PSA: Gigabyte F20B BIOS changes

[eboyko]

Don't update to F20 if you have similar setup

I've just updated BIOS to F21 (z170x designare), now I have problem with graphics artefacts (internal 530 as well as GTX 980) in latest Sierra.

 

[canyondust]

I've just updated BIOS to F21 (z170x designare), now I have problem with graphics artefacts (internal 530 as well as GTX 980) in latest Sierra.

Did you update to F20 first? and if so were there glitches then? I updated to F20 from F5 (Z170X-UD5 TH) and I had HD530 graphics glitches, which I solved by going in the bios and changing DVMT Pre-Allocated to '64M', and DVMT Total Gfx Mem to 'MAX'.

hopefully that helps?

 

[eboyko]

Did you update to F20 first?

No, but after problems with F21 I've used F20 — same result.

after installing EmuVariableUefi-64.efi all work well

This fixes problem with my GTX 980 (gigabyte oc edition).

changing DVMT Pre-Allocated to '64M', and DVMT Total Gfx Mem to 'MAX'

I was trying do the same way but, '1024mb' instead 'max': doesn't work.

Anyway, thank you!

 

[LoveGamers]

Going to try the F3a bios when I get home. I think it's the 7th gen intel support in the newer bios that's giving Sierra kernel panics. Hopefully my theory is correct and I can run Sierra properly without all of the ghost partitions using F3a.

 

[eboyko]

Going to try the F3a bios when I get home

F20 announcement: "This BIOS prohibits updating to earlier version BIOS". So, if you already updated BIOS to F20/F21 you can't go back.

 

[LoveGamers]

F20 announcement: "This BIOS prohibits updating to earlier version BIOS". So, if you already updated BIOS to F20/F21 you can't go back.

You can flash older bios using the method below. Have already done it successfully.

I was able to downgrade back to a BIOS version previous to F20.

I use the FTP Z170 Tool for DOS from https://www.mediafire.com/?p66jhts7cfi26y8

Then I...

1. Formatted a USB drive to DOS bootable with Rufus
2. Copied the contents of the zip above into the root of the USB drive overwriting the AUTOEXEC.bat
3. Downloaded the the BIOS I wanted to downgrade to from Gigabyte.us site
4. Move the BIOS binary to the root of the USB and rename it "bios.bin"
5. Boot the machine from the USB drive and it will automatically overwrite the BIOS to the desired version.
6. Ctrl-Alt-Delete once it says it's done

** Be sure to copy down the MAC address of your Intel NIC as it will be overwritten and you'll have to change it back once you're back up and running.

 

[LoveGamers]

Tried every BIOS, only F2 worked flawlessly. Just going to have to live with the ghost partitions.

In hindsight, I would've just gotten a different board to start with. Maybe I will in a few months.

 

[qthegaijin]

Strange people are having weird boot issues with F20 when I have had no hiccups....do people not physically remove their Mac partitions when doing their bios updates??? I thought that was the standard practice....

 

[eboyko]

I thought that was the standard practice

I've started with hackintosh less than six months EmuVariableUefi-64.efi works in my case.

a different board to start with

You have no reason to replace the board: some people in this thread haven't problems after upgrade, others successfully fix it.

 

[canyondust]

Tried every BIOS, only F2 worked flawlessly. Just going to have to live with the ghost partitions.

In hindsight, I would've just gotten a different board to start with. Maybe I will in a few months.

BTW you can stop the ghost partitions by mounting your EFI partition and then renaming EFI/BOOT/ to EFT/BOOT.disabled/
EDIT: THIS IS NOT TRUE FOR ALL SYSTEMS APPARENTLY.