Why Can't I Flash My Motherboard BIOS? Basic Fault Finding Steps & Fixes

#biosflash #biosupdate #howto #mikesunboxing
Why cant i flash my motherboard bios? Basic fault finding steps and fixes
Today we are looking at BIOS flashing and reason why you might not be able to perform a bios update on your motherboard.
Some of the reasons it won't flash are overlapping but the areas covered here are all good diagnostic ideas that might solve the problem.
1 Wrong BIOS file?
i. check the motherboard model and revision if applicable
ii. Are you jumping too many BIOS updates? Try an older version or smaller steps
iii. does the Motherboard have a custom bios from the manufacturer?
2 Bios file not unzipped or extracted fully.
3 BIOS file not renamed correctly
4 USB Drive too big or not compatible
5 Try extracting and renaming the file on another PC
6 Verify you don't have a hardware fault that is preventing the bios flash.
7 Reset the CMOS and try again
Helpful links
How to create a smaller FAT32 file partition on larger drives
• How To Create A FAT32 ...
Reset the CMOS
• How To RESET Your PC B...
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[@uglybob7505]

Great instructional video Mike. Judging by the number of BIOS queries that come into your Discord channel this video will surely be of help to folk. Thanks Mike and Kath 🙂

[@mikesunboxing]

yeah this one will be pinned in the tech chat for sure, will save Dave and others loosing what hair they have left :-)

[@g.r.e1982]

If it ain't broke don't fix it

[@jrose-xp6tf]

Funny, just last night I updated my daughter's MSI Gaming Edge Z490 bios and it acted funny when selecting the ROM and I had to enter it 3 times before it grabbed...I never saw this in over 30 years of flashing.

[@philstodd]

Great educational video as always.

[@mikesunboxing]

thanks Phil, hope you have a great day

[@PedroMSMarques]

hello . excellent video congratulations. Today I bought a gigabyte b650m ds3h revision 1.3 motherboard. Cp Ryzen 5 7600, and 32 gigs Corsair Veangeance. PC starts up but doesn't show the image. I tried updating the bios and it doesn't work either. I downloaded the correct file, flash drive mbr and fat 32. When I insert the flash drive and press the qflash button, nothing flashes. There are no LEDs blinking. Power supply starts and stops. Could the motherboard be defective? thanks

[@mikesunboxing]

sounds like a short circuit or motherboard pillar short, that cpu should work out of the box with that motherboard

[@skystalker7700]

Fantastic video, Mike! Great for those among us that end up helping people on the “Mike’s Unboxing” Discord server. Thanks for putting it up!

[@mikesunboxing]

Yeah it should be mandatory that users watch this before they start

[@D_8KEN]

Going to be sharing this a lot! Thank you! 🙏

[@mikesunboxing]

Please do! It’s going to hopefully save us a lot of typing and questions

[@sheldonkupa9120]

Mike, your recent videos helped me save my server mainboard😄👍 Just wanted to share my yesterdays scary experience with bios mysteries: Asus Prime b450 Plus board, Ryzen 2700x: put in new 32 Gb Ram. Perfectly booting, but couldnt get into bios to adjust frequency, just an active, but black screen. Exchanging ram modules, trying different slots, trying hdmi and display port, another monitor, taking bios battery out didnt help. Couldnt update bios via windows (the board doesnt support it), no flashback available. Finally, but not recommended, i used the legacy asus bw-updater tool for Dos. This let me start the flash process, but insta failed and corrupted the bios as planned. Then i put a usb stick with the renamed bios file in a mobo usb slot and restarted. Boom, bios update worked via Asus crashfree bios update, everything working perfectly and Ram running at 3600 speed without issues. Crash free is really obsolete, but it did its thing. Nice!

[@Senrab46]

Until I found your channel cannot recall ever doing bios updates but then I'm old lol. Following your tuition since building Ryzen pc's never had any issues with bios updates with flash button, within bios or mb software centres! Thank you for excellent videos taking the strain outta the process Mike and Kath 🐈👍

[@mikesunboxing]

Glad to help!

[@Jacko_486]

Thank you, very interesting. I had damaged the pins on a motherboard and even though it would boot the bios flashback didn't work (and other issues). Thankfully I got it from Scan who replaced both the CPU motherboard after an unsuccessful repair, without a charge!

[@mikesunboxing]

Good to hear

[@volk533]

Useful video, thank you!😉

[@mikesunboxing]

Glad it was helpful!

[@MikeBob2023]

Thank you Mike! 🙏🏼 Last month I plugged a brand new, freshly formatted 32GB _Verbatim_ flash drive into the back of my (bare) *ASRock Z690 Taichi* motherboard to flash the BIOS and ... NOTHING happened. I started to panic, but then decided to switch to a new _PNY_ flash drive I had (both drives were fresh out of their packaging) and _it_ worked perfectly. Needless to say I won't be buying anymore Verbatim flash drives. 😆 Thanks again. 👍🏼

[@mikesunboxing]

no worries and glad you got there in the end

[@johnpaulbacon8320]

Thanks for this informatve and helpful video.

[@mikesunboxing]

Glad it was helpful!

[@lorderectus1849]

Mike on his flashing escapades!

[@alberthodge631]

good information, thanks

[@mikesunboxing]

Glad it was helpful!

[@WilliamAndrewPhilipBodie]

There is always some thing new/good to learn on MUB. Thanks Mike 😀

[@mikesunboxing]

You bet!

[@AhnafTalukder-dy8nl]

Mike can you review the Asus PRIME B650M-A WIFI II pls pls pls

[@mikesunboxing]

i'll see what i can do

[@JuraIbis]

I tried to flash my Ryzen ASUS board and it froze at the progress bar at 0%. When I rebooted of course the machine would blank freeze. Fortunately I have BIOS flashback. It was a breeze to do, I highly recommend it. Should have done it that way a long time ago.

[@kevinsteinman8967]

The reason for having to do a step bios update is due to that sometimes there is a small chipset firmware update/change within the bios update. This happens a good bit on A-Suck a good percentage of the time. So the newest bios might have to rely on that firmware update/change to the chipset for it to work accordingly. Sometimes it is listed in the description of the bios and then again sometimes not. A good rule of thumb is to use a 8 gig or less usb drive preferably 1.0 usb drive because of the speed factor that I have found in my shop for the bios chip to read correctly. (strange I know).

[@dnashj33]

One other thing I would make sure to note, Mike, is that people MUST use a USB drive that is 32GB or less (don't waste your time trying to get around it like I did). I don't know exactly why, but I had a 256GB drive and had used a free utility to format it to FAT32. The MB STILL would not read from the drive and I was on the verge of RMA'ing the board. But, I borrowed a 2GB thumb drive from a friend and tried to flash again...this time it worked.

[@mikesunboxing]

yeah the fat32 windows file limit catches a lot of people out

[@JBrinx18]

Had a memory overclock break the BIOS chip once, would not reset no matter if I pulled the CMOS battery or used the BIOS flashback feature, had to send it in for RMA. It was a MSI B550 Gaming Edge Wifi, has been excellent since the repair

[@chrismurphy8383]

Confusing formats for USB. We watched you do a Fat32 but earlier, you said it needs to be in MBR format? Are they the same? Never heard of MBR

[@mikesunboxing]

Mbr and uefi are also types of system or low level systems. Mbr is the older style and was known as master boot record so the system would look at the master boot record to see what sort of drive it is before even looking at the format of the data. New systems use uefi which allows a bit more flexibility and compatibility with modern hardware

[@chrismurphy8383]

@@mikesunboxing Yes, quite. BUT you said on the video ensure it is mbr - and then did a FAT32 and then said it was all ready for a bios

[@mikesunboxing]

Yes fat32 is the file system mbr is the platform or drive type. Like ford is the car brand and fiesta is the model

[@chrismurphy8383]

@@mikesunboxing Cool - you can understand the confusion when you state: "When the drives are doing FAT32, they need to be in what's known as MBR format."

[@naviix9]

does the usb have to be completely empty or can i also have a copy of windows as well?

[@mikesunboxing]

Windows won’t fit on a fat32 drive as the wim file is over 3gb

[@MouseHunteR77n]

I did Bios flash on Asus rog Strix B550 F with AMD 5900x did it pretty simple it's always great idea 💡 make sure use I'd software like cpuz or any other software that may help you.

[@mikesunboxing]

Thanks for sharing

[@Captainshrapnel]

Thanks bud

[@mikesunboxing]

No problem 👍

[@bornlivedie]

I bought a new motherboard this week and had to rely on bios flashback for CPU compatibility, so I searched KZbin on how to do it and the first video result was yours. I followed your guide, but unfortunately, it didnt work. Turns out my motherboard is very picky when it comes to USB drives (had to buy a cheap 32gb USB 2.0 drive). Now, you release this video. What are the chances?

[@mikesunboxing]

great timing

[@derekwilson285]

When changing the file name. Example to gigabyte.bin. I have seen the same person entering. GIGABYTE.BIN. or gigabyte.bin. sometimes all caps, sometimes lower case. Does this matter. Does motherboard recognize both styles when flashing.

[@bornlivedie]

yes, it will work both ways

[@mikesunboxing]

both should be ok

[@Captainshrapnel]

Ha you helped me with this problem with my b450 gaming max it was my usb stick was old and had been formated lots of times so it wasnt the helthist usb stick it wouldn't flash so I used an old 3rd gen cpu to upgrade bios clearly old usb don't work well for bios flash new usb should be fine

[@mikesunboxing]

glad to help

[@bigdaddywatt]

I'll keep this one in the bank and hopefully never need it, thanks

[@aseroxd]

There are not many things that terrify me, but flashing a bios is definitely one of them. I've lost too many hardware trying to flash their bios so I refuse to do it.

[@mikesunboxing]

it can be a scary time

[@mikesnowleopard]

mostly its just wrong file name and wrong usb port, especially when using flashback method.

[@mikesunboxing]

Yes, you are right

[@g.r.e1982]

If it ain't broke don't fix it never had to do a bios flash brick the board and your screwed