Bios problems when updating from Ryzen 2600 to 3600

[Fluvous]

I recently got a R5 3600 for a decent price so I decided to upgrade. I have a Gigabyte b350 gaming 3 mobo so I needed to update the bios in order to support the 3000 series. The steps were a bit different than usual. I first needed to update from F22 to F31. From there I would need to run a program of theirs to update firmware (I belive that was the purpose). After downloading their EC FW Update Tool (It was the earliest version recommended for the update) I opened the folder and it blue screened. After loading back in I end up opening it again, but this time it worked. I extract and run the program. After it is finished my computer restarts and leaves me with a black screen. 

 

This is where I'm stuck. 

After reading about what has happened to others it seems like my Bios has downgraded. I have no way of checking, but others say it's a very early version of the Bios (F5 maybe). If this is the case for me my PC won't work since F5 won't support the R5 2600.

 

This makes me want to buy a cheap AM4 chip that would work with the earliest version (Athlon x4 950 perhaps). However, if the problem is other than an old Bios, then my F31 bios would be too old for a Bristol Ridge chip. 

 

What would you guys suggest? Is it likely that my Bios got downgraded, or is there something else? This seems like a tough situation to deal with. 

Sorry if this was already posted. I couldn't find it elsewhere with the issue that my PC won't work

 

Edit: I think that the other people with the problem had 370 chipsets, but I assume the issue could still occur for b350

 

Update 1: I managed to get into the backup BIOS by following this 2009 guide here: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/697533-GUIDE-Forcing-backup-BIOS-on-Gigabyte-motherboards?highlight=gigabyte+dual+bios

All I had to do was method 2, which suggested holding the power and reset button (while PC is off) for roughly 10 seconds. This booted me up, and after entering the BIOS it said that I had cleared some settings. I am now/still at the F31 version. I will do more to see if I can still update to allow 3000 series.

[STRMfrmXMN]

You flashed a BIOS that wasn't flashed correctly, or was not compatible with the board. I've done this before with an ASUS board awhile back where I tried to hack the BIOS to unlock more specific memory settings than was given to me. Flashing the BIOS bricked the board. All relevant software for flashing this BIOS directly from ASUS blocked the install.

 

You NEVER want to use any sort of software not provided by the manufacturer for BIOS flashing. The reason you got back into your Windows install was likely because most Gigabyte boards have a backup BIOS and will auto-load the spare one if the primary one gets bricked. You likely bricked both. Gigabyte has their utility built into the BIOS just for updating the BIOS called Qflash. All you need is a USB flash drive to have the BIOS saved on the drive (save both the .zip file as well as the file extracted on the drive in case it doesn't like one or the other) and do all of that in the BIOS. After that, there's nothing you need to do. I'm not sure what "firmware" you'd need to update on a motherboard, but I'd imagine any sort of firmware would be baked into the BIOS. 

 

FYI, black screen is what I've gotten on all boards that are technically working, but don't have an operating BIOS. Some boards have a feature where you can flash a BIOS by putting a BIOS on a flash drive and pressing a special button on the board, or something like that. I don't think your board is high-end enough to have that, but it would be worth contacting Gigabyte about fixing a corrupted BIOS.

[Fluvous]

11 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

You flashed a BIOS that wasn't flashed correctly, or was not compatible with the board.

I'm assuming that it would be compatible since Gigabyte had listed it on their support page for the motherboard, but it could have been incorrectly flashed. 

 

16 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

You NEVER want to use any sort of software not provided by the manufacturer for BIOS flashing. The reason you got back into your Windows install was likely because most Gigabyte boards have a backup BIOS... you likely bricked both. Gigabyte has their utility built into the BIOS just for updating the BIOS called Qflash.

I was using Qflash for the F31 update. I don't remember how, but I saw something that made me believe I was running windows with the new update. Because of this I was only thinking that a maximum of one BIOS was corrupted. 

29 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

I'm not sure what "firmware" you'd need to update on a motherboard... 

I was confused by this too. Here are the instructions from Gigabyte:

 

If you are using Q-Flash Utility to update BIOS, make sure you have updated BIOS to F31 before F40
2. Before update BIOS to F40, you have to install EC FW Update Tool (B19.0606.1 or later version) to avoid 4DIMM DDR compatibility on 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™ CPU
3. Due to BIOS ROM size limited, NO Bristol Ridge (AMD 7^th Gen A-series/ Athlon™ X4 series) APU support.

 

(Step 2 is where things went wrong for me) 

 

32 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

FYI, black screen is what I've gotten on all boards that are technically working, but don't have an operating BIOS.

This is similar to why I thought it could be true that there was a problem with an outdated BIOS. My system is functioning how it was when I first needed to update my B350 to support 2000 series. 

 

Sorry to respond to so much. I just wanted to clear some things up as well as see if some assumptions I had were right/made sense. My experience with updating BIOS is limited. 

Thank you for responding

[Fluvous]

Update:

I've decided to purchase a Bristol Ridge processor to try this. I would have just purchased a new b550 mobo, but I have use for the new processor in a side project as well. I will update after it arrives and I try it.

[STRMfrmXMN]

It sounds like the firmware thing was for 4-DIMM DDR4 support. I’d have just run one or two sticks of RAM and updated the BIOS. Qflash isn’t stupid and it’ll make sure you’re set before you update. Kind of odd that the firmware update bricked the board though.