Unbricking Dell pre-built

I have a Dell Inspiron 5675 Ryzen desktop. Much to my chagrin, Dell will not release a BIOS that supports 2nd and 3rd gen Ryzen CPUs. Some research indicated that the 5675 and 5676 (the 5675’s Ryzen 2xxx successor) used the same motherboard. So I decided to flash the 5675 with a 5676 BIOS to see if I could get at least 2nd Gen/Zen+ support. As you probably figured from the subject, it is now a brick. I tried Dell’s BIOS recovery, but no dice.

I knew this result was a possibility, but I really wanted to move beyond the 1700. Assuming there’s no way to recover this brick, what course should I take? I’m inclined to wait for new X570 mobos and drop my 1700 in, then upgrade to 3xxx later.

Depending on where and when you bought your PC, you may be able to return it for an exchange/warranty replacement.

If it’s past that period, you can either reprogram the BIOS (the likely culprit), or buy a used motherboard from Ebay.

Well, I tried Dell’s BIOS recovery, but couldn’t invoke it with CTRL-ESC or HOME. Since the system won’t complete the POST sequence, I don’t know of any other way to reprogram the BIOS. The system is out of warranty.

You can buy an EEPROM reader and try to load the correct BIOS on back again. If not I guess Dell would fix that under warranty without any costs.

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Hope this helps
I tried buying a new bios on one PC because it had a bad checksum but it was a waste of 30 bucks.

Buying a new 5675, swapping the BIOS chips, then returning the new 5675 is one thought that went through my head, which is a really really bad thing to do. :slight_smile:

@MetalizeYourBrain Wow, I thought EEPROM readers were thousands of dollars. Looks like they’re going for $50 - $75 bucks on eBay. That might be fun, but I could just get a cheap B350 board for that much…

@anon85933304 I tried going through that process, but the hotkeys that supposedly invoke the BIOS recovery just don’t seem to do anything. Sorry your replacement BIOS failed.

@TheAlmightyBaconLord It looks like a replacement 5675 motherboard goes for $225 - $250 on eBay. Might as well get an X470 and drop all the parts in a spare case.

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It doesn’t seem like a great plan to buy a new motherboard when X570 motherboards are probably just a few months away. So I guess my immediate plan is to de-mothball my old Ivy Bridge gaming rig and move my Vega 56 to that box until Ryzen 3xxxx comes out. That brings up a couple of questions:

Is there any way I can put my boot drive, an m.2 SATA SSD, into a motherboard without an m.2 socket (specifically an Asus P8Z77V LK?)

Are we sure that a Ryzen 1700 will work in the new motherboards?

Would it be worth upgrading from a 1700 to a 3700?

Will DDR4-2400 even work in an X570?

You could even buy a 25$ one. They’re more fiddly and difficult to make work but they do work. A friend of mine bought one and we revived successfully a board with it. Depends on how inclined you are in getting your hands dirty.

Regarding moving the OS drive there are plenty of adapters on Amazon that accept the SATA m.2 and break it out into a SATA + power cable.

Certainty is not something I can give you regarding a 1700 working in an X570 board but, since the pinout on the socket is exactly the same, I don’t see why manufacturer won’t support it.

Would it be worth upgrading depends on you. AMD showed similar performance to a 9900K so you can go from there.

Why wouldn’t DDR4-2400 work? Those CPU’s memory controllers use the DDR4 JEDEC standard so from 1866 to 2933 they’ll not have any issues.

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AMD has said all new Zen motherboards will be compatible with old Zen processor with a Bios update, but there is a caveat If @imrazor were to purchase an X470 or an X570 motherboard, he may have to contact AMD for a certain Kit or have someone with a Ryzen 3 processor help him update the Bios. In my humble opinion, Imrazor only cost-effective options are either get Dell to replace the motherboard with the bad Bios or purchase an X370 motherboard. It is also my humble opinion Imrazor has just learned a somewhat expensive lesson, Never update the default Bios on your motherboard.

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In theory an M.2 to PCIe adapter will work.

AMD has stated in the past that AM4 will be supported until at least 2020 and parts will be compatible. You may need a update the BIOS (heh) if you are putting a newer CPU into an older motherboard, but putting an older CPU into a newer motherboard should be fine with whatever the board shipped with.

Wait for third party benchmarks and then decide if the money you would spend on it would be worth it for your usecase.

DDR4 2400 is a JEDEC standard, so I can pretty much guarantee X570 will support it.

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I was peeved that Dell wouldn’t support 2nd or 3rd gen Ryzen on a motherboard that was assuredly capable of it (X370 chipset.) So I decided to try an experiment that I knew might end in failure. I have a backup plan (de-mothball 3570K then get an X470/X570 motherboard) in case of failure, which I’ll probably put into action in the next week or so. In the meantime, if I get desperate to play a game I’ve got a low end gaming laptop I can use (i5-7350HQ + 1050 Ti.)

@w.meri Thanks for the info. I’ve heard secondhand that the CPU AMD demoed was comparable to a 9900K. If so, that might well be worth the upgrade - assuming it’s a good deal less expensive than the Intel chip. But you’re right to not get on the hype train…

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I managed to find an MSI Tomahawk B450 locally for a decent price (well, same as Newegg.) I transferred the CPU, RAM and SSD to a new case and it booted up without issues. I had Fedora 28 on a 1TB SSD, and it only needed some system-specific boot parameters changed to boot up. In games at least, it seems more responsive than the old Dell.

I also have a Windows SSD in the old Dell with a few games that will only run under Windows. If I move that over to the Tomahawk, will I have activation problems?

I would’ve built my own system in the first place, but back in January of 2018 graphics cards were ridiculously expensive. So to get one without breaking the bank required buying a pre-built. But I didn’t count on some the limitations that Dell would impose on the Inspiron. I feel a little freer now…

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Yes you will. But they don’t interfere if all you will be using it for is gaming.

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I can unbrick your dell motherboard. I saw your post on the dell forums (which suck, the forums that is). You may recognize my username from over there though. Anyway, I too tried flashing a 5676 BIOS onto my 5675 motherboard and bricked it. Well I finally got around to fixing mine. It now has a 5676 BIOS, fully functional with 2nd gen ryzen CPUs and is identified as a 5676 model (though it has the original MAC address, service tag, and Windows key). Let me know if you still have this board and want it fixed or want me to take it off your hands.

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@mnewxcv think I’ve still got it somewhere in my mountain of computer parts. I’ve since dropped a 3700X into the MSI Tomahawk board I mentioned a couple of posts ago.

I’ll have to dig through my storage to see if I do indeed still have the old 5675. Then I need to weigh my options. Thanks for posting after these many moons.

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sure, let me know if you find it! Congrats on the 3700x :grin:

Hey mnewxcv how did you get the bios back on? I am having the same issue.

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Did you flash a Dell 5675 with a Dell 5676 BIOS by disabling the check model # flag?

I’m surprised Dell allows this… I believe the BIOS itself is encrypted?

Anyway, you can use a Raspberry Pi (or any other ARM board with GPIO) and a clip to flash chips directly. Providing power might be fiddly depending on the chip, but it seems like a cheaper and more versatile solution than the various programmers out there.

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I had no problem with the cheapo amazon programmers, it’s just a matter of getting the right one. As far as flashing a 5675 with a 5676 bios, the bios you get from dell is an EXE, containing the rom and the flash program. you can swap out the rom from a different model after you extract it, then repackage it, and change the INI flag on the flash program to ignore model/version differences. That being said, that is what results in a brick, because there are a ton of differences between the BIOS including AGESA and addresses of modules being different.

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