ASUS P5B Bios Problems

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Soldato
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26 Jan 2005
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Hey guys,

Basically, i tried updating the bios to the november 2007 today, after experiencing issues with my computer, i thought it best i update everything including the bios as well (which i've done countless times)

Having had trouble updating it via the old fashioned Floppy disk (it never found the .Rom on the floppy) i thought i'd try the ASUS Update software.

I installed it, then ran the software, so far, so good. I then located the ROM i had downloaded from ASUS' website and the software proceeded to flash the new bios after checking and deleting the old one in the process...

Unfortunately, it then had an error come up and gave me the option of aborting or trying again, i chose to abort and save any further issues, as it assured me it would revert to its previous unflashed state.

I then thought i'd try flashing again to see if the same error came up (which if it did, i was going to leave it well alone!)
Unfortunately upon reloading the ASUS UPDATE software, it said it couldn't find the ASUS BIOS!! I proceeded to save all my work etc, and restarted my PC to confirm this...

It has not booted since. :( :eek:

I'm guessing the BIOS has been erased/corrupted.

Please, if any of you know of any way to help me restore my BIOS, i'd much appreciate it, im never updating a bios again, i swear!! :(
 
Try the clear CMOS jumper first. Do you get any output at all? If not then your options are limited:

1). Purchase a new BIOS chip from somewhere such as an auction site
2). Contact Asus support to see if they will sell you a new BIOS chip
3). RMA the board
4). If you know someone else with a P5B you can hot swap the BIOS chip

I had to perform a risky method to downgrade my P5E while I was having odd memory issues. The DOS flash utility wouldn't let me downgrade and neither would the in-built flash utility so I had to start flashing with the same version then power off halfway through. When I booted up afterwards the board entered a bad flash recovery mode where it would attempt to read p5e.rom off a CD or USB stick. If you try a CMOS clear and you still get no output, your options are pretty much limited to those above.
 
@Phemo: option 1,2,4 are not possible cus the BIOS is soldered onto the board :p

@OP: turn off your computer, switch off the PSU,wait for about 10 sec then clear the CMOS (see the manual)

if that still doesnt help then repeat the same steps but take the battery out as well :)
 
Ah balls. I did a Google image search and the images I saw appeared to have a socketed BIOS but obviously I either couldn't see clearly or it wasn't a retail board.
 
Hi guys, thanks for the advice.

I've just done it where i followed the manual instructions, i completely missed it on my initial look through, whoops!

It doesnt seem to have done anything though, i removed the battery, put the jumper in the 2-3 position for 10 secs, then put it back to 1-2 and replaced the battery. On power up, it just sounded like it always does, where the fans go at 100% for a while, but unfortunately, they stayed at 100%, and there was no activity or power on of the monitor :(
 
Damn, unfortunately mate it looks like you'll need to either RMA the board or buy a new one :(

I'd read about Asus going back to using BIOS chips soldered to the mobo (think my P5E is like that actually) and I think it's totally moronic. This scenario would be fixable for around a tenner and with relative ease, but not now they're soldering the chips to the board.

I have heard quite a few instances of this happening when using the Windows-based flash utility though.
 
Not good.
What is it with ASUS soldering BIOS chips to the board :(
You just used to be able to go BiosflashUK and get another.

I'm afraid it you can't get it to boot, it's dead.

Try pulling everything off and leaving it overnight...you never now.
 
When you press the power button does it ask you to insert the motherboard cd? or does it just not do anything?
 
Thebug said:
When you press the power button does it ask you to insert the motherboard cd? or does it just not do anything?
Click to expand...

Literally doesn't post, the monitor stays on standby, no writing, nothing. :(


Could someone recommend me a motherboard as a replacement that is a good, reliable current generation one which is compatible with the components in my spec? perhaps with PCI-E 2?
 
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For PCI-E 2.0 you're limited to X38 chipset boards which tend to hover around the £150 mark on average. I'm quite happy with my Asus P5E which cost me £130 (and the BIOS flash protection works as I mention above ;)). If you do go with an Asus board again just be sure to avoid the Windows flash tools altogether :)
 
Yeah the P5K Premium is a great board. If you're bothered about PCI-E 2.0 then go with the P5E as it's around the same sort of price - however PCI-E 2.0 is probably not going to be that useful for a while yet.
 
Thanks for all your help guys, i decided upon the board i linked, but from a local store, i would've gone for OCUK, but im impatient :)
 
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It might not of wiped the boot block, there is a method where you can recover the bios with the cd the motherboard comes with but i've forgoton how it works.

EDIT :

"The ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 allows users to restore corrupted BIOS data from a USB flash disk containing the BIOS file. See page 4-5 for details."

"The ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 is an auto recovery tool that allows you to restore the BIOS file when it fails or gets corrupted during the updating process. You can update a corrupted BIOS file using the motherboard support CD, the USB flash disk, or the floppy disk that contains the updated BIOS file."
 
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Yeah CrashFree kicks in automatically - it simply boots up with a prompt saying "searching for bios file on CDROM" then it goes on to try USB and keeps going until it finds a relevant file. I've deliberately powered my PC off during a flash to kick CrashFree in as it's a nightmare to downgrade BIOS on Asus boards. Unfortunately with no output it isn't happening :(
 
Yeah thanks for that suggestion Tom, but i tried that with both a floppy disk and the support CD, unfortunately, there was no joy on both fronts :(
 
If you searched the forums m8 you would have found many a people who had a Asus board and flashed their BIOS have had the same problem. If you went on the Asus home webpage and looked in the forums for your board you would have seen many people posting about the same problem there also mainly flashing it in Vista 64bit.

I did the same thing with my P5B Deluxe but at least my board was still under warrenty I didn't tell the shop where I purchased it from that I flashed it (wasn't OCuk) they sent it back to Asus, in the meantime I purchased the Gigabyte x38 DQ6...it took 2months for Asus to send me a board back but when they did they sent me a brand new one which is still in the box.

If yours is still under warrenty just send it back don't tell them you flashed it just fill in the RMA order and say the board is dead let them deal with it.
 
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