UEFI GOP Fast Boot update

[X-ROG]

Hi All,

We've just had a meeting today to get the latest info for you all. It's quite a complicated situation so please bare with me.

1) Not every motherboard UEFI BIOS is compatible. ASUS will only be qualifying it's own motherboards. Currently these are fully compatible with UEFI Fast Boot Mode:

- Intel 7 Series or later
- Intel X79 Series updated to Win8 BIOS (3xxx)
- Intel H61 Series R2.0 or later
- AMD R2.0 series or later

UEFI is not a uniform standard. There is Gen 1 and Gen 2. Only Gen 2 is compatible with Win8 Fast Boot and has to have the BIOS code re-written from the ground up, which is why even if your board has "UEFI" and is older than on the list it won't work with Win8's Fast Boot sorry. It must have a Win8 certified UEFI BIOS.

All our GPU UEFI BIOS' are dual mode (hybrid). We are currently testing our legacy and 1st Gen UEFI boards to see which are compatible and will fall back to booting from the legacy BIOS code until you update to a Win8/2nd Gen UEFI board. We cannot guarantee other manufacturer boards will fall back correctly, causing no POST or no display output.

GOOD NEWS!:
We have tested our Hybrid BIOS on a range of Intel and AMD motherboards ranging back 4-5 years and the Hybrid fall-back function works perfectly in all cases! That means even if you have older ASUS motherboards with no UEFI even, you can still install the Hybrid UEFI GPU BIOS and it will automatically fall-back to legacy mode!

EDIT: Updated this part 26th Feb
EDIT2: 2nd update 28th Feb.

3) As you may know we don't just make one GTX 680, for example, in fact there are 12 different versions, which all have different BIOS'. As you can imagine, if you flash the wrong BIOS your card will not work. Multiply this by several products and that's many, many BIOS'. The chance of getting it wrong is unacceptably high when as codes vary by small amounts.

However, despite Nvidia's suggestion and the large potential for incompatibility causing no POST, we are still going to introduce UEFI GPU BIOS' under condition of the clear warnings above. Starting first with the GTX 680 in the next few weeks we will be providing a very detailed guide on how to check your GPU version and how to upgrade the VBIOS. The on evaluation of success of that (and any modification of the guide) we will then add GTX 670, 660 Ti. This is exclusive to the high-end GPUs and ROG forums for now.

4) During April we will have a more public release of an automated tool for checking compatibility and updating the VBIOS if it detects all is OK. Should this tool not work for you, yet you are convinced your PC is compatible, you can use the guide we provided.

Hope this helps everyone understand the next month-to-6 weeks better 🙂

[Terence_13]

Nodens wrote:
ASUS can't and will not support that.

I don't think anybody would actually believe or expect you to support a custom MSI based BIOS.

I believe Veterant (people in general) is sceptical/unhappy because ASUS said initially repeatedly ASUS has NO plans to support UEFI GOP for "older" cards. I guess people have the feeling you only now reluctantly expressed the intend to support UEFI in the GTX 600 series because of public pressure.

I understand you (liability, the risk with a new technology) and also understand bussiness needs: after all you life on selling cards, not on support, but of course you will sell better when you have a good reputation (of providing good support). Perhaps you don't care because unhappy customers bounce back and forth between three major players in the market (known from other businesses).

I can tell you it would not be well recieved when new card all of a sudden do support UEFI GOP (in which case the MOBO compatibility concerns would vanish?), and "old" cards of the GTX 600 series have no support.

Actually, I am quite happy with your update and do see the will to keep you loyal enthusiasts happy.

[xeromist]

Terence_13 wrote:
I don't think anybody would actually believe or expect you to support a custom MSI based BIOS.

disclaimer: I don't work for ASUS so this is my opinion/understanding.

"Support" doesn't just mean phone/email support though. Yeah I agree it'd be silly to phone ASUS for advice on an MSI BIOS flash but most people would know better. I could however see someone get a bad flash with an MSI BIOS and send the card for RMA. So perhaps to expand/clarify on this ASUS won't *warranty* an MSI BIOS on an ASUS card.

[Nodens]

Terence_13 wrote:

I believe Veterant (people in general) is sceptical/unhappy because ASUS said initially repeatedly ASUS has NO plans to support UEFI GOP for "older" cards. I guess people have the feeling you only now reluctantly expressed the intend to support UEFI in the GTX 600 series because of public pressure.

I understand you (liability, the risk with a new technology) and also understand bussiness needs: after all you life on selling cards, not on support, but of course you will sell better when you have a good reputation (of providing good support). Perhaps you don't care because unhappy customers bounce back and forth between three major players in the market (known from other businesses).

I can tell you it would not be well recieved when new card all of a sudden do support UEFI GOP (in which case the MOBO compatibility concerns would vanish?), and "old" cards of the GTX 600 series have no support.

Actually, I am quite happy with your update and do see the will to keep you loyal enthusiasts happy.

I do not believe Veterant meant that. I seriously think he did not understand what was being said here (it is evident in his last post where he was asking about who's making the BIOS) hence I tried to explain. I also do not work for ASUS. I simply have a good understanding of the technologies involved.

As MarshallR already stated above, not supporting the older cards is not an ASUS thing. It's the stance of nVIDIA, so if you have a complaint about that (one I would find reasonable myself), you should petition nVIDIA directly.

The problem with the UEFI GOP is industry wide. As already explained, if you flash it and your motherboard is not compliant, you get stuck with a "bricked" situation. It is understandable why every company out there was reluctant to start handing them out, as that situation could easily get out of hand. I know people have bricked cards already.

That said, I find the hybrid solution ASUS is offering, a very good initiative on creating a failsafe system. Although I can bet that people will still manage to brick by not reading the disclaimer and flashing with an unsupported board..

[passthepurp]

Hey guys. I have a asus p8z77v - lx motherboard. 750 w PSU. 8 g of corsair DDR 1333 mhz Ram, Nvidea GEforce GTX 660. I am very happy with the performance of my machine. However ever since I put it together I have had a boot problem. It powers on, but sometimes I don't get a system beep. And nothing ever happens. No BIOS, no anything. So I have to power down and power back up sometimes several times until randomly I get a system beep, a bios screen and it loads my OS. It will run perfectly indefinitely. I just can't ever turn it back off without the hassle of not being able to step away from the power button until the thing decides it's ready to come out and play. Any Ideas?

[Andy_Vandijck]

I have modded the Gigabyte upgrade ROM for the ATI HD6450 to be compatible with an Asus EAH6450.
The tool to use must be run under windows (ATIWinFlash.exe).
This will give you full UEFI GOP support for the Asus EAH6450 (ATI HD6450 from Asus).
This is for the 1GB version of the card.
I tested this on my own PC and it works excellent.
I disable CSM support after flashing this ROM and it works perfectly.
I even have the VFCT table.
Not bad for a card which was supposed to not have any UEFI support...
Enjoy 😉 😄

Download:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=144666

[Daredude]

MarshallR@ASUS wrote:
Updated point 2 with new info.

That is great News Marshall! Many thanks for all the effort! One question though: I own a P8z77v-Pro. Does your new info mean my board is not entirely Windows 8 compatible? Your Website states, and I quote: "Windows 8 ready - Assured compatibility". Are there any dangers when using my 670 in this Board in uefi mode?

Thanks in advance,

Oliver

[X-ROG]

Daredude wrote:
That is great News Marshall! Many thanks for all the effort! One question though: I own a P8z77v-Pro. Does your new info mean my board is not entirely Windows 8 compatible? Your Website states, and I quote: "Windows 8 ready - Assured compatibility". Are there any dangers when using my 670 in this Board in uefi mode?

Thanks in advance,

Oliver

'

All Z77 boards will have a Windows 8 ready BIOS, you are fine.

Updated post #1 with even more info about legacy fall-back function of our hybrid BIOS. Good news: ASUS motherboards in the last ~4 years should be fully compatible with ASUS hybrid UEFI graphics card BIOS'.

Only GTX 600/HD 7000 are supported because all partners require support from Nvidia/AMD to give part of the code and support. As such, no partner will be releasing UEFI BIOS for GPU in older generations. Like all things, if you want the latest spec you have to buy the latest tech 😉

[chrsplmr]

M.Thank You for the HeadsUp .. and all.++

[eddiepropane]

Hi,

Hadn't checked the forum in a while due to my disappointment with ASUS.s stance regarding releasing a GOP BIOS for the high end cards but thought I would check back to see if there had been any change.

Really happy to see ASUS stepping up for us enthusiasts and just wanted to say thanks for listening to your customers, will be patiently waiting to flash my GTX680-DC2T-2GD5 😄

Cheers, Bob.

[Cerius]

also have a GTX680-2GD5-DC2T Device ID 10DEE-1180 hope is once supported