BIOS glitch

[Plasma]

Hello Dark Mantis,

I just tried what you suggested but it looks like I'm doing something wrong.
F9 in the BIOS worked fine and showed me the different versions of the main / backup BIOS (FF/FA).
But pressing Alt+F12 in the boot screen just gives me the boot menu (as if I pressed just F12) - it there any trick?

With regards to the dual bios feature the manual tells: "For the sake of system safety, users cannot update the BIOS manually." Might Gigabyte have changes something here?

Thanks,
Plasma

[Dark Mantis]

Hi Plasma

Try this way of doing it. This is absic's way of explaining it maybe it is better than mine.

To do this you need to hold the "Alt" and "F12" Keys when you start up the PC so they are still be pressed as the PC starts the POST process. It is often better if you can use a P/S2 keyboard for this rather than a USB version. There is a warning dialogue that appears to tell you that the BIOS is being written.

If everything goes OK when you press the Alt+F12 keys your monitor will go black and a line of type will appear which reads:
Press [Enter] to start copying main BIOS to backup BIOS...

When you hit the enter key another line of type appears that says:
Writing BIOS image.... xxxKb OK (the xxx will be numerical data that changes as the BIOS is copied)

Once written another line of type comes up that says:
BIOS successfully recovered! Power off or reset system! (This line of type flashes until you switch off the PC or reset it)

Once you have completed this both BIOS chips will have the same version of BIOS and you can check this by going into BIOS and pressing the F9 key on the BIOS Homescreen. Another window will open that will give you detailed information about your CPU and BIOS version(s).

[absic]

Just to add to what DM has said...

You need to do this from a cold start - Shutdown the power to the PC then start rather than doing a restart or reset.
Also, when you press the "Alt+F12" keys you need to make sure you are pressing them together and in the same way you would press the "Del" Key to enter BIOS.

[Plasma]

Hello Dark Mantis and absic,

It worked!
Thanks a lot - especially the suggestion of using a PS/2 keyboard and the fact that I need to shutdown the PC before helped. In my case I had a wireless keyboard attached to the PS/2 and it didn't work, but as soon as I replaced it with a wired one it immediately worked.
Now my backup bios is also an "FF" version   

I have some last questions left, just to better understand how the whole procedure works:
- is now the backup bios just a copy of the original bios with standard settings or does it include also the settings I did so far?
- I didn't load the CMOS defaults after the last update of the main bios, but everything is working fine at the moment - this is what I now copied to the backup bios. Am I risking something with this? Should I repeat the backup bios "update" after having loaded the defaults in the main bios again, just for safety?

Thanks again for your help,
Plasma

[absic]

Hi again,

No, when you copy the Main BIOS to the Backup BIOS it only copies the basic file not the changes you have made.

Copying the Main BIOS doesn't alter any of the settings that you have already made so, flashing the backup chip does not require you to go through the same steps as you would if flashing the Main BIOS when updating.

Hope you can understand this but any questions just ask. 

[Plasma]

Hi absic,

That's perfect for me.
Thanks again for the help - with the saved CMOS settings profiles (saved also to a USB Stick) I'd hope to be able to restore the bios much faster than before

Thanks,
Plasma

[Dark Mantis]

When the BIOSes are not synchronised it can cause problems sometimes especially where the system just decides to not use the Main BIOS but boot from the Backup instead. Much easier where the two are the same.