Cannot get past BIOS splash screen

[StellaMan]

I have a PC here that I am looking at for a client, it has a GA AX370-Gaming K70 motherboard. This is what he wrote to me …

“I recently hit a snag while updating the bios. It’s now stuck at the bios post screen and won’t boot Into windows. My motherboard has two Bios and I’ve now done it to both the main and the backup.”

I’ve booted it up myself and it gets to the screen with the options of DEL to enter BIOS, F9 for system info, F12 for the Boot Menu or END to Q-Flash, it never gets past this. I have trid all options on the Keyboard but there is no response, I have re-seated and swapped around the RAM … I unplugged it and removed the CMOS battery overnight, but nothing has changed !!! The MB does have a code on it, which I think is 0d …

Am I safe to say that the Motherboard is fried and needs replacing ?

[ucav117]

Have you re-seated the CPU? Also, can it update the bios without the cpu installed?

[StellaMan]

I haven’t reseated the CPU, no, but it doesn’t recognise a USB (and there is no DVD drive) on boot so I doubt I’ll be able to update the BIOS at all !

[Kocytean]

Try re-seating the CPU
As far as the BIOS goes, check to see if it can flash the bios without a cpu installed. If it can, there will be a specific port for that. Might work.

[anon7678104]

do you have a ps/2 connector on the motherboard?
if so connect a ps/2 keyboard to it.
it will boot before bios so my let you get into bios with the del key.

a usb keyboard has to wait till it bios detects the usb and the keyboard powers up and boots. so may-not boot quick enough to be working when the splash screen pops up.

if you dont have that then put a new bios on a flashstick and hope you can do a Qflash or similar to reset the machine.

[StellaMan]

Kocytean, unfortunately I can’t see that there is a specific Port for doing that on this model. I found a picture of a Gigabyte B550 AORUS MASTER and that specifies a port for Q-Flash Plus, but there’s no such labelling on this MB …

[StellaMan]

HEXIT, I am using a PS/2 keyboard, but still can’t get any response !!!

[anon7678104]

in that case i would try re-flashing the bios to an earlier version. preferably one you already had on it so know works. f25 seems to be the last one where you didnt need to update other firmware first…

i looked on the website you can use usb flash to try to recover the bios.
so give that a try.

once done. if you decided to update the bios again.
make sure you do the other firmware stuff first or the bios update wont work.

[BillB]

I had a similar experience with a different motherboard; no response to keyboard, whether USB or PS/2.

After much trial-and-error, the solution turned out to be UN-plugging other USB devices. Somehow one or more of my other devices was interfering with the keyboard.

[StellaMan]

But I can’t flash the BIOS as nothing is recognised … will that change if I remove the CPU and boot without it ?!? From my investigations so far it looks like I can’t boot without a CPU because I only have Q-Flash, and not Q-Flash Plus …

[wendell]

same thing happened to me with the samsung 980 pro PRE firmware update on the 980 pro…

[Zibob]

Do.you know what the BIOS versions before and what it is now?

I am wondering if the CPU might be an older Zen 1 and the bios update dropped support for it being a 370 motherboard.

[Kocytean]

AFAIK BIOS updates are additive and shouldnt drop support for anything.

Try booting with nothing plugged in to any usb port. From memory it should beep and say no keyboard detected or something like that. Then reboot with a keyboard plugged in but nothing else. If it gets to the splash screen, just leave it for an hour or so. It could be a weird memory training issue.

Alternatively try this on the second BIOS.

[wendell]

My favorite error is keyboard error. Keyboard not found. Press f1 to continue

[GigaBusterEXE]

At the bottom there are LEDs for debug, which ones are lit up when it’s frozen

Also, remove any storage drives, SSDs, HDDs, USB, sata, pci-e, m.2, u.2 everything, a suspect or failing drive will cause the system to hang

Without a bootable media, it would just go immediately intl bios setup, not stop at splash, so this is definitely a hang

Also hit the CMOS button by the ram both while it’s off

Try each ram stick individually in slots 1 and 3, one at a time

[Zibob]

Should be but there was a big mess involving what AMD said about supporting am4 till 2021 and then having x3/470 boards that did not support all the cpurs from 1000 to 5000 and all the APUs in between.

So some got updates to support newer APUs and CPUs but the bios chips were not big enough to hold all of that for all of them so certain manufacturers dropped less common CPU in some cases.

It was a big mess, mostly centering on MSi, but it was applicable to all. It is an oddball outside chance but worth checking.

[anon7678104]

the only solution is a return for a replacement.

you updated your bios from the original to the latest on the site.
but didnt do the previous steps that were required to update other system firmware. (earlier updates needed firmware patches applied first)
you grabbed the latest bios and updated then got a reboot, with a recovery bios.
so you tried again, made the same mistake of not updating the firmware first and installed the bios again…
this time there was no backup bios and the system locked on the splash…

if this is exactly what you did… (i did it with my gigabyte x470) the only option is to return it for a replacement from the store you got it from (its a legitimate return for a bricked bios update within 1 year)
or if its a year old+, return it to gigabyte via a factory RMI.

yeah this sucks but you cant do a q-flash so its bricked… RMI it.