If all else fails CH341A flash programmer costs $3-4 if you can wait for long shipping, maybe $8-10 if you want it now
Or if you have another board with same BIOS socket you can hotflash this boards BIOS from the other board, in DOS
Iāll try it, but I do not know if thereās time in a second that there will be a DVD-ROM tray. But it does not cost me anything to try other options.
And try the same thing with latest BIOS on USB, start PC, itāll boot loop, plug in USB as it boot loops. And try it with that ERALL.ROM BIOS same way.
Rename first BIOS to USB Flashback one though.
I think itās the way to go. Program the BIOS independently.
What I would like to be clear is that when the Intel management engine firmware is burned somewhere in the BIOS and not directly in the X79 chipset, is it correct?
Remove the CPU and then try the USB flashback stuff again. First with erall.rom and see if usb flashes for 1 minute or more, if not itās not working. Then do the stock BIOS renamed to recovery naming that you mentioned before.
Yes, ME is part of the BIOS itself. BE very careful around the board while no CPU is in socket, so you donāt drop anything in there and bend pins! You can put cover back over latch if you have it handy.
You really need to try the methods I suggested. Iāve seen people recover PCs that wouldnāt boot at all. And from boot loops.
Short circuit on the CPU power line, probably some passive component is dead.
You really need to try the methods I suggested. Iāve seen people recover PCs that wouldnāt boot at all. And from boot loops.
tonight I start to try everything
This doesnāt seem like a problem caused by the ME firmware update. It wouldnāt act like that. That ticking noise exactly before powering off must be the PSU protection kicking in. Something could be shorting or is problematic in the hardware. I see that the motherboard has a socketed SPI/BIOS chip so the worse case scenario is to buy a cheap CH341A programmer for 5$ or so and re-program it manually. But thatās only if the problem is truly software related which I doubt from the looks of it.
To me, that looks exactly like you mentioned, flashed bad ME firmware into the BIOS, I have done this personally and itās always a 1 second or less reboot loop looking very similar to a short like many have mentioned.
I think the sounds are all just fans and PSU Starting up etc, which would normally get drowned out once all the fans kicked in and case would be closed anyway.
Please remove your CPU as I mentioned, set the case on itās side and put case door on or cover CPU slot with plastic cover so pins donāt get bent. I suggest taking the CPU out because then there is no way for it to attempt to start, thus kicking in the failed ME.
Without CPU, only USB Flashback will function and it will not attempt to startup the entire board and BIOS system, so ME would not get invoked anyway.
I know this sound odd, but trust me, this is how/why USB Flashback was designed to work, in order to update systems either without CPU, or without CPU with intention of upgrading to next gen CPU that current BIOS does not support
Try this with stock 4801 or 4701 BIOS. In the recovery files, I see two names, so I put same BIOS with both names, put both on root of small cheap USB
P9X79PRO.CAP
P9X79-PRO.CAP
Flashing LED on USB stick is helpful if you have, flashing for 1 minute or two is good, solid LED is not good. Once done, put back in CPU and run quick test startup.
If this fails, take CPU out again and try the ERALL BIOS.
Once done, if it recovers you will need to reflash your MOD BIOS 2801 for NVME mod you did before loading operating system.
If you flash via the erall BIOS, you will need to find the cap conversion BIOS (2104) and go through all that rom to cap BIOS update thing again before reflashing your 4801 BIOS.
I can help with that if itās not something you did first time around (ie you got board already with cap style BIOS in it)
I personally hate the 4801 BIOS on these boards! Always use 4701 and mod it.
today what I could try flashback stock 4801 without CPU. The process ends well. The led flashes for 2 or 3 minutes and then turns off. Mount the CPU and nothing has changed. Itās the same as the video that went up with the bug. Yesterday I managed to connect the bios chip in a raspberryPi and with Raspbian Flashrom I could read and make an image of the Rom bios. It was an 8mb file. Now what I want is to correctly prepare the file to flase. That tonight. yesterday I also tried just out of curiosity that the motherboard did without bios and had the same symptom. Attempt to start and shutdown instantly and return to restart infinitely. It seems that the bios now does not have any effect. Tonight I try more things and inform if there are news.
Greetings and thanks for the help.
I think the PSU works well. Before the erroneous flashing the whole system worked perfectly. If I bridle the pin 16 PS-ON of the source to GND, pin17 turns on permanently. So I infer that the signal that has to give the motherboard to start the PSU is the one that is failing. It gives the signal to Pin16 for a second and then disconnects it and returns to the infinite loop.
@ Lost_N_BIOS:
The ME co-processor starts before the CPU. If its firmware is severely broken, the main CPU wonāt initialize. I had experienced such an issue in my Z77 system a few years ago but only when I had intentionally flashed wrong firmware to test something. Managing to do that via FWUpdate is very hard, something went terribly wrong because the ME cannot even boot in recovery mode (FTPR partition corrupted). Also, ASUS BIOS Flashback deals only with the BIOS region of the SPI chip so it cannot repair ME firmware corruption. At least thatās how it was a few years ago.
@ Chumet:
If you have a programmer then re-flash the SPI chip and youāll solve the issue immediately. Download the latest SPI/BIOS image from ASUS, remove the AMI Capsule Header via UEFITool and flash it back.
Last night it was very late to prepare the raspberry to plug in the BIOS chip. and I could only do a reading test to see that everything worked correctly. tonight I will try to flash as you say by removing the AMI heading.
My chip is Winbond 25Q64FVAIG. I have to take into account something special to connect it and flase it correctly with the raspberryPi and the Flasrom? he recognizes it as Winbond W25Q64.V
@Lost_N_BIOS @plutomaniac
When using usb hardware programmer and stock downloaded bios image, MBās credentials(MAC ID,serials and etc.) will be preserved(is there fptās -savemac parameter equivalent when using programmer)?
No they will obviously not. Hardware programmers know only how to read & write bytes, everything else is up to the user. The -savemac command is relevant only when the system has a GbE region at the SPI chip. It just copies its first 8 bytes.
So, if the MB is bricked, I canāt eject/desolder chip and reflash it with USB programmer using downloaded stock spi image(what credentials Iāll loose in this case)? Sorry, I didnāt get it.
@andr84 You can program your chip with the stock bios, it will at least work even without serials, MAC etc. If you donāt have a backup you can only hope to find some of this on the board itself on some stickers or the packaging. You could try to insert them in the bios image before programming the chip. There are some helpful posts about this in this forum.
SOLVED !!! I have managed to revive my ASUS P9X79-PRO motherboard by reprogramming the BIOS chip with a RaspberryPi and the tutorial from this same Pacman user forum: [Guide] Recover from failed BIOS flash using Raspberry PI
I have to thank everyone for your support and interest in solving my problem that I already thought was lost. And above all, your quick answers.
Definitely a flaseo with BIOS programmer restored normality.
1000 thanks for your support.