How do you flash a bios without the CPU? Possible?

[Mithan]

I finally settled on buying a gigabyte X38 DQ6 to go along with a E8500 (when it is out) however I ran into a good "problem" posted by somebody on the Newegg comment section:


Basically, the gigabyte X38 DQ6 doesn't include support for Penryn/Wolfsdale without a Bios Upgrade (or so I am reading).



Well, if the Board wont post with one of those CPU's in it, how does one go about flashing the bios or can this somehow be done without a CPU?



Its a bit of a chicken or the egg type problem

 

[BladeVenom]

Most likely you send them yours, and they flash it for you, or better yet, cross ship.

Do you have another working computer that uses the same bios chip? Or another processor that will work with the X38?

 

[dingetje]

you could try slapping that bad boy in and let her rip

 

[googly]

ANswer: You read carefully BEFORE buying

 

[Peter]

Well, without the (C)entral (P)rocessing (U)nit running, pretty much nothing gets processed at all. So if you want the BIOS updated, you either borrow a supported CPU, flash the BIOS, and then put yours in - or you pull the BIOS ROM chip from its socket (if it is in a socket!) and have it programmed in a FlashROM programming machine.

 

[The-Noid]

Only the first bios didn't support these cpus.

The shipping bios since then supports it, and they have sent out many boards with the new bios.

 

[Capt Caveman]

You can:

1. Ask Gigabyte to send you an updated bios chip to swap out with your current one
2. Do a google search or ebay - there are people that will sell you for about $10-15 bios chips for your specific mobo with the latest bios

 

[PolymerTim]

I've also heard that "not supported can mean a lot of different things from will not post to some features disabled. You might have to either confirm the board you order comes with the recent bios or take a gamble on whether it will post or not.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: PolymerTim
I've also heard that "not supported can mean a lot of different things from will not post to some features disabled. You might have to either confirm the board you order comes with the recent bios or take a gamble on whether it will post or not.

ditto, usually it means cpu is not properly recognized and running at some odd clock frequency.