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[SUCCESS] Gigabyte Designare Z390 (Thunderbolt 3) + i7-9700K + AMD RX 580

OMG!!

I have been dreading taking my machine apart to flash the TB 3 FW, and was one of my excuses for doing the other board first. My case is small and everything is crammed in so tightly. My GPU literally bangs into the front of the case. It's a Nightmare!

Behold, A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE!

SilverStone, to the rescue!!!
 

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OMG!!

I have been dreading taking my machine apart to flash the TB 3 FW, and was one of my excuses for doing the other board first. My case is small and everything is crammed in so tightly. My GPU literally bangs into the front of the case. It's a Nightmare!

Behold, A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE!

SilverStone, to the rescue!!!
Same for me on my Phanteks Evolv. No disassembly required!
 
OMG!!

I have been dreading taking my machine apart to flash the TB 3 FW, and was one of my excuses for doing the other board first. My case is small and everything is crammed in so tightly. My GPU literally bangs into the front of the case. It's a Nightmare!

Behold, A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE!

SilverStone, to the rescue!!!
Alas, it was never meant to be.

I prepare now for the hellish task, in defeat.

Should have gone Phanteks.
 

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Last edited:
Alas, it was never meant to be.

I prepare now for the hellish task, in defeat.

Should have gone Phantek.
Phanteks 1, Silverstone 0.
 
Same for me on my Phanteks Evolv. No disassembly required!
Same for me on my Be quiet!. No disassembly required!
But I noticed that once I mounted back the mobo after flashing Winbond :thumbup:
 
shikigva96
Tried with iMacPro1,1 no success
will try with iMac19,1
Thank you!

This is the second reason (after BT issues) which will may be lead me to buy a M1 and stop hackintoshing :|
 
Tried with iMacPro1,1 no success
will try with iMac19,1
Thank you!

This is the second reason (after BT issues) which will may be lead me to buy a M1 and stop hackintoshing :|
I watch streaming services (AppleTV, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount+, Disney+) exclusively on my LG OLED TVs (one upstairs, one downstairs) and a 4K DLP projector illuminating a 133-inch or 338 cm screen. Hence I've never worried about DRM.
 
I watch streaming services (AppleTV, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount+, Disney+) exclusively on my LG OLED TVs (one upstairs, one downstairs) and a 4K DLP projector illuminating a 133-inch or 338 cm screen. Hence I've never worried about DRM.
DLP--a blast from the past! "It's the mirrors!"
 
FYI

I just successfully flashed the Thunderbolt FW; however... as a precautionary measure, after the "supposed" 'VERIFIED' flash, I decided to read back the flash three times... THE CHECKSUMS WERE ALL DIFFERENT!

I would recommend this as an added step. Triple check your initial read of the current FW, but also triple check your written FW!

I was able to flash for the 2nd time, then I did the triple reads, this time TRUE VERIFIED success!

NOTE: Getting the LEDs (on the Z390 Designare) to go red IS essential, as you know. However, to get them to go red, it is not necessary to move the clip. The issue seems to be in the wires leading directly into the clip. The connections do not seem to be very good. By touching, pressing on the black heat shrink tubing of the wires OPPOSITE the side of PINS 1-4, I was able to get to the red state much more quickly, and solidly. Moving the connector itself was a real pain, and I couldn't get success that way.

Now... I have ANOTHER Z390 Designare to do, so I am about to tear my main machine apart and do that one. The one I just flashed was sitting in a box on my shelf. I used it as my guinea pig!

Thanks once again goes to @CaseySJ for being worthy of award winning work and help! Thanks also to all the other many contributors! This is all just so fantastic!!!!
Ok, I rescind my theory about the wires on the clip. It must have been that the clip was just loose enough on the chip that barely tapping on the wires was enough to move it... wherever it needed to be.

This is one of the oddest things I've ever observed in electronics. This "wiggling the clip" should NOT work, and why it does has me very curious. I did do some additional testing and observed that by removing either wire from PIN 8 or 4 from the small 8 PIN PCB and then putting them on the PIN loosely and jiggling it, I could get the lights on the MB to respond in a similar fashion, i.e. bright yellow, to dimmer yellow, and occasional flickering red. I bet if we got a petentiometer of the correct OHMS (whatever that would be), we could narrow down what the magic value is to make this work reliably. If I had any, I would test, but I don't.

This time it took me a LOT longer to come up with the magic to flash my other chip. I observed that the lights turned yellow during the verification process, so I thought for sure that it would fail, but it said VERIFIED, (which I didn't believe). But I was able to read the written copies three times, and then I compared the CHECKSUM to the other board flash, and they were identical:

edbbe3cbf8e3fa4a9d991e0681f2a5702b248224

So now I'll put my machine all back together again, and will see if my efforts have been truly successful or not.
 
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