Gigabyte Backup BIOS

[acecool2000]

I have a GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3. I just installed it and got everything working over the weekend. I have it set up to boot off of 2 hard drives through Chameleon (one with Windows 7 and one with Lion OSX). While everything works great, it took a lot of reading before I figured out why I had to change date and time everytime I booted into Windows 7 after coming out of Lion OSX. After going over my Gigabyte user manual for this board, I traced the issue to Gigabyte's dualbios system. I think the system perceives switching from one hard drive to another as a "catastrophic event" (similar to a power failuer). It then automatically switches to the back up bios. The back up bios defaults to a date and time zone that is different that what is in the main bios. Not a big deal...but it was really driving me crazy trying to figure out why it was doing this. Not sure if there is a work-around. As long as you start on Windows 7 and reboot into Windows 7, it will save the time and date. Again, If you wander over to Lion, you will need to reset your time and date.

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Thats interesting. I havent booted Win7 on the same system as my OSX here so not able to check this one out.

Did you update your backup bios AFTER setting up your configuration and date/time etc ?

 

[jtsymbo]

Nice write up!
Wonkey, updated my backup bios. Now when I update my bios version or make changes, I would assume I backup my bios again to update it. So I always want my backup bios to mirror my main bios. Is this correct? I also posted this question to you in "buying Advice"
Thanks!

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

I would personally recommend updating your backup with your exact settings yes, and if you change them, well check to make sure it all works first, and then backup again.

There are two schools of thought over this, depending how you run your hardware.

The first is to make your backup bios an exact image of your main bios as I described earlier, including all relevant settings.

The second is, if you overclock, have your main bios with your overclock settings and use your backup bios for non-overclock settings, purely as a fallback measure. If you use this approach then of course you need to do it back-to-front so to speak; that is make your failsafe settings in your main bios, then copy everything over to your backup bios, and then change your main to include your overclock settings.

I think either approach would work quite well; I personally use the first one.

 

[jtsymbo]

Thanks Wonkey!! I think the first choice will work for me as well as long as I can revert back to the default settings .
Even though we have different motherboards, can you recommend a good thread on overclocking a GA-z68 board? Maybe you have some suggestions.
Thanks

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

I think there are a few guides on here regarding overclocking. Not an option for me right now though as the only sandy bridge chip I have is a lowly 2100 which doesnt overclock really.

I have an 875k lynnfield chip here but no mainboard to overclock it with.

I would recommend a search in the forums; several guys have successfully overclocked their systems and would be more knowledgable than I am in that area.



Edit : Here is one that covers the basics. Gordo has done some really good guides on here.

viewtopic.php?f=79&t=20136

The board he uses there is a P67, but the principles should be the same as it is also sandy bridge.

 

[snowbound]

I have a GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3. I just installed it and got everything working over the weekend. I have it set up to boot off of 2 hard drives through Chameleon (one with Windows 7 and one with Lion OSX). While everything works great, it took a lot of reading before I figured out why I had to change date and time everytime I booted into Windows 7 after coming out of Lion OSX. After going over my Gigabyte user manual for this board, I traced the issue to Gigabyte's dualbios system. I think the system perceives switching from one hard drive to another as a "catastrophic event" (similar to a power failuer). It then automatically switches to the back up bios. The back up bios defaults to a date and time zone that is different that what is in the main bios. Not a big deal...but it was really driving me crazy trying to figure out why it was doing this. Not sure if there is a work-around. As long as you start on Windows 7 and reboot into Windows 7, it will save the time and date. Again, If you wander over to Lion, you will need to reset your time and date.

The reason I think this is happening is that Linux/Unix based systems assume the Bios date and time reflects UTC time rather than local time. I know in Linux there is a setting in the o/s to indicate that the BIOS date and time is local time rather than UTC or GMT. However I do not know if Snow Leopard or Lion has such a setting.

 

[snowbound]

Fix as mentioned in posst #2 here http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=42579&p=269638&hilit=realtimeisuniversal#p269638 is to create a new registry key and set that to 1 in WIndows.

 

[eddie8t]

Hey WonkeyDonkey! Great write up man. I own the z68x-UD7-B3 MB and I never really looked into the dual bios thing before. I only understood its purpose of having a backup. I'm going to update my backup as well.

I do have a question though... right now I am running on the F7 version of my bio's. If I wanted to update my bio's to F9, would I even be able to access my OS desktop to update the DSDT I am using after flashing the Bios?

I also got this Checksum c500 last time when I was going to update my bio's to F9 (was reinstally a Fresh Lion OS), but I opted not to because of that message. Any idea of what that is? I googled it and I am still unsure.

 

[mikeydanger]

Wow! Over 130 views and not a single comment.

Are my write-ups that bad ?

Over 7 years since you posted, and as a Hacking newbie I found this QUITE helpful today, thank you.