Has anyone tried the beta UEFI BIOS on their Gigabyte board?

[mxnerd]

What SATA port mode setting was your Windows installed in?
If Windows was installed with the bios set to IDE mode, and then the bios later switched to AHCI or RAID mode, a BSOD will result.

You might be right. I have been try to fix things and forgot to check which mode I was in.

Anyway, I re-installed yet again and chose RAID so later I can switch to AHCI or IDE.

However, I downloaded the back2awd as suggested (actually efi2awd downloaded here http://forums.tweaktown.com/attachm...3261131-gigabyte-latest-beta-bios-efi2awd.zip)

AND I swapped RAM module to make sure it's not RAM problem and redownloaded firmware F10 to F13, boot into DOS, ran efi2awd with 4 different BIOS, and efi2awd complained that all of them are Bad BIOS Images!

I'm really giving up. Need to contact Gigabyte.

 

[ZappDogg]

Is there a setting that refers to the Intel Smart Response setting? I've dug through the new BIOS and am either blind, stupid, or both.

 

[mxnerd]

Thanks for all the help.

Stupid me! I just found that the motherboard I have is rev 1.3, not 1.0 that I thought.

It's marked on the box, but not on the motherboard! Need to re-download all files and apply again. Do not know whether it makes any differences. Will report back.

 

[vailr]

Anyway, I re-installed yet again and chose RAID so later I can switch to AHCI or IDE.

Not sure that's a very good plan.
It's best to select AHCI mode in bios.
What mode do you get when you select "load optimized default settings"?
Maybe they also switched the default mode setting when upgrading to the UEFI bios?
With the Z77-UD5H board, AHCI mode is the default bios setting.

 

[mxnerd]

Is there a setting that refers to the Intel Smart Response setting? I've dug through the new BIOS and am either blind, stupid, or both.

Can't find any. But there is Intel Smart Connect Technology. No idea what it is.

Not sure that's a very good plan.
It's best to select AHCI mode in bios.
What mode do you get when you select "load optimized default settings"?
Maybe they also switched the default mode setting when upgrading to the UEFI bios?
With the Z77-UD5H board, AHCI mode is the default bios setting.

It's IDE when I load optimized default settings.

If I remember correctly, in the past I was able to swicth between RAID & AHCI on several systems,but apparently not with this one, it BSOD immediately when I tried to. Anyway, RAID mode is OK for me.


I think I'm stuck with this UEFI BIOS. I tried redo the firmware F10-F13 with efi2awd and failed. efi2awd still claims all BIOS images are bad.

Will try to run the system for a full day and see what happens since I swapped the RAM modules from another machine.

 

[vailr]

@mxnerd:
The most recent beta bios versions for the GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 board are:
UEFI bios - U1h
Standard bios - F12
There's no F13 bios listed:
http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/28441-gigabyte-latest-beta-bios-11.html#post274497
..............................................................
Oops edit: the GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 is a different board from the GA-Z68X-D3H-B3.
The tweaktown.com site doesn't provide any support files for the GA-Z68X-D3H-B3 board.

 

[mxnerd]

@mxnerd:
The most recent beta bios versions for the GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 board are:
UEFI bios - U1h
Standard bios - F12
There's no F13 bios listed:
http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/28441-gigabyte-latest-beta-bios-11.html#post274497

Thanks. But can't find my Z68A-D3H-B3 board. I don't want to risk bricking the board.

 

[vailr]

Correction, here's the official Z68A-D3H-B3 board bios support page:
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3856#bios
Latest UEFI bios - U1b
Latest standard bios - F13

 

[vailr]

I think I'm stuck with this UEFI BIOS. I tried redo the firmware F10-F13 with efi2awd and failed. efi2awd still claims all BIOS images are bad.

Did you try using the atbios (@bios) Windows version bios flash utility?
It successfully flashed my board, where the DOS version flasher could not.
Had to use Windows XP 32-bit, however. The installer crashed for the atbios beta version B12.0723.1 on Windows 7 64-bit, but installed and worked fine in Windows XP 32-bit.

 

[mxnerd]

Already tried @BIOS yesterday and it didn't work, since @BIOS only recognize non-UEFI BIOS. Once motherboard updated to UEFI BIOS, it does not recognize it any more.

Tried XP32 and same result.

 

[vailr]

This version definitely works for the UEFI bios on the Z77 boards:
http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/Utility.aspx?cg=2
@BIOS Version B12.0723.1 Date 2012/07/23
http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Utility/mb_utility_atbios.exe

May need a 32-bit OS to get installed, however.

 

[mxnerd]

Thanks vailr. But that still does not work.

I think I'll just stick with U1b for now and update it to final version when it comes out.

All I can say is Gigabyte is really slow to catch up, jesus!

After swapping the RAM modules, it seems the system ran fine all night long. The only thing that still doesn't work is hot plug. The UEFI BIOS still shuts down the PC immediately when I do hot plug. Other than that, it seems runs fine. I can live with that.

Best,

 

[ZappDogg]

Hey, I'm just happy some "legacy" boards are getting updates. How many companies would go "too bad, buy our new model!" instead of updating older chipsets.

 

[mxnerd]

I bought this board just 7 months ago and it's Z68 chipset, how can it be classified as "legacy"? The ASUS (Brazos) & ASROCK (also Z68) boards I bought a year ago already have UEFI on them.

 

[vailr]

that still does not work.

I think I'll just stick with U1b for now and update it to final version when it comes out.

I would still recommend updating the backup bios to match the version in the Primary bios, if possible.
The tweaktown.com site says that pressing ALT+F10 while in bios setup (or? maybe while in Q-Flash) can allow flashing the backup bios via copying over the contents of the Primary bios.
When you say: "The only thing that still doesn't work is hot plug", are you referring to eSATA or to a USB device?
Also: just noticed this item on the Gigabyte support site for your board:
"Support for Xpress BIOS Rescue".
Not familiar with that, but that might be a way to return to bios version F13, if that's what you wanted.

 

[mxnerd]

It's internal SATA, with or without my 3-tray RAID hot swap backplane. It works on ASUS, ASROCK, and even this pre UEFI BIOS Gigabyte motherboard before without any problem, never a crash.

I don't know if I'll try that ALT+F10 stuff, been spending too much time already.

 

[katapaltes]

By the way, the reason I updated to UEFI is suddenly the motherboard took several minutes to boot.

On my Z68MA-D2H-B3 (rev 1.0) using F9 BIOS, the motherboard took five minutes to boot. The problem started after I added another drive to the system. I had to reformat my first drive from GPT to MBR to fix the problem. There may be ways around this in the BIOS, and updating to UEFI will likely change things a lot.

 

[WT]

Unable to update the BIOS on my Z68XP UD3-iSSD board to the new UEFI BIOS. I tried QFlash but get an error stating 'BIOS ID check error'. I tried downloading the file again, same thing. There are no rev's of this particular board other than 1.0, so I know I have the right version.
It'd be nice to have UEFI working, but its been the most difficult BIOS update attempt I have ever done in 10+ years of working with PCs.

 

[vailr]

@WT: try the USB method described in post #3 of this discussion thread.

 

[WT]

@WT: try the USB method described in post #3 of this discussion thread.

Did that already. I FINALLY got it to work last night around midnight. I ended up using another thumb drive - I always use an old Dell 64mb USB drive for flashing, but this time it just didn't want to work. I tried another newer thumb drive and that worked as expected.

I've used QFlash before, so this failure as unexpected. But at least it is working, well sorta. My WHS reported that my backup failed last night, so I am now fiddling with the UEFI settings to get my mild O/C back (i2500k@4.1).

I noticed that my CPU must have Speedstep still turned on even tho I had disabled EIST and C1E - it fell back to 1.6 as soon as I closed every program that was open. Still fiddling with it, but it surely caused me issues.

 

[WT]

More weirdness with this UEFI BIOS when I boot into Windows. Here is what my CPU speed shows up as:

Note that it should be set to 4.1, which is what I had been running previously with the legacy BIOS. Ya, uhh, 5.9 is not correct. CPU-Z shows it as 4.1, so I trust that before what Windows may be reporting.

Also, any attempt to resume from sleep causes the PC to go through the infamous Gigabyte Z68 boot loop that can only be resolved by a power off and a cold boot. Not what I had hoped for, especially after having no issues before the BIOS update with this board.

I had a few BSODs yesterday before working out the initial bugs - code 0x00000124. I ran an 'SFC /scannow' which found no corruption, but after lowering my overclock from 4.5 to 4.1 the stability returned.

 

[vailr]

There's an (unofficial) update for the Intel Raid controller here:
http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/48085-gigabyte-modified-bios-18.html#post441998
Z68MA-D2H-B3 v1& v1.3 UEFI U1B
Update with...
Intel Raid Rom 11.6.0.1702

 

[tweakboy]

I dont get it, you mean when you post it says UEFI instead of AWARD ?

Im puzzled

 

[WT]

Seems like I can only make one change to the UEFI settings at a time. I changed my CPU from its default multi of 33 to 41, and turned off E1ST and saved and rebooted. It only saved the multi change, E1ST is enabled again when I boot into Windows.