New UEFI bios updates for some older Gigabyte boards

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Don
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http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3973#bios

I've got the GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3, noticed today that a new bios has come out for it, upgrading it to UEFI interface.

Just installed, all running with no problems :)

The first reboot, Windows reinstalled all the drivers for everything and I was good to go following the next reboot.



I used rufus to make a freedos usb key http://pbatard.github.com/rufus/

Then I renamed the gigabyte autoexec.bat to patch.bat, copied the files to the usb stick and rebooted. Took about 5 minutes for the whole process

Check your board on their site to see if there's a new bios
 
I've downloaded the U1h UEFI BIOS (for same mobo as you), but I'm put off by a few things :

1) Legacy BIOS > UEFI is a one-way process (although there are some hacks to restore the Award BIOS)
2) Can't use Qflash or @BIOS (need to make a bootable CD/USB)
3) Some have complained about lower OCs with new BIOS (eg 4.7 down to 4.5 with 2500K)
4) U1h sounds like a Beta (although it's not tagged as such ?!)

Think I might wait and see how others get on before I take the plunge. I've just installed a new OS drive (Sammy 830 256gb :)) and some other odds and ends, and could do without the extra niggles of a Beta BIOS. Hopefully U1/U2 won't be far away
 
So I took the plunge and updated my GA-Z68X-UD3H to UEFI (U1h), despite a few reservations. As far as boot times go, there is a world of difference - Time to Logon is down from 15/16s to 8/9s according to BootRacer. Stability is fine, the only "issue" is EasyTune6 now shows corrupted info on the mobo/ram tabs - hardly a deal-breaker.

Except for the OC issue.
I had heard of "reduced overclocks" on UEFI, but I cannot overclock AT ALL. The buttons are there (auto/multi/turbo etc), but clicking them does nothing. :(

So I'm stuck with an unoverclockable 2500K, and my Samsung 30nm DDR3 is stuck at 1600/C11 when it was stable at 1866/C9 at the same low voltage (1.35v). :mad:

Thankfully, my MSI 6870 Hawk still OCs like a demon, so gaming performance is still fine, even with stock CPU/RAM. But I'd like to see a non-beta UEFI soon with this issue fixed, as it's a major downside IMHO.
 
DennisMenace said:
Except for the OC issue.
I had heard of "reduced overclocks" on UEFI, but I cannot overclock AT ALL. The buttons are there (auto/multi/turbo etc), but clicking them does nothing. :(
Click to expand...

Gigabyte has just uploaded on to their website the new UEFI for my board (z68xp-ud3). I'm having the same problem where I cannot change the multiplier settings etc. I installed easytune6 and that allows me to overclock through there. I guess this new UEFI is still buggy but to be honest I don't hold hopes of Gigabyte fixing it any time soon.
 
Last edited:
rob77 said:
I installed easytune6 and that allows me to overclock through there.
Click to expand...

I hadn't considered that, as when I used it before it used higher than necessary voltages for the moderate OCs involved.

I might give TouchBIOS a try (does it work with UEFI? Might need an updated version) as that gives greater control, although I'd far prefer to OC in BIOS than Windows, even a non-UEFI BIOS. Could be the best/only workaround until Gigabyte sort this out. Bearing in mind how slowly they're updating to UEFI for the whole Z68 range, I doubt that fixing this version (which essentially "works") will be a priority. :(
 
Orcvader said:
Hmm for my Z68MX the UEFI is called U1c... does that c means it's not a complete stable version?
Click to expand...

Following their normal naming, "F11a" is a beta, "F12" isn't... if this applies to "U"/UEFI then U1c IS a beta - they normally underline this in red on the download page, but haven't been doing so for the recent UEFI upgrades.

However, this doesn't mean the UEFI is UNstable, just that some features could be broken/gimped/missing. For my UD3H/U1h, this means no voltage controls = no overclocking. :( But apart from this, the UEFI is very fast to boot and 100% stable (so far).


UPDATE : Tried to install latest TouchBIOS, but get "Product is not Gigabyte" error > install aborted. :confused: Back to the drawing board...
 
Great, the main problem I have with mine at the moment is how long POSTing takes :p.

I'll wait for later revisions then if it's possibly missing features. Nice to see they're stable though :).

I believe TouchBIOS was more of something to compensate for the lack of UEFI for their boards? Seeing as the boards are now getting UEFI... would that make TouchBIOS obsolete?
 
TouchBIOS was a stupid gimmick, it was just a tool to change the bios settings in windows and had big buttons so you could use it on a touch screen. I am sure they will release a decent Windows tool to change the BIOS settings with the UEFI but that may come later. They are stuck in this situation where they are furiously back porting the ami UEFI bios to pasify Ivy Bridge overclockers.
 
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