P5E-x38 motherboard BIOS fryed? suggestions?

[wuzupfoo]

After reading online about the interchangability of BIOS's between the Maximus and Rampage Formula with the P5E, I decided to try and get the new BIOS installed. I picked the Rampage BIOS and installed via afudos, all seemed well and it told me to restart. So I pulled the CMOS battery and restarted. Now the computer hangs right at the BIOS intro - it shows the Rampage Start screen but doesnt go beyond that. When I press DEL or TAB to either go into the BIOS setup or to see the POST it is non-responsive.

I have a bad feeling I might toasted this board. Please let me know if you have any ideas on recovering the board.

 

[o1die]

Asus has a program called crashfree recovery 3 on some of it's motherboard cd's. At least you're getting a video screen, which means that all is not lost.

 

[Drsignguy]

Originally posted by: o1die
Asus has a program called crashfree recovery 3 on some of it's motherboard cd's. At least you're getting a video screen, which means that all is not lost.

O1die is right, not is lost just yet. I had symtems like this and it turned out to be a bad DVD drive. It worked 1 boot and then the next it just died. took me a bit to figure this out. Sometimes it would "hang" for quite a while before it would do anything. So, you should remove everything except 1 drive and 1 stick of ram. Now it does seem that you have a bios problem since you tried to install an updated version that just didn't take, but by removing most hardware, it increases your chances to get into bios.

 

[wuzupfoo]

yeah thanks for suggestions, I have removed everything but the bare essentials and it still hangs.. Im gonna try and leave it on for a while to see if it does anything. Crashfree doesnt really work because it doesnt even get to that point in the POST where it detects a corrupt BIOS so it doesnt search for a new BIOS on the CD....

blahh this is frustrating.. I shouldve left well enough alone..

 

[Quiksilver]

Scratch what I said here like 30 seconds ago... (edited out)

You did indeed brick your motherboard because you tried flashing a x48 chipset bios onto an x38 chipset board.

You need the P5E Deluxe (X48 chipset obviously) in order to flash to the rampage forumula bios.

What you wanted was the maximus formula bios for your board... then it would have worked.

 

[chodi]

Originally posted by: Quiksilver
Scratch what I said here like 30 seconds ago... (edited out)

You did indeed brick your motherboard because you tried flashing a x48 chipset bios onto an x38 chipset board.

You need the P5E Deluxe (X48 chipset obviously) in order to flash to the rampage forumula bios.

What you wanted was the maximus formula bios for your board... then it would have worked.

Way to give wrong information. I own a P5E that I flashed and converted to Rampage Formula without issue. They are the identical board save a few temperature sensors and a different shape to the heatsinks (yes there is an extra lan port on the RF). The X38 is an X48 the only difference is that the X48 has 1600 fsb certification. Since my converted P5E can do 530X8.5 with my E8600 I do not believe I require any certification. The mistake the poster did was to try to flash the RF bios with AFUDOS. That will not work. The method for this is spelled out in detail on another forum. I do not know if we are allowed to post links to other forums so I will just say that it is easily found on the XS Forum (I would interpret that as xtreme systems). They give very detailed instructions and links to the software necessary to make this go perfectly. I did it in ten minutes and the benifits were substantial.

To the original poster, I strongly suggest you get a clean usb flash drive and follow the instructions on the above forum under Rampage conversion. I think there is a very good chance that if you do it properly it will work for you even after your failed attempt.

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: chodi

Originally posted by: Quiksilver
Scratch what I said here like 30 seconds ago... (edited out)

You did indeed brick your motherboard because you tried flashing a x48 chipset bios onto an x38 chipset board.

You need the P5E Deluxe (X48 chipset obviously) in order to flash to the rampage forumula bios.

What you wanted was the maximus formula bios for your board... then it would have worked.

Way to give wrong information. I own a P5E that I flashed and converted to Rampage Formula without issue. They are the identical board save a few temperature sensors and a different shape to the heatsinks (yes there is an extra lan port on the RF). The X38 is an X48 the only difference is that the X48 has 1600 fsb certification. Since my converted P5E can do 530X8.5 with my E8600 I do not believe I require any certification. The mistake the poster did was to try to flash the RF bios with AFUDOS. That will not work. The method for this is spelled out in detail on another forum. I do not know if we are allowed to post links to other forums so I will just say that it is easily found on the XS Forum (I would interpret that as xtreme systems). They give very detailed instructions and links to the software necessary to make this go perfectly. I did it in ten minutes and the benifits were substantial.

To the original poster, I strongly suggest you get a clean usb flash drive and follow the instructions on the above forum under Rampage conversion. I think there is a very good chance that if you do it properly it will work for you even after your failed attempt.

Huh, I didn't even notice he used afudos... that would indeed cause bios corruption.

So I'm half right/half-wrong, I would assumed you wouldn't be able to cross-flash chipsets even if they are both bearlakes.

Also you can link to other forums (I tried searching on XS for a post about this, but I didn't see it.)

 

[chodi]

Since The man with 2724 posts sys its ok, here is the link to detailed instructions on how to convert your P5E/Maximus Formula to a Rampage Formula:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/f...howthread.php?t=179580

I know it works perfectly because I am typing this on my P5E which has been converted to a RF using this exact method. When I did this I was worried that I might brick my board but I was prepared in advance to puchase the Rampage if things went badly. As it was, after ten minutes of preparation, a clean bootable USB flash, and nerves of steel, it went without issue and booted right into the Rampage Formula screen. I went directly into bios and disabeled the three temperature sensers that my P5E does not have so I would not get false warnings. I set the bios to my stock settings while noting the boatload of new options and information in my new Rampage bios I did not have in my P5E bios. I saved the bios and it booted right into Windows. Never a problem and wonderful advantages.

The reason this is possible is because the P5E is a Rampage formula minus a few extra parts that I can live without. As I have already stated, the X38 is identical to the X48 physically and electronically. The X48 version is only speed binned to assure 1600 fsb. Since I have reached a stable overclock with an effective 2000 fsb (310X8.5) I guess my X38 would have passed their testing. I highly reccomend this to any serious overclocker who owns a P5E or a Maximus. I just went to the Asus sight and downloaded the latest Rampage Formula bios when I did this. As with any bios flash do not try this with your computer overclocked. Reset everything to stock before doing this. There is always some risk in any bios flash so be prepared.

 

[wuzupfoo]

Yeah I fixed the issue, I am currently on the machine in question. I know that link as well. What do you mean using AFUDOS corrupts it? I used the Engineering version provided in that link, actually not that exact link but another one provided on Overclock.net.. same version though.. anyways to make a long story short, it was hanging on BIOS as it didnt like my graphics card or it didnt like my USB keyboard. I dont know which as I switched both out on the advice of some people that have had to recover from a BIOS update failure. After doing that my system booted right up... to a sigh of relief.

Also what chodi says is true, I wouldnt have attempted it until I saw the amount of info on the web about the upgrade. That was what made me feel safe and also after reading the stories about the x48 and its similarity to the X38.

Regardless thanks everyone, just started to panic...

 

[Quiksilver]

Isn't AFUDOS the in windows flash utility asus provides? It's broken by default..

 

[chodi]

Originally posted by: Quiksilver
Isn't AFUDOS the in windows flash utility asus provides? It's broken by default..

No, Asus does have a Windows based bios flash utility which is very dangerous to use. AFUDOS is a DOS based bios flash utility which Asus provides in the bios. It works great for normal upgrades. You need the engineering version which the first poster referenced to flash a P5E to Rampage. It also must be mounted on a bootable flash drive.

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: Quiksilver
Isn't AFUDOS the in windows flash utility asus provides? It's broken by default..

You're thinking of AsusUpdate.