ASUS ROG STRIX Z690 BIOS 2305

[arlicht]

Hey guys,

Anyone tried new bios 2305? Any thoughts?

[mr_allroy]

Thank you so much for this!!!  It worked like a charm with one exception.  In your instructions, you mention downgrading to 2401 bios but the one from your hosted download is named for 2301. I found the 2401 beta bios on overclock.net and used that version.  Just fyi and thanks again.

[RyanBlakeIT]

Thanks for catching that!  Typo, it should've been 2301.  But glad that you found the 2401 on Overclock.net :).

[naulito]

I share my experience rollingback bios.

I performed the procedure that our appreciated Hero Ryan Blake, managed to find in those distant Overclock forums where Yaroslav83 shared the process to return from bios 2305 to 2204.

I had to go through the process twice, before I could get the 2204 BIOS stable.

On my first try, when I finished running the FPTW64 -bios -f bios.rom command, I closed the CMD window and rebooted my PC, but for some reason during the reboot I got a BSOD, which I didn't care about. But when I finished rebooting, Windows didn't load anymore.

Before I panicked, I thought that possibly something during the rollback process failed, leaving me with a "corrupted" 2204 bios, that crashing my drive and not allowing windows to load properly.

So again I downloaded the official BIOS 2305 (Yes, the same one that has brought so many problems) and using Flashback, I flashed the bios again to 2305 (Which brought me new problems, the PCIe card with my 2 NVMe stopped appearing, for for some reason the PCIe stopped working and my 2 drives didn't show up anymore).

So I started the process from 0, until I reached the step where you have to enter the command FPTW64 -bios -f bios.rom and at the end instead of restarting the PC what I did was turn it off.

When I turn it back on, voila, Windows loaded without any problem, the 2204 bios was installed, and the PCIe card with the 2 NVMe drives showed up again.

Tomorrow I will do stress and performance tests just to be sure that everything was a success.

I join to everyone whose thanking Ryan Blake and Yaroslav83 for helping us to restore the stability of our Asus Z690 HERO rigs, thanks guys.


Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero Motherboard - Intel i9-13900K - Asus Thor 1200p - Kingston Fury 128GB (4x 32GB) DDR5 4800MT/s - 3x Firecuda 530 NVMe SSD 1TB - WD Black SN850 NVMe SSD 2TB - ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 4080 - Windows 11 Pro x64

[Esteman11x64]

how i can do this with maximus z690 extreme?, i cant use my PC with S T U P I D BIOS 2305😢, i want to rollback to 2204😭

[DuffGnR]

The bios files contained in the link is compatible with the z690-E Rog Strix Gaming Wifi?

[ahfoo]

IF you need to run 128 of memory ram smooth and easy. Please considered stepping down your memory frequency. Honestly speaking not on Asus side. The range and variant type of memory module in my opinion Asus may not able to cope to adopt the hard implementation change  to the bios. At least in the mean time. Dont blast me, this process take some times.

[MaEtUgR]

EDIT: After more experimentation I have my system running on 2305. I'm writing a more detailed update with the learnings as a Reply to this post.

Hi, I wanted to give constructive feedback on the 2305 BIOS update to help other users and ASUS development.

My system:
Intel Core i7-13700K
ASUS ROG Strix Z690-F Gaming Wifi
G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 2x32GB 6000 MHz DDR5 CL30-40-40-96-136
(be quiet! Dark Rock 4)

Course of events:
- Built the system last week, had issues fitting the Dark Rock 4 CPU cooler
(I saw it afterwards in the compatibility list of be quiet but the only problem was a 2mm plastic decoration on the CPU power filter cooling which I allowed myself to trim off such that my CPU can get cooling.)
- BIOS post without issues, it shipped with 2204 BIOS, ran XMP tweaked (DDR5-6000) with good performance, memtest86 no issue
- On the weekend I read up on BIOS update, saw there's 2305, assured myself I know exactly how to downgrade again using ASUS's Flashback feature and decided to give 2305 a go.
- Flashed 2305 from a USB3 stick with the EZ flash tool in the BIOS menu. It ran through and rebooted multiple times (same as on my previous ASUS Z370E board)
- Once it should have booted the LED on the Motherboard PCB stayed on the green "Boot" state and I got a display signal but black screen and never saw any logo or BIOS post message. I first waited 30 minutes, then rebooted without any change. I tried CMOS reset using the button and removing the battery which also didn't change anything.
- I thought luckily I'm prepared, unpowered, pluged the stick with 2204 on and pressed the Flashback button just to find out that it fails, I tried 3 other sticks also USB2 and a USB3 card reader. With the card reader the Flashback LED blinked the longest ~80 times but still failed with a solid LED after that.
- I started reading here and realized I can't downgrade to 2204. Why?! That's the whole point of Flashback no? If my computer fails to boot I should be able to load the previous known to be working BIOS version and get back to a known working state and bootable system.
- I kept on reading about the 2204 downgrade hacks here:
https://www.overclock.net/threads/official-asus-strix-maximus-z690-owners-thread.1794802/page-428#po...
https://www.overclock.net/threads/official-asus-strix-maximus-z690-owners-thread.1794802/page-429#po...
I would have probably followed it but
a) I have the Z690-F not Maximus Hero (which btw doesn't have this plastic decoration and would fit the CPU cooler directly)
b) I couldn't even reach the BIOS setup let alone any Windows cmd console which are required to follow the steps.
But I saw that part of all of these procedures is downgrading to 2301. My last hope but the official ASUS page does not list this apparently beta firmware at all.
- Luckily I found the 2301 binary for my particular mainboard here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/c5t05u5rlufd3rk/AABXWPeYzQiwZ8H75TfwZEzaa?dl=0 put all my trust into that dropbox source which seems strange to do. And used ASUS Flashback with the USB3 card reader and an old 8GB microSD card to downgrade to 2301.
- This saved the day. I'm back online with XMP Tweaked setting and to my eye good performance. I didn't do any stress testing yet but so far it seems at least booting and running daily tasks stably.
- Thank god downgrading to 2301 is allowed. Otherwise I would sit on a brick now. I presume I haven't lost functionality but many frustrating hours and trust in the BIOS updates and the recovery strategy.

TL;DR
EDIT: Turned out to not be true: System listed above does NOT post/boot with 2305
Downgrading to 2204 is for inexplicable reason not allowed
Downgrading to an unlisted beta 2301 saved my system from staying bricked
(Dark Rock 4 CPU cooler can fit ROG Strix Z690-F but only with minor plastic trimming)

[JohnAb]

Good job. I have to go to 2301 on my possible journey back to 2204 anyway, so great to know it's working for you. 

[afshinzx12]

Thank you for all file of Z690 motherboards specially Z690-F wifi gaming. I use the Z690-F and I dont find the BIOS version to downgrade! I have a question. Is it possible to go back to version 2204 after installing version 2301? Have you tested this?

[MaEtUgR]

I tested if I can easily downgrade from the working 2301 I'm on back to 2204 but that is also not allowed with the invalid BIOS file message. I would have jumped into the complicated procedure of amending the BIOS file to be unlocked but there are multiple reasons against that:
a) I can't boot in 2305 which is part of the usual procedures
b) Everything is working stably for me on 2301 as far as I've tested so far. So why would I wast time to downgrade if I currently have no issue.

If I don't find any issue I'll stay on 2301 and look out if there will be a fixed "stable" version after 2305 since 2301 is supposed to be a beta if I understood correctly. But I'll only flash anything again if I can confirm I'll be able to downgrade if things don't work.