ASUS is now on my official sh*tlist

[n7]

Asus Update is infamous for bricking their own motherboards.

Basically, never ever use it.
Use ALT + F2 (EZFlash + USB drive), or AFUDOS on a floppy if you really want.
Just never ever use the Asus Update (to all of you who use it).
If not the next time you use it, it will eventually eff you over, trust the countless numbers of us who have been screwed by it.

It's pretty sad; that program has been effing over Asus users for years now...you'll find countless people who bricked their mobo in the same way; i am one of them.

Sadly, support is pretty much a joke for all the major motherboard manufacturers, not just Asus.

Do not bother emailing them; it'll take forever to get a reply.

Call them; they are much better on the phone!

 

[smoothvirus]

Smoothvirus's quick rules of BIOS updating.

- only flash bios if you ABSOLUTELY have to. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. Flashing the BIOS to get 2 extra FPS in Doom is *not* worth it.
- do not flash your bios during a thunderstorm. (or a hurricane, or a windstorm, or anything else that can cause a blackout.)
- never, ever, ever, flash bios from windows, or any other GUI-based O.S. Use a boot floppy or the EZFlash plus flash drive.

I violated rule #1 once and the board wouldn't boot, after three CMOS resets it came back to life. Never did that again.

Abit had a windows-based flash utility too, don't know if they still do.

 

[badnewcastle]

Originally posted by: sgrinavi

Originally posted by: Zoomer
Use the old school dos flasher.

+1

+2

 

[kingtut00]

I just lost some 4 days due to their stupidity, no sata drivers, dvd drive will not boot, can't install ram drive. had to swap boards/
The sad part is, I lost 2 windows activations because of their sleepy QA department, is ASUS going to buy me new copy of windows? I am on my last activation!

 

[Old Hippie]

Abit had a windows-based flash utility too, don't know if they still do.

Yep, It's called FlashMenu.

 

[nyker96]

I've had Abit,shuttle,MSI,gigabyte,chaintech. so far lucky me never had a single problem with any yet. Asus never had one of their yet. From what I've googled, don't seem to be brand I want to try right now. Sorry you had to find it out the hard way, but sometimes we just had to go through some of that unfortunate exp. try gigabyte//abit. I've had them and recommended to some friends, not too much problem. Gigabyte less so than abit. of course I'm taking P35s. No experience with newer P45s. However, from what I've seen they update BIOS/firmware often, seems to care about their product very much and the windows BIOS update program from both firms never had any problems.

 

[zerogear]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman

Originally posted by: ROJAS

Originally posted by: AmberClad
Sorry that you have to find out the hard way -- it's somewhat commonly known that using the ASUS Windows BIOS updater is a no-no, and will result in a bricked BIOS.

Why doesn"t ASUS just disable the BIOS updater from Windows.

seriously...i think im like the only person on this earth that has had zero trouble with the asus windows bios updater...starting from the asus p4p800 (intel 865 chipset) to the p5q deluxe (p45 chipset).

that being said, i dont want to jinx myself though..

Haha, I had no problems flashing a P5K-E board through Asus Update. I flashed it through Microsoft SharedView (Desktop Sharing) on someone elses computer

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: TridenTBoy3555
Uh, Asus specifically says even on their own forums to not use the flashing program they give you... You are really supposed to put the BIOS on a CD or USB drive and reboot into the EZ Flash utility or whatever.

Well the problems with this are:

- Those warnings on ASUS Forums are not put there by ASUS but are topics created by users and stickied by volunteer moderators who are not employed by ASUS. Everything coming from ASUS itself does not warn or disclose any undue risk from using the ASUS WinFlash methods. Indeed, ASUS recommends them.

- Even EZ-Flash or the DOS utility can expressly be the wrong method to update the BIOS. Numerous ASUS models have particular BIOS releases with special update instructions along the lines of "Do not use EZ-Flash if updating from BIOS xxxx or older" or "Do not use DOS Flash Utility before version x.xx if your BIOS is older than xxxx."

These special update instructions may NOT be displayed when using the ASUS Update utility to check for and download BIOS updates. So even an informed user who tries to avoid the more risky WinFlash methods can end-up using the very method that is expressly NOT to be used, if he uses ASUS Update merely to locate and download the BIOS binary file, but actually updates the BIOS via the "safer" EZ-Flash or DOS utility located on the ASUS CD.

Its freaking ridiculous. I've never seen anything like the utter inconsistency that exists with ASUS procedures for updating a BIOS. ASUS somehow manages to make DOS flashing and EZ-Flash unusual risks for users of numerous models that may receive a 'special instruction' BIOS.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Originally posted by: n7
Asus Update is infamous for bricking their own motherboards.

Do not bother emailing them; it'll take forever to get a reply.

Call them; they are much better on the phone!

Yeah, I found that out. They have a support center in Silicon Valley, so I can send my board locally. Here's my descriptive letter accompanying the board:

---------------------------
This is a description and assessment to accompany RMA #XXXXXXX from yesterday (8/1/08).

I do not think the board is physically or electronically damaged in any way. You may need to check this. It does, however, absolutely require a new BIOS flash. I cannot do this myself because the board will not POST. I would also like to have it flashed with the most current working and released version, please.

And also, PLEASE ADVISE ME on the most reliable way to do any further BIOS upgrades. I think I will be booting into the BIOS from now on and using a thumb drive. No more GUI utilities for me!

This occurred because I've recently purchased an E8500 Penryn chip, and I wanted to do an upgrade. Unfortunately, the existing BIOS will not work with an E8500, as I bought the board in December 2007. So I resolved to do a BIOS upgrade, which I've done many times before on other machines. Unfortunately, the system runs Windows Vista 64-bit and I foolishly attempted to use the ASUS Update utility to perform the task. The program found my downloaded BIOS upgrade file to be just fine, but errored out immediately after carrying out the basic EEPROM reflash.

Got no joy from WinFlash, either. In fact I don't think WinFlash works in Vista 64-bit. If you guys are going to support it on your Web site, you should do some more research first.

ASUS's Support Web site is a mess, by the way. The use of the Flash plugin is truly horrible - badly designed and very slow to navigate. Some pages take huge amounts of time to appear even on very fast machines. For example, I was absolutely unable to download the 64-bit Vista version of the Update utility, and tried using the 32-bit version. That may be why it turned the system into a boat anchor.

This is because the heirarchical Downloads list, implemented in Flash, is one of the worst Web UI designs I have ever seen. Microsoft has been doing those stupid + lists for more than ten years. THEY DO NOT BELONG ON THE WEB! Flash is not a good tool for producing obsolete UI crap. Fix it, please!

The previous support site simply worked and was easy to navigate. FIRE the marketing idiot who wanted to redesign the site! It is a disaster.

Also note: I have lost absolutely no data. Nor do I need the board replaced, I'm pretty sure about that. But it REALLY needs to be fully re-flashed WITH THE CURRENT VERSION and sent back to me. I am delighted with the board's performance and DO NOT WANT IT REPLACED UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY! If it tests out unusable, then by all means replace it.

I am available for consulting contracts if Bay Area Support Center wants more input. Any more explanation, I charge for. My time is valuable.

Thank you very much!
---------------------------------

I'm not as mad as I was. ASUS now has a separate BIOS department in their support facility, at least in Fremont. So I am optimistic that I will be able to receive my existing board back.

 

[lizrdfishr]

After several failed attempts to upgrade to Windows XP SP 3, I figured out the problem and sent this to ASUS tech support. ASUS, never again.

[Problem Description]
After installing XP SP3 I get a BSOD for a non ACPIP compliant BIOS. From the
forums I can see that there is no fix only work arounds. I do not have any USB devices I
can plug in to make this go away. What can I do?

The reply:
WTM20080723055597034 Re: Motherboard A8N32-SLI Deluxe [ID=RWTM20080723055597034-260] 2008-07-23 01:35:11
Hello,

We recommend rolling back to SP2. Otherwise you will need to contact Microsoft at 1-800-Microsoft.

Best Regards,

Rob
Level 3/Lead Tech Support Engineer
ASUS Technology
Phone: (812)-282-ASUS
RMA: 510-739-3777 opt. 2
http://www.asus.com
http://support.asus.com
http://livesupport.asus.com

 

[gammaray]

its time for you guys to switch to MSI

 

[OCChronic]

Your board may not be dead. Have you tried using only 1 stick of RAM to see if it boots? I flashed a Gigabyte board to the latest BIOS and it wouldn't boot with 2 sticks of RAM. I thought the board was dead until I removed one stick. The new BIOS read the SPD/EPP info. and set the defaults differently than the original BIOS and it wouldn't boot in dual channel mode anymore.

Once I booted with 1 stick and the new BIOS, I set the mem. timings to their proper settings, reset everything to my previous overclock, then inserted the second stick while powered off and powered up again with both sticks of RAM running dual channel. The system has been rock solid stable ever since. =)

Hope this helps.

 

[EarthBoy]

I just flashed my P5K with windows update, no problems here. but I'll probably do Ez Flash from now on.. thanx for the advice

 

[TheInternal]

I just did my first ASUS build in a long time (or was it my first? I loose track after 1000 or so computer builds), and it was one of the cleanest installs I've ever done. Glad I heard the BIOS updater is quirky. Perhaps I'll steer clear of flashing it since everything seems to be working right off the bat.

My board is the ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe. It even played nice with the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro and Hauppauge WinPVR 500 MCE that my Neo 4 Platinum Pro wouldn't allow to co-exist.

 

[n7]

ALT + F2.

There's nothing wrong with updating your BIOS; i do it a ton.

Like i said, the key is to use EZ Flash, not their broken windows-based flasher.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Well while I was using the striker II formula I always unzipped the new bios to a flash drive and then used the bios flash utility to do the work and it never failed me. I love the bios flash feature on the new mb's and won't ever flash without it.