Downgrading a Bios

[Agoodname]

Hi all,
A few weeks ago I updated the BIOS on my ASRock B450 ITX MB from 1.30 to 3.50 via the flash utility in order to run my new Ryzen 5 3600. The update installed successfully and the computer ran reasonably well, apart from a pretty slow boot time and Fast Boot not working properly. However it has now developed a problem of losing the BIOS settings every couple of days and then when I was looking on the BIOS update page for new updates I noticed that it says "If the current BIOS version is older than P1.70, please update BIOS to P1.70", which I did not see the first time. https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/Fatal1ty B450 Gaming-ITXac/index.us.asp#BIOS
( I really think the layout of the descriptions is very poor by ASRock and is partly to blame for this)

So, in short I think my motherboard problems may be being caused by this missed update and I've been looking into downgrading the BIOS to 1.70 and then going back up to 3.50 again. However, I'm not really sure because I thought new BIOS updates/versions were entirely self-contained and that they completely write over the old BIOS, so why would they need a transitional update? So this is making me feel rather unsure about attempting to downgrade, that it could just do more harm than good.

If anyone can shed any light on this for me I'd appreciate it.

 

[pastymuncher]

Hi and welcome to the forums.

Losing settings is more likely to be a failing CMOS battery (CR2032) so try a new battery. This will perform a bios reset back to defaults.

The instructions about updating to 1.70 first are pretty clear so you should always read the notes about bios updated before updating and Asrock states this in red lettering at the top of the bios page. At a guess I would say that something big got changed with 1.70 which is why they advise to update to that first. It's not uncommon and it happens on Intel boards as well. With that in mind try to flash back to 1.70 and then update to 3.40 again. That's if it will let you because in the bios notes for 3.40 it says "User will not able to flash previous BIOS once upgrading to this BIOS version".

 

[Agoodname]

hey, thanks.
I knew beforehand that you have to follow the instructions carefully but there's just such a plethora of crap crammed in to those little boxes and I think because for 3.50 it just says "please also read the description in previous BIOS version" I didn't think it meant "follow all the instructions for the previous version" and so I only gave it a quick glance. Comparing ASRock's BIOS descriptions and their support forums to other motherboard makers it's become clear to me just how poor ASRock's is in comparison and I don't think this would've happened I've had had any other brand. They really are light years behind all the other big brands in this department.

Anyway, as regards the CMOS battery, the board is only a few weeks old and there's also been some problems with booting in general, so I don't think it could be that. I also already tried to downgrade using the onboard flash tool but it didn't let me. I was considering using AFUWIN flash utility but I'm a bit hesitant about using it as there's very little instructions anywhere - that I can find, about how to use it properly.
On another forum I was advised to seek ASRock technical support which I suppose I could try, though I'm not hopeful.

 

[freddie64]

Please note, I have not done this myself and take no responsibility if it bricks your motherboard

There is a thread on overclock.net showing how to properly install a bios and apparently you can downgrade to a earlier version.

https://www.overclock.net/forum/11-...yzen-bios-mods-how-update-bios-correctly.html

Scroll down to How to flash a official bios + mod bios (new instruction) and follow the steps up to part 7. After that just hit CTRL+ALT+DEL (if everything on screen says OK/Done).

All you need is the bios file, as it is. No file type extension (.cap .rom etc) needs to be added. (in your case the 1.70 bios file)

For clarity, this is the original Asrock thread that suggested this method.

http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=11610&title=x470-downgrade-bios-above-3100

Again, I take no responsibility if things go wrong and suggest only doing this as a last resort.