Is my Gigabyte Motherboard bricked?

[nsafreak]

I'm quite upset at myself now for deciding to flash my motherboard as it appears that the flash went bad. I decided to flash to get better USB3 support via BIOS version F12. This is a Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 rev 1.3 motherboard. I downloaded the appropriate file from Gigabyte's site and loaded it onto a flash drive that I haven't had any issues with, I even formatted the drive before using it. I rebooted the system, went into QFlash (I don't trust Windows based flashing utilities), had it flash from the USB flash drive, it stated it was successful, rebooted, and now after the boot spash screen there are just a bunch of vertical lines at the bottom of the screen with the boot screen logo still showing. Here's what I have tried so far to try and fix it:

• Clear the CMOS by shorting the jumper on the motherboard
• Remove the CMOS battery and letting it sit for half an hour unplugged without the battery (all accessories were unplugged from the PC as well)
• Pressing & holding the power & reset button for 10 seconds
• Shutting off the power supply with the switch on the back, press the power button then switch the power supply back on, right after the board gets power I release the power button and switch the power supply off with the switch on the back again, then switching it back on
• I got out a PS/2 keyboard and pressed ALT+F12, at first I though this was going to work because I read it was going to backup the main bios from the backup chip (which is what I wanted) but after hitting enter I re-read it and it was doing the opposite so now it may be that the backup and main BIOS are corrupt. Although it did say BIOS restore successful after that but the same thing still happens
• I should note that I am doing these boots with the bare minimum, graphics card removed, bare minimum of RAM and nothing but the keyboard & one monitor connected.

I have to admit that I'm a bit teared up at this point as I have put a lot of time and money into this system. I think the board is under warranty but Gigabyte is closed on the weekends so it'll have to wait until Monday before I can try to contact them. Is there any hope in all that I could perhaps do a blind QFlash or something with this board to get it working again? I do have an external USB 2.0 hard drive, multiple USB flash drives and a laptop with internet access (how I'm posting of course) to try and get this fixed. I would really appreciate any and all help that you folks could give.

 

[nsafreak]

Well a little voice in my head finally decided to speak up after I typed up and posted that long post telling me that I hadn't disconnected "everything". Turns out I had forgotten to disconnect my hard drives as part of the troubleshooting process. Well it turns out when I flashed the BIOS it had switched from AHCI to IDE and that was throwing the system for a loop. Once I unplugged the drives it came up with a prompt after the boot screen telling me that it was not set in AHCI mode and would I like to change it, which I set to yes. This then let me go back into the BIOS and change my settings to where they needed to be, hookup my drives again and I'm now back up and running. I feel pretty silly for forgetting that but I'm just happy that I don't have to RMA my motherboard.

 

[Ketchup]

Glad you got it figured out. That is a great board. BTW, I always do BIOS updates from Windows, and have never had an issue.

 

[nsafreak]

Glad you got it figured out. That is a great board. BTW, I always do BIOS updates from Windows, and have never had an issue.

I've thought of doing it from Windows but I'm just a stickler for doing it outside of Windows. Just an old habit from way back when I first started building PCs in the 486 days. They've probably made it a lot more stable than from when they first started making these types of tools available but I figure that since it's pretty darn easy to reboot and use the QFlash tool as is I might as well continue to use it.

 

[Ketchup]

I've thought of doing it from Windows but I'm just a stickler for doing it outside of Windows. Just an old habit from way back when I first started building PCs in the 486 days. They've probably made it a lot more stable than from when they first started making these types of tools available but I figure that since it's pretty darn easy to reboot and use the QFlash tool as is I might as well continue to use it.

My only fudged BIOS update was on an ECS board with an Athlon 1 Ghz. I was so glad when they started the Windows versions. To each his own though.

 

[chadashcroft22]

Nsafreak i got the same mobo as you and just wanted to let you know to hit alt+f12 to backup the main bios to the backup before you see the gigabyte logo appear on boot. This can really help with cold boot issues with this board. And per gigabyte always load optimized defaults in bios after flashing because gigabyte claims the bios doesn't get fully "updated" until you do this.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Glad you got it figured out. That is a great board. BTW, I always do BIOS updates from Windows, and have never had an issue.

Same here, ive been doing them since they were first offered about 10-12 years ago or so. Never had an issue.