How to upgrade from BIOS to UEFI on Gigabyte's 6-series motherboards

[interpolgp]

I recently upgraded from F13 to UEFI u1e for my Z68mx-ud2h-b3. Haven't had any real issues so far but the big promise of native power management didn't come true

 

[hitok1ri]

Article: How to upgrade from BIOS to UEFI on Gigabyte's 6-series motherboards

UEFI has some issues.

The main issue I'm having is that my Apple ProRes 422 HQ files which are 4K are playing back with a fair amount of lag. I was wondering if it was possible to get it to playback smoothly.

Current Specs:
Mobo: Z68XP-UD3
Bios: Award F10
CPU: i7-2600k
Graphics: XFX Radeon HD 6870 2GB
SSD: Corsair Neutron GTX 480GB

I installed Yosemite (fresh install) with Award F10 bios loaded. This is also the last time I've been able to complete the install process.

What I've tried so far:

1a. Trial 1: Installed Yosemite (fresh install) with UEFI bios already loaded
1b. Outcome 1: Constant hanging and freezing. Zero stability. However the files would play back extremely smoothly, like butter.

2a. Trial 2: Installed Yosemite with Award F10 bios and then upgraded to UEFI following successful Yosemite installation.
2b. Outcome 2: Constant hanging and freezing. Zero stability. However the files would play back extremely smoothly, like butter.

3a. Trial 3: Tried installing Mavericks with Award F10 bios
3b. Outcome 3: No dice, the installation freezes at the 17 min remaining mark every time.

4a. Trial 4: Tried installing Mavericks with UEFI bios
4b. Outcome 4: No dice, the installation freezes at the 17 min remaining mark every time.

Pretty low on ideas. Thanks for hearing me out. Hopefully you got some solutions.

 

[Autocrat]

Actually sleep is the only thing that works not reliable, at least not for me on a Z68XP-UD3 mainboard. I used the UEFI-Bios for some weeks and during this time I used "sleep" every day, the problem is that from time to time sleep fails or better to wake up the system. I would say 7 times of 10 it works but when it fails you have to reboot the whole system to get everything working. The biggest problem was that the network card does not work when the system wakes up… I tried everything, new sleep cycle, unload/load the kext, but the network card was dead only a reboot restored the card.

With the F10 Bios and DSDT sleep works perfect, every single day. Of course if you don't need sleep UEFI is nice, you can remove the DSDT file and then you have to reinstall the audio drivers for systems without a DSDT (check Multibeast for the option) and that's it. With a k-CPU e.g. Core i7-2600k you still need the SSDT but that's not a problem.

I personally need sleep for my system and so I switched back to the F10-Bios (Gigabyte tells you, that you can't switch back but that's not true , check http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168667 for more informations about how to downgrade from UEFI) and now everything works perfect again .

I know this is an old post but I'm just now "upgrading" my setup to Mavericks. Wondering if going UEFI is worth it. I'm also on F10 Bios on this mobo. Sleep is a must for me as well. USB3 hasn't been working but I've gotten used to it.

Thanks

 

[Humblaznlv]

Article: How to upgrade from BIOS to UEFI on Gigabyte's 6-series motherboards

UEFI has some issues.

The main issue I'm having is that my Apple ProRes 422 HQ files which are 4K are playing back with a fair amount of lag. I was wondering if it was possible to get it to playback smoothly.

Current Specs:
Mobo: Z68XP-UD3
Bios: Award F10
CPU: i7-2600k
Graphics: XFX Radeon HD 6870 2GB
SSD: Corsair Neutron GTX 480GB

I installed Yosemite (fresh install) with Award F10 bios loaded. This is also the last time I've been able to complete the install process.

What I've tried so far:

1a. Trial 1: Installed Yosemite (fresh install) with UEFI bios already loaded
1b. Outcome 1: Constant hanging and freezing. Zero stability. However the files would play back extremely smoothly, like butter.

2a. Trial 2: Installed Yosemite with Award F10 bios and then upgraded to UEFI following successful Yosemite installation.
2b. Outcome 2: Constant hanging and freezing. Zero stability. However the files would play back extremely smoothly, like butter.

3a. Trial 3: Tried installing Mavericks with Award F10 bios
3b. Outcome 3: No dice, the installation freezes at the 17 min remaining mark every time.

4a. Trial 4: Tried installing Mavericks with UEFI bios
4b. Outcome 4: No dice, the installation freezes at the 17 min remaining mark every time.

Pretty low on ideas. Thanks for hearing me out. Hopefully you got some solutions.

I'm really curious as to what method you used to flash over to UEFI. Can you give me a step by step guide tomake the USB stick? I have the same board and I downloaded the U1j UEFI file.
I just want to get this done already. This such a good board I want to keep it running in tip top shape. I just want a clean install of Yosemite. Is it possible to migrate my applications from my cloned(leagacy BIOS) drive afterwards? How did the Yosemite install go after UEFI upgrade?

thanks for any help and good luck with your builds.

 

[iPB]

I'm really curious as to what method you used to flash over to UEFI. Can you give me a step by step guide tomake the USB stick? I have the same board and I downloaded the U1j UEFI file.
I just want to get this done already. This such a good board I want to keep it running in tip top shape. I just want a clean install of Yosemite. Is it possible to migrate my applications from my cloned(leagacy BIOS) drive afterwards? How did the Yosemite install go after UEFI upgrade?

thanks for any help and good luck with your builds.

I also interested.

 

[StudioK]

I also interested.

I did this successfully years ago using FreeDOS. My board was Z68.

I wrote the FreeDOS installer to a usb stick, and booted from that. It then ran the UEFI flash from there.

I cannot remember all the step by step details, but I was complete novice doing it and still made it work.

Just download FreeDOS and try writing to USB drive and booting that. And follow GIgabyte's instructions on flashing.

 

[RadMatty]

I am pretty late to this party, But here I go. I have a Z68 mobo running OS 10.11.6 El Capitan. I quit upgrading the OS because I was afraid that I would break my setup If I went any further. Now I see that others are running Sierra successfully on this motherboard So I thought I would give it a try and possibly upgrade my processor from a second generation i5 to a third generation (Ivy Bridge) core i5 as well. I have created a bootable usb stick running Free DOS and downloaded the UEFI BIOS package From Gigabyte, unarchived it and copied the results to the usb device.

This guide says "Reboot the system, hit F12 and select to boot from the USB drive. Everything else should be automatic."

Does this mean that the FLASHEFI.EXE file will just execute itself without any prompt from me?

Thanks for considering my questions.

I have never flashed any bios before and I know nothing about DOS. I am attaching a picture of the contents of my usb stick. Does this look right?

 

[StudioK]

I am pretty late to this party, But here I go. I have a Z68 mobo running
Does this mean that the FLASHEFI.EXE file will just execute itself without any prompt from me?

Thanks for considering my questions.

I have never flashed any bios before and I know nothing about DOS. I am attaching a picture of the contents of my usb stick. Does this look right?View attachment 283053

I believe you have to run the executable from the DOS command line. I did this in 2012, so I can't remember exactly how I proceeded. Best to Google how to execute commands in DOS. It was very simple to do as I recall.

 

[RadMatty]

Well, after some time off, I have created my FreeDOS bootable USB stick. So now I have the command line available. Next steps: learn some DOS commands and Figure out how to execute the bio's installer.

 

[RadMatty]

Okay, I think I know how to run an executable file under DOS. Now I have to understand what will happen after I update the bios I'm assuming that my old installation of El Capitan will no longer run. So I'll have to be ready to do a new install of the Mac OS, preferably High Sierra. Last time I tried to download hi Sierra from the app store I was rejected because my machine's description is that of an unsupported mac (Mac Pro 3.1).