If your bios or vbios flash failed post here.

I thought it might be good idea to start a thread to discover why or how bios updates fail. I have read many of the threads describing the correct way to do it, and have done my machine with no issues but I thought it would be interesting to see why others have done it and had problems. I found as I visited the forum my anxiety increased with each post about a failed flash. I have the luxury of having another machine I could use if mine failed but for some this is not an option, which of course increases their stress level even more.

Most of the failed flash posts do not go into detail as to why they failed. If we can analyze the failures it may help others who are teetering on the edge of flashing to avoid the mistakes of others. It also might help to relieve some of the apprehension concerning flashing, or increase it, depending on the reasons for failed attempts.

So post your failed ‘Flashing’ stories here. Of course some might have to wait to get their machine back prior to posting.

 

Sometimes it will just fail for no real reason. Don't use Winflash (Some people use it to some success but no reason to when you have the much safer method readily available), make sure the BIOS isn't corrupted, use the Easy Flash in the BIOS and hope for the best. I've flashed the BIOS 3 times no problem though using the Easy Flash in the BIOS.

 

Bricked mine using EZFlash with the BIOS image on a hard drive instead of a flash drive. No logical reason that shouldn't work but I won't do that again I already had RMA paperwork (for other issues) and the box material ready to go, so it was worth the risk at the time...just added "Won't boot" to the list of issues and sent it in as a paperweight.

I have no idea how many firmware flashes for assorted hardware I've done over the years - flashing from floppies, CDs, DVD,s and hard drives, and that's the only one that's ever failed.

 

I used the EZFlazsh 2 times both from a usb flash drive. From 201 to 206, worked perfectly. From 206 to 211 it ran as normal said it would reboot and after it shut down to reboot it was bricked. RMA replaced the mobo. The only thing that I did not do was the check sum calc to make sure the file was complete.

This is the second time I had a bios flash go bad with a laptop. Once on a Toshiba and now on the G73. However, the toshiba had a built in mechanism to reset the bios if you have high tech knowledge so I didn't have to RMA it. I have never had any issues with bios flashes on dozens of desktop mobo's from various manufacturers.

 

I had a bios flash to 211 fail using the asus flash utility in bios. Everything seemed to go well but when my system restarted the screen stayed black.

BRICKED.

Got it fixed though im scared to ever flash it, or the vbios (currently stock with no problems thankfully) ever again.

 

Asus has dual bios(es) on their newest ATI cards. Kinda neat, one is locked and can't be reflashed, the other, if it fails ... eh. Use the locked one to reflash the bricked part!

 

We are talking about Asus mobo's bios here, not ATI gpu vbios. I wish the mobo's had a dual bios or a recoverable bios partition in the chip itself.