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- Aug 31, 2010
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I decided to make this post after experiencing problems with the Gigabyte Dual Bios system, which can be found on the majority of Gigabyte motherboards.
The brief from the Gigabyte website on this states the following :
Basically, you have 2 bios chips installed on the motherboard. One is the main bios, the second is a backup system to take over when things go wrong due to, for example, incorrect overclocking, bios flashing gone wrong, power failure during a bios update etc.
What happened in my particular case was that I had updated to the most recent version of the bios which had a DSDT file available. I then experienced a relatively minor software problem which caused the system to reboot. When it rebooted, I got a message on screen stating that the system had failed to boot correctly due to improper bios settings due to overclock (Which was actually incorrect in any case). When this message appears, it is a signal that your system has booted up using that backup bios instead of the main one.
What then made it worse is that the version of the backup bios was different to the main one. My main bios version was F4; my backup bios was version F2.
As some of you will know, the earlier version Gigabyte bioses can often cause reboot loops and all manner of problems getting your system to run correctly.
My next step, then, was to go and update the backup bios to a newer version. The issue here of course is that the motherboard manual states that the end user can not update the backup bios and that this is a safety feature. The theory behind this is a good one, but what happens if, as in my case, that backup bios is causing more problems than it is solving ?
Well, a quick search on the web revealed how to do this, even though the manual says otherwise, and the procedure itself is quite simple. We simply use a certain key combination at boot time, which tells the system to copy the contents of the main bios to the backup bios.
The key combination we are interested in is <Alt> and <F12> together, and needs to be done early on in the boot process. If these keys are pressed in time, a one line message will appear on your screen, which says this :
'Press ENTER to copy contents of the main bios to backup bios :'
Ive tried this on several Gigabyte boards, and the wording does seem to vary slightly between the boards, so yours may appear slightly different to the above.
At this point, we simply hit Enter, and the work is done for us. It will commence a block by block copy of the main bios into the backup bios. At the end of the procedure, the system will prompt you to power down or reboot your system.
Having spent some time working on this and checking the end result, the points you need to consider are :
1. Do not carry out this procedure if your existing main bios is buggy or does not work correctly. There is no point in copying a buggy bios to the backup one.
2. To make this work effectively, your existing bios settings must all be set correctly and your system should be booting up without any errors or problems.
3. When the procedure above is carried out, it will copy not only the bios itself, but also all of your actual settings as well, hence the need for those settings to be correct BEFORE carrying out this procedure.
4. If the above points are followed and your system does reboot into the backup bios for whatever reason, it will now boot up into the same version bios as your existing main one, and therefore prevent issues due to differing bios versions.
5. If you have a DSDT loaded on your system, it is normally compiled for a specific bios version. By keeping both your main and your backup bios versions the same, this should stop issues occurring due to having a DSDT file for one version and an actual bios with a different version.
Because of the need to have a fully working and configured bios before this procedure is carried out, this is more of a preventative measure than anything else. But for those of us who have experienced the reboot loops and subsequently booting up into a different version of the bios, the above procedure is what worked for me.
PS. I couldnt immediately see which forum was the correct place for this post, mods please feel free to move it if approrpriate.
The brief from the Gigabyte website on this states the following :
GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ is a patented technology that automatically recovers BIOS data when the main BIOS has crashed or failed. Featuring 2 physical BIOS ROMs integrated onboard, GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ allows quick and seamless recovery from BIOS damage or failure due to viruses or improper BIOS updating. In addition, GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ now supports 3TB+ (terabyte) hard drive booting without the need for partitioning, and enables more data storage on a single hard drive.
Basically, you have 2 bios chips installed on the motherboard. One is the main bios, the second is a backup system to take over when things go wrong due to, for example, incorrect overclocking, bios flashing gone wrong, power failure during a bios update etc.
What happened in my particular case was that I had updated to the most recent version of the bios which had a DSDT file available. I then experienced a relatively minor software problem which caused the system to reboot. When it rebooted, I got a message on screen stating that the system had failed to boot correctly due to improper bios settings due to overclock (Which was actually incorrect in any case). When this message appears, it is a signal that your system has booted up using that backup bios instead of the main one.
What then made it worse is that the version of the backup bios was different to the main one. My main bios version was F4; my backup bios was version F2.
As some of you will know, the earlier version Gigabyte bioses can often cause reboot loops and all manner of problems getting your system to run correctly.
My next step, then, was to go and update the backup bios to a newer version. The issue here of course is that the motherboard manual states that the end user can not update the backup bios and that this is a safety feature. The theory behind this is a good one, but what happens if, as in my case, that backup bios is causing more problems than it is solving ?
Well, a quick search on the web revealed how to do this, even though the manual says otherwise, and the procedure itself is quite simple. We simply use a certain key combination at boot time, which tells the system to copy the contents of the main bios to the backup bios.
The key combination we are interested in is <Alt> and <F12> together, and needs to be done early on in the boot process. If these keys are pressed in time, a one line message will appear on your screen, which says this :
'Press ENTER to copy contents of the main bios to backup bios :'
Ive tried this on several Gigabyte boards, and the wording does seem to vary slightly between the boards, so yours may appear slightly different to the above.
At this point, we simply hit Enter, and the work is done for us. It will commence a block by block copy of the main bios into the backup bios. At the end of the procedure, the system will prompt you to power down or reboot your system.
Having spent some time working on this and checking the end result, the points you need to consider are :
1. Do not carry out this procedure if your existing main bios is buggy or does not work correctly. There is no point in copying a buggy bios to the backup one.
2. To make this work effectively, your existing bios settings must all be set correctly and your system should be booting up without any errors or problems.
3. When the procedure above is carried out, it will copy not only the bios itself, but also all of your actual settings as well, hence the need for those settings to be correct BEFORE carrying out this procedure.
4. If the above points are followed and your system does reboot into the backup bios for whatever reason, it will now boot up into the same version bios as your existing main one, and therefore prevent issues due to differing bios versions.
5. If you have a DSDT loaded on your system, it is normally compiled for a specific bios version. By keeping both your main and your backup bios versions the same, this should stop issues occurring due to having a DSDT file for one version and an actual bios with a different version.
Because of the need to have a fully working and configured bios before this procedure is carried out, this is more of a preventative measure than anything else. But for those of us who have experienced the reboot loops and subsequently booting up into a different version of the bios, the above procedure is what worked for me.
PS. I couldnt immediately see which forum was the correct place for this post, mods please feel free to move it if approrpriate.