Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P BIOS update failure

MURDEROUS G

MURDEROUS G

MURDEROUS G

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First of all, apologies for the crosspost - this has metamorphosed from an OCing to a motherboard problem ;-(

I've just put together a setup comprising a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P, Q6600 and 4GB OCZ DDR2 800MHz RAM. I was having stability issues when I overclocked and was advised to run memtest on the RAM, which I did. After getting a ton of errors, I tested it with different RAM which I'm sure was good, and got a ton of errors again, the same ones. A bit of research suggested that these errors were false-positives that some versions of the DS3 BIOS throw up in conjunction with memtest86+. In order to get shot of the false-positives and get a definitive answer on whether or not the original RAM was bad, I decided to update the BIOS to the newest version.

Off I go to Gigabyte's website to download the newest version of the BIOS (F10), and I see a banner at the side of the page advertising their new @BIOS update utility (comical pdf here), which flashes the BIOS from Windows. Cool, I thought, that'll be much less hassle. So I download and install @BIOS, back up my current BIOS version (F8), point it at the p35ds3p.f10 file, and set it going. After a few seconds, I get some error popups that loop indefinitely in the order "Alloc kernel memory failure!!" > "Translate memory failure!!" > "Free kernel memory failure!!". I have to kill @BIOS's process to get them to stop. I start @BIOS again, and try to restore the old BIOS version from the backup that I just made, but the same error loop happens again. Trying to flash the BIOS with any of the three BIOS versions (F8, F9, F10) as well as the backup I made of my original F8 BIOS all fail with the same error messages.

Back to google I go, and I find that a few people have had similar issues with @BIOS, and that if I turn my computer off now, it is basically gg for the motherboard. Apparently there is ordinarily some chance of recovery, but if you have a RAID 0 array (like what I do) then the jig is pretty much up. I'm posting here in the hope that people may have some suggestions as to things I can try to avoid the motherboard permanently dying the next time I restart.
 
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MikeHunt79 said:
What can I say apart from don't flash in windows....
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When the layperson sees a colourful banner on the website of their motherboard's manufacturer saying "hey guys use our new Windows BIOS flashing tool it's nice and quick and easy", one's first instinct is not to suspect some kind of cunning trap. I know not to flash in Windows now; regrettably I didn't yesterday.
 
From looking around on the subject it seems that those errors only appear after the flash utility has completed the flash. Maybe it has flashed and the error is just a program error rather than a failed flash error?

I'm afraid that it's a case of biting the bullet and restarting and hoping that @BIOS didn't mess up the flash. The only other things you can do would be to get the BIOS chip reprogrammed externally if the chip is removeable, try to get an RMA or basically buy a new board.

Windows based flashing is really bad, but it's a harsh lesson some people learn.
 
flibby said:
The only other things you can do would be to get the BIOS chip reprogrammed externally if the chip is removeable, try to get an RMA or basically buy a new board.
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I'm looking at a p965 DS3 board, and no removable BIOS. It's soldered on. The p35 is probably the same.

I think you may have to try and flash it from a usb drive before it boots (look in the manual).
 
flibby said:
From looking around on the subject it seems that those errors only appear after the flash utility has completed the flash. Maybe it has flashed and the error is just a program error rather than a failed flash error?
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I sincerely hope that's the case. Whenever I try and flash, I do get a progress bar that goes from 0% to 100% before the errors crop up, but then I've discovered that if I sit here and OK the errors for about five minutes, eventually I get a popup informing me that "Flash BIOS failed!", so I dunno. Mind if I ask where you're seeing this reference? All the posts I turned up through searches were along the lines of 'FU GIGABTYE MY MOTHERBAORD EXPLODE'

I'm afraid that it's a case of biting the bullet and restarting and hoping that @BIOS didn't mess up the flash. The only other things you can do would be to get the BIOS chip reprogrammed externally if the chip is removeable, try to get an RMA or basically buy a new board.
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IIRC, the chip isn't removable on P35-DS3Ps, so if the BIOS is busted, that's that really.

Windows based flashing is really bad, but it's a harsh lesson some people learn.
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Yeah, I won't be doing it again any time soon.
 
MikeHunt79 said:
I'm looking at a p965 DS3 board, and no removable BIOS. It's soldered on. The p35 is probably the same.

I think you may have to try and flash it from a usb drive before it boots (look in the manual).
Click to expand...

I've been asking on other forums as well, and as far as I can tell, that's not possible, as for this to work the BIOS would have to be already configured to boot from a floppy, which given that I don't own a floppy, it isn't. This is what I'm told, anyway.
 
q-flash, that's it I think, you don't use a floppy, use a USB mem stick!

Hopefully you should still be able to get q-flash to work, if not, RMA time.
 
not sure this is relevant but the p35-ds4 which i have... has a backup bios. If your main bios fails.. it should try to load the backup bios.. which is a copy of the original version the motherboard was shipped with....

Before you ran @BIOS.. did you remember to turn of "hyperthreading technology support" in your original bios?
 
Gav said:
not sure this is relevant but the p35-ds4 which i have... has a backup bios. If your main bios fails.. it should try to load the backup bios.. which is a copy of the original version the motherboard was shipped with....
Click to expand...

I don't think it has dual BIOS but I'll check...

Edit: hang on, I think it does

Before you ran @bios.. did you remember to turn of "hyperthreading technology support" in your original bios?
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Q6600 doesn't support hyperthreading AFAIK?
 
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