Bricked motherboard from BIOS update, how bad is it?
Bricked motherboard from BIOS update, how bad is it?
I finally managed to refresh my BIOS to fix the Intel 13th gen issues, but now my motherboard is completely unusable. How much will I need to replace it? I updated the BIOS on my board in July to version v3401, which worked well for the Intel problems, but it didn’t solve everything. Recently, I tried v3601 and EZ Flash, but the system stuck in the "Clear Database" state. After leaving it for a while, I reset it by power cycling the power supply. It failed completely—no video, no BIOS updates, nothing working. I’m wondering if this damage affected the other parts. If I get a new motherboard and it doesn’t already have this patch, should I try again? My board model is ASUS ROG Strix B660-I, with Intel 13900K CPU and Intel Arc A770 GPU.
If your device includes the bios flashback feature, you can simply download the newest BIOS update and install it via that method. The flashback process works even without a fully functional system. If you need more help, a friend skilled in electronics can use a hardware programmer to directly write the BIOS onto the memory chip. This is essentially what the bios flashback functionality does. EDIT: Reference located on page 56 of your manual: https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1700/ROG STRIX B660-I GAMING WIFI/E19190_ROG_STRIX_B660-I_GAMING_WIFI.pdf?model=ROG STRIX B660-I GAMING WIFI
The system now displays only a black screen, indicating a potential hardware issue. Unless this BIOS flashback feature is caused by a physical jumper or similar, it seems unlikely to be a viable solution. Regarding a chip programmer, I haven’t encountered anything like that before and I’m unsure about the complexity involved.