Flashing Gigabyte motherboards for new Ryzen CPUs

[LukeFF]

So, long story short, my 5600X arrived today, and I read that I need to flash the BIOS in order to get it working with the 5600X. My board is the X570 from Gigabyte. Trouble is, no matter what I do, I cannot get the BIOS to flash. I followed the instructions in the video below, but nothing changed. Anyone have any luck with this board with the new Ryzen CPUs?

 

 

[Jaws2002]

What board?  I flashed the bios on my x570 Aorus Master multiple times. 

 Check your manual. Some Gigabyte motherboards have dual bios. You have to flash both of them. 

 I usually download the bios, format a USB stick with fat32, then copy the bios on the stick.

 Shut down the pc and clear CMOS. My board has a handy button on the IO panel in the back.

Then plug the USB stick in the "Q- Flash" usb port on the back and restart. 

When the computer is powering up i hit the key to initiate thw Q flashing. Then follow the menu.  Select the file on the usb stick and select if you want to flash just one bios or both.

 It's safer to flash one bios, restart. Make sure everything works then flash rhe second one. 

 Dual Bios could be a pain, because if the self test at the boot up doesn't like something, it can switch to the second bios and you won't notice it.

 

If your board has dual bios, check the jumpers/ switches on the morherboard. You could be flashing one bios, while the jumper is set for the other one. My board has two LED's and i can see if the primary or the secondary bios is active. 

 Check the manual.

 

Edited November 26, 2020 by Jaws2002

[LukeFF]

It's the X570 Aorus Elite motherboard. I've followed the instructions above in that video to the letter, and still I'm getting nowhere.  I powered down everything, ensured that only the power cables were connected to the board - nothing else, no CPU, no RAM, etc. I plug in the flash drive with the F30 revision renamed to GIGABYTE.bin as the instructions say to do. I press the white Q-Flash button on the mobo, and the only lights I see at that point are on the flash drive, which go out after a few seconds.

 

Nothing more happens with the flash drive and board that I can see, so I remove the flash drive, reinstall the CPU and RAM and...still nothing after I power up the computer. I have the K95 Corsair keyboard, and after a few seconds that starts displaying a weird rainbow pattern, so that tells me something is still wrong.

 

I don't know what else to do at this point, and I'm really getting fed up and frustrated. Flashing a BIOS shouldn't be this hard.

[Gambit21]

Luke, I’m sure there are forums on the Gigabyte site. Check them out and see if anyone has had a similar problem.

 

You're right that it shouldn’t be this hard.

 

[LukeFF]

1 minute ago, Gambit21 said:

Luke, I’m sure there are forums on the Gigabyte site. Check them out and see if anyone has had a similar problem.

 

You're right that it shouldn’t be this hard.

 

Yes, I've had a look around but need to look closer at their forums. 

[Jaws2002]

Ah, sorry. I flashed the bios multiple times, but from bios, with all the paarts installed. Never without a cpu installed. I never renamed the file, but maybe it's a required step when flashing without Cpu. My 3950x required new bios when i got it, but i already had a working system with 3600x.

 I was able to update, from bios, with a working system.

 There has to be some official tutorial.

 

[LukeFF]

10 minutes ago, Jaws2002 said:

There has to be some official tutorial.

 

There is, but it's not working with my system. And, of course it's a holiday weekend, so I'm stuck at the moment.

[LukeFF]

I had a look at the Gigabyte forums and couldn't find any solution to my issue. I also tried another flash drive, but that didn't work either. I really don't know what to think anymore at this point.

[robbiec]

Suspect you might need to throw a Ryzen of some sort in there to flash it. Put the 5600 in + RAM and go through instruction set again. If it doesn't work then you can mail AMD and they will send you a cpu just to flash bios or bring it into a local store and beg, borrow, steal a 1x, 2x, 3x Ryzen for 5 mins

[Sokol1]

Try "old school" method.

 

Format an USB stick with FAT32. In Windows Explore right click over, choose format and FAT32.

- Here an guy say that can't use stick above 32 GB size.

 

EXTRACT the downloaded BIOS file for the stick.

 

Plug the sick in one USB port - don't use the blue ones.

 

Power on the computer and press DEL for access Q-Flash, or enter (F2) in BIOS Advanced Mode and in menu choose BIOS Update.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Sokol1

[LukeFF]

4 hours ago, robbiec said:

Suspect you might need to throw a Ryzen of some sort in there to flash it. Put the 5600 in + RAM and go through instruction set again. If it doesn't work then you can mail AMD and they will send you a cpu just to flash bios or bring it into a local store and beg, borrow, steal a 1x, 2x, 3x Ryzen for 5 mins

 

That's what it looks like I'm going to do. I plan on picking up an older AM4 chip from Amazon, using that to flash the BIOS, and then returning it when I'm done. It's not the way I want to do things, but with no computer shops close by that's probably my best option at this point. 

35 minutes ago, Sokol1 said:

Try "old school" method.

 

Format an USB stick with FAT32. In Windows Explore right click over, choose format and FAT32.

- Here an guy say that can't use stick above 32 GB size.

 

EXTRACT the downloaded BIOS file for the stick.

 

Plug the sick in one USB port - don't use the blue ones.

 

Power on the computer and press DEL for access Q-Flash, or enter (F2) in BIOS Advanced Mode and in menu choose BIOS Update.

 

I've tried that with multiple flash drives, and none have worked. 

[Jaws2002]

Try contacting Gigabyte in another zone. UK or europe. They don't have Thanksgiving.

When i flashed mine, i did it with all the parts in, but i never renamed the files. 

 Try it that way. Maybe it works. 

 Hit End key during bootup to enter Qflash plus menu.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Jaws2002

[dburne]

A motherboard bios should definitely not be that difficult to flash. Shame on Gigabyte.

[-332FG-Gordon200]

@LukeFF I have a Ryzen 5 X4-950 (3.5Mhz) I'm not using. You're welcome to it. PM me your address and I'm ship it out tomorrow.

[Confused_2018]

Umm err silly question, does the flash drive have to be bootable?

[Jaws2002]

4 minutes ago, Confused_2018 said:

Umm err silly question, does the flash drive have to be bootable?

Yes.

[LukeFF]

23 minutes ago, QB.Gordon200 said:

@LukeFF I have a Ryzen 5 X4-950 (3.5Mhz) I'm not using. You're welcome to it. PM me your address and I'm ship it out tomorrow.

 

Thank you! Message sent.

47 minutes ago, dburne said:

A motherboard bios should definitely not be that difficult to flash. Shame on Gigabyte.

 

Yeah, it's a mess. Looking online, I see I'm not the only one to have this trouble with flashing the BIOS on this board.

[LukeFF]

Well, I really need to eat some crow right now. It turns out I was using the wrong flash update files for my motherboard. Long story short, I was using initially the files for the non-Wi-fi version of the motherboard. Thing is, I bought the Wi-Fi version. Once I downloaded the right files, the motherboard started flashing properly. 

[Jaws2002]

Good you figured it out. Congrats. ?

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, Jaws2002 said:

Good you figured it out. Congrats. ?

 

Yeah, that was an exercise in frustration I could have avoided. ? I'm glad in the end, though, that it only delayed me a day in finishing setting everything up.

[56RAF_Stickz]

he he - not before your problems caused me to swap from first choice aorus elite to order a msi 570 tomahawk

[dburne]

6 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

Yeah, that was an exercise in frustration I could have avoided. ? I'm glad in the end, though, that it only delayed me a day in finishing setting everything up.

 

Welcome to my world...

It is called - getting old.

[Sokol1]

Luck that this Q-Flash is "bullet proof", don't write the wrong BIOS, in the past some people brick motherboards loading the wrong BIOS.

[Gambit21]

Glad you got it sorted Luke!

[LuftManu]

Nice to hear, Luke!

[LukeFF]

15 hours ago, Sokol1 said:

Luck that this Q-Flash is "bullet proof", don't write the wrong BIOS, in the past some people brick motherboards loading the wrong BIOS.

 

Yes, it works really good - the motherboard reads the file from the flash drive, and if the file doesn't match the model of the board, nothing happens.