It's been a while that I wanted to make a BIOS flashback tired of 1604 lockups and waiting for the release of the new one.After the incident I will describe I am ready to lost faith to this mainboard and I am starting to believe that no new BIOS revision will give reliability to this product.So for not take things long what I did is the following:1. I used the BIOS file renamer to the same folder with 1408.2. I transferred the file to FAT formatted stick that I have it permanently connected to the ROG USB port.3. I entered BIOS, loaded defaults, saved and exit.4. Rebooted, checked defaults and shuted down.5. I cleared CMOS, restarted and entered BIOS.6. Through EZflash I flashed the renamed file.7. Waited for successful screen appear and required reboot by the procedure.8. Entered BIOS, verified revision (OK).9. Shut down again, cleared CMOS again.10.Entered BIOS loaded defaults saved and rebooted.11. ....Voila, the surprise of my life. On my screen, instead of everything being in AUTO and target frequency to 3900, I see loaded an OC profile with a multiplier to 42.Please note that until that time, I already had inspected most of the screens during the above steps and everything were in AUTO. Also my OC profiles were erased after the flash.How this thing is possible and how this thing can be explained?
feniks wrote:This a copy of a recent thought into the main thread for 1604 BIOS problem.Please have a look to my thread:http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread...y=&status=That incident made think something. (Maybe I am wrong).We all waiting for a new BIOS. I think that the problem for the lockups is not there. BIOS is the program (firmware) of the board. When we change things inside we don't actually change things into BIOS. We change things in CMOS, which is a different thing, an EEPROM that the firmware reads when it starts and uses its values. So when we have lockups it's not the BIOS that gives the error. It' s the CMOS values (EEPROM), that cannot change. I do not know the detailed engineering behind this and how this cooperate but I strongly believe that a new BIOS revision it is will not give the solution to our problem. It's just a thought..... CMOS and BIOS are two different things and two different chips. If I am right no BIOS revision will give solution because the problem is located to the EEPROM chip. I wish I knew if BIOS can affect the behavior of EEPROM and if a firmware revision can give solution or we face faulty EEPROM CMOS chips, meaning mainboard replacement.
I see same things after Clear CMOS and Loading Defaults, especially the first time I do that. Usually the next Load Defaults clears it out. have never seen it however before different BIOS revisions ... hmmm .... however I was only going upwards on BIOSes and for 704 BIOS comparison I use BIOS2 on the selector (MVE has 2 independent BIOS chips) have you tried removing the 3.3V battery from MB, cutting the power to MB and leaving it for 30 minutes or so? might also help to unplug all power enabled devices like Ethernet cable and USB devices.All i can say is that this board stores some profiles (not saved by user) somewhere and it is able to pull them out of the blue moon and screw things up.Your issue doesn't surprise me severely however because you used 2 affected BIOS revisions (1604 and 1408). I think you would not see such issue if you flashed back to 704 BIOS (last stable before UEFI improvements and ROG Exchange introduction).Explanation could be as simple as saying that ASUS BIOSes do NOT flash the whole thing at all and that includes some place where secondary/backup profile of temporary BIOS settings is stored.
feniks wrote:
Let me check something on my MVE. Since I have 2 separate BIOSes on it then I have 2 separate CMOS chips. so far I've been saying firmly that 704 never causes me grief, but I have this BIOS flashed on BIOS2 chip while on BIOS1 I test latest ones. Wondering if I flashed 1604 to BIOS2 I would still get problems like I see on BIOS1. if not then your theory might hold, but if I do then it would be false. Testting will take a longer time though, I am not into benching nowadays, trying to play some games 🙂
Also since Shamino was able to actually replicate our problem with multiplier not kicking in then I think this issue truly can be healed by a BIOS update. problem might be related to how BIOS writes things to CMOS or how it accesses them in fail safe mode rather then bad CMOS chip itself.
I really hope for my thoughts to be wrong. It's just a huge surprise for me to see this profile on my screen, while the same time non of my stored OC profiles excisted. I think I will remove the battery and I will go back to something before 1309 and do some testing.
Good gaming for you :).
AusRoG wrote:I know what you mean. Unfortunately I didn't own the board to earlier 1309 BIOS revs to have a personal opinion. Also I have no real knowledge of the physical shape of the components and how they function and interfere. It's just a simple result of logic based on what I already know about computers and the fact that after twice clearing CMOS and reverting to defaults, never expected to see a 42 multiplier appear there. I am in between to wait for new one and go back to earlier versions to test them by myself. Also to anything I do I have to use a reference for comparison. If doubt for this reference also, then chaos remains.
If it was faulty memory (CMOS), I suspect we would have seen even worse problems than this. Also, from what I read the problems only started after ROG exchange was incorporated into the BIOS and does not manifest with boards using BIOS versions before that... again indicating the problem is with software bugs in BIOS, not faulty CMOS. So let's hold thumbs for that eagerly anticipated new BIOS version.
Updated news.
I flashed back to 0804 Revision. This time the CMOS was cleared with a battery removal. Everything went fine but...
Now the XMP profile of memory is not saved. That was the part, never gave any problems and now it's stuck to 1333MHz.
I load the profile in BIOS, all the relative columns on the right side get their values, but the left column showing the current values are staying to the default of 1333.
I 'll upload some pics.
Any suggestions except to go and change its and every value manually?
I flashed back to 0804 Revision. This time the CMOS was cleared with a battery removal. Everything went fine but...
Now the XMP profile of memory is not saved. That was the part, never gave any problems and now it's stuck to 1333MHz.
I load the profile in BIOS, all the relative columns on the right side get their values, but the left column showing the current values are staying to the default of 1333.
I 'll upload some pics.
Any suggestions except to go and change its and every value manually?
