Bios is dead?

JooK

New Member
I know I'm an idiot for trying this, but I tried to update my Asus P5E X38 with the disk that came with the motherboard. I figured that since the disk CAME with it, I have nothing to worry about... wrong.

While it was updating my bios to 601 (I believe) it failed during the verification. I thought that the new bios was installed, but not verified, whatever that means. So I restarted the computer, and thats where I realised I might be screwed.

The computer starts up for 3 seconds, then turn off, starts up for 3 seconds, then turns off. There is absolutly nothing on the screen, and I have the Asus disk in my dvd drive. I have taken the battery out, reset the cmos and that didn't work either.

I seem to be totally out of options. I am somewhat of a heavy gamer, and I needed the bios update to see if it would help with my BSOD's, memory and video stabiltiy. This is the first time I even thought of updating a bios, so I kinda jumped into it a little too fast.

Anyways, I read on various sites that its possible to recover the bios if I put the .rom on a floppy and hit some certain keys (?) during boot. I don't have a floppy drive at the moment, nor do I have a floppy disk, but I don't think that'll matter since even the earliest bios is over 1.44 mb. My only other option is a flash drive, which I doubt will work also.

Anyways, please, oh god, please don't tell me I just got shafted because of some program Asus provided to me in the first place. I find it awkward how they would include a utility for a great motherboard that could ulitmatly turn it into a complete brick. This mobo doesn't even have a removable bios, so I cannot go to www.biosman.com to get it fixed or replaced.

I do NOT feel like waiting 2, 3 or 4 weeks for a replacment mobo. I'm a 17 year old who HAD a job, and theres no way I'm going to buy a new motherboard. I need my computer for school work and an escape from everyday boredom. Ive heard way too many bad things about the RMA reliability and service from Asus, so if there is any other way I can fix this thing, I will be greatly appreciative to anyone who can provide me with a solution.
 
The software disk contains the update tool but not any newer version of the bios itself. The problem of seeing the system shutoff in just 2 or 3 seconds sounds like the board itself may have simply quit on it's own rather then from simply corrupting the programming if any when going to use the tool there.

If the board was just bought lately and within the exchange period you could rma it as a defective board for a replacement. On the newer build here with an Asus model the first board quit after only 3 days of use and was swiftly returned for a replacement. Bad caps or a bad bios eprom are the likely reasons for seeing that. The first could be set to auto for the dram timings and still see DDR2 800 while the replacement has to be set to 800 manually. Eprom or bad caps there?

Other then the annoyance of waiting for the second board and the shipping charge for sending it back the replacement has been running strong ever since. If you still have the option of rmaing the board use it! It likely had a defect to begin with. BSODs are generally driver issues not hardware faults while memory flaws can be looked at later once you have a good board in.
 
I can no longer RMA the board from Newegg, but it does say "3 year warrenty" on the box, so I assume that Asus will RMA it with no problem. Still, there are nightmares floating around on various forums about how Asus takes 3 - 4 weeks to respond to emails, then another 2 or 3 just to finish shipping the board back etc. I'm going to call them instead of sending an email, as that might be my best bet.
 
It stinks regardless if you only recently bought the board but missed the return date. Your option now would be to contact Asus for replacement under manufacturer's warranty there. They will provide the shipping information needed as well. If it was only a small problem they will simply repair and return it while a deeper problem will see that replaced with a new board.
 
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