOS flashing utility "Q-Flash". From there just follow the prompts and DO NOT TURN OFF THE POWER under any circumstances. It will look for the pendrive with the file on it and use that to update the BIOS.

[Cyclocius]

 The file format is the issue, how can I format my USB stick to a FAT32?

[Dark Mantis]

Put the pendrive into the USB port and then select it by right clicking on it's icon in my computer. You will then get a dialogue box come up select "Format" from that and it will give you another box make sure you select "FAT32" and "start".

[Cyclocius]

 I can only choose from NTFS and exFAT?