The USB stick I am using with the FAT is a 256 MB that I held onto for this kind of stuff, so I know there is no issue there. It is a single 256MB partition. The other one I made the MS-DOS format on is only like 64MB, but the MS-DOS partition turned it into like 1MB if I remember correctly. The 256MB was a MONSTER when I bought it over 10 years ago, for the record! 
And yes, the sticks continuously blink, regardless of whether I do the ctrl+home combo. I left everything to bake for over an hour, and nothing. Need to spend a day cycling the stick all loaded with the different ROM names, I suppose. The continuous blinking does concern me-- I fear the system is not actually reading them, just pulsing power (screaming) at every port, since the keyboard light blinks on and off too.
Well, i am pretty sure that the problem is the USB keyboard, i had to use PS/2 for it to work, tried atleast 15 times with a USB keyboard,
have you tried though holding down the ctrl+home keys when powering on?
The recovery procedure will only kick in if the ctrl+home keys are pressed withing a second or so after Power on.
You could try unplugging the keyboard after Power on and key combo, just to see if there is any difference.
I tried a PS/2 keyboard, and the system had serious issues detecting the keys (wouldn’t recognize the alt-F2 that it had no issue picking up with the USB keyboard). I tested it, and know the keyboard works too. I have both plugged in, and have tried the combo on both.
Making the USB drives now, loaded up with every type of BIOS name, and every version I could find.
The oddities continue;
The indicator lights on the USB sticks will light up and indicate activity, even if I do not touch the keyboard.
HOWEVER, they only do this is the IDE DVD drive is plugged in. Unplugged, and there is nothing. It still seems that nothing is moving forward, regardless of the indicator light activity. I tried all of the steps with the IDE drive unplugged as well as plugged in, and still nothing moved forward.
I tried clearing the CMOS before hand this time, still nothing. Also moved around the three sticks (Formatted as MS-DOS boot disk, FAT, and FAT32) and tried the keyboard combo each time on a PS/2 keyboard. The system seems to like the MS-DOS stick the best, as it will only light up the FAT32 one if the MS-DOS one is not plugged in, and where they are plugged in makes no difference. The FAT one has no light, so I have no clue what it is doing.
I am thinking of burning some kind of recovery disc, because I can hear the system spinning it up. It wants to read from it, and ignores the USB sticks if the drive is unplugged. What kind of disc and format should I try to feed it?
@Imaya
All i can find is to burn the AMIBOOT.ROM to an empty CD.
Here is a .pdf file on the subject from AMI, might be of help.
@Pacman
ARGH!!! I wish I saw this earlier!! Here it is, right in the whitepages:
<CTRL><HOME> is the standard keystroke to initiate BIOS recovery, which also clears CMOS after
programming. <CTRL><PGDN> will initiate BIOS recovery without clearing CMOS. <CTRL><PGUP> will
initiate BIOS recovery while clearing CMOS & NVRAM.
That was all I needed from the start! CURSES.
Well, new stuff to try. Hopefully one of those works… And I hope this will show up on Google for the next poor soul who stumbles into this bug!
@Pacman
Just tried again today. Been at it for hours, swapping in different combos of discs and USB sticks, using both the ctrl+home combo and ctrl + pg up, on both a PS2 keyboard and USB keyboard. Nothing is working. I think it is time for surgery.
Ok, that is strange, the boot block must have been corrupted, then the recovery will not work.
Yes, then reprogramming it externally is the only way.
Dug around the mobo and found the first bit of good news;
It’s socketed. Thank gawd. No major surgery needed!
What is the easiest method to get this done? I wouldn’t mind spending 10 bucks on one of those Chinese chip programmers either… I am sure it would come in handy again at some point! I don’t know how reliable they are, however.
Personally, I use this one. Worked perfectly at an ASRock P55 I have lying around. From the picture at ASUS website I can see an 8-pin socketed spi chip so indeed you can just get a simple cheap programmer and quickly get the job done. No desoldering or clips needed besides the programmer.
I found one of those programmers on Amazon with Prime shipping for $10. That will do!
I am hoping the instructions with it are good? Even things like how to tell which slot to use for my chip (I don’t know how to tell the type…), and which way to insert it (I saw no indication of where pin 1 is on the chip? Help?). I didn’t see any of that in the thread about it, so I hope the user docs will fill me in!
There should be either a Little cirkel on top of the chip, or a notch in the chip to indicate the side of pin 1.
I indeed noticed the notch on one end of the chip! I was looking for a triangle or dot, however, as that is usually the indicator.
If I am holding the chip with the pins facing away from me (so I am looking on the printed top of the chip) and the notch end facing upwards, I believe that means pin 1 is the top left from that perspective?
Yes, that is correct.
O.M.F.G.
That was so shockingly simple… I wish I found out and tried one these USB flashers months ago!
It freaking works. Took a few minutes to confirm I had the chip in correct (the diagram I am sure is different on all of them, but a close examination of mine showed a picture on the PCB of a ‘notched’ edge with a tiny dot next to it that had the correct orientation). Read the simple guide here :[Guide] Using CH341A-based programmer to flash SPI EEPROM and downloaded the program (I had Comodo run it sandboxed, because, well, Chinese freeware…) and it worked flawlessly and quickly. Plugged it back in, and there was LIFE.
For US folks, since the links in that thread are for other countries, I bought this guy: http://www.amazon.com/SMAKN%C2%AE-Progra…ailpage_o00_s00
Free 2 day shipping with Amazon Prime, and only a couple bucks more than one from the slow boat from China? Absolutely worth it. It is good quality from all appearances too. Little bit of discoloration on the PCB near a few of the solders, but nothing worrysome. All connections look solid and clean. And, most importantly, it worked.
I feel like a fool for spending as much time as I did trying to fix it the old way. This did it for 10 bucks and 10 minutes of time. Sheesh.
Live and learn. It is going to definitely be one of my new favorite tools/ toys in my kit of PC repair stuff. 