Bios Will Not Boot -- Unusable?

Hey all. This has never happened to me before and I'm freaking out about it just a little bit.

I have a GIGABYTE GA-Z77-D3H mobo rev 1.0. Intel I5-3570K processor. nVidia GTX750 TI GPU. 750 volt power supply. Windows 10 Pro x64.

So, I went into the BIOS Setup and enabled Intel Virtualization. Afterward, the PC turns on, shows the BIOS screen ... and that's it. It will not move from there. It also does not respond to any key commands.

I've tried the following:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...000005930/boards-and-kits/desktop-boards.html
&
https://superuser.com/questions/114...o-boot-in-the-backup-bios-by-shorting-pins-on (Methods 1 & 2)

The BIOS is still unresponsive after clearing the CMOS via battery removal. It will not boot past the splash screen. I cannot get it to respond to use its Q-FLASH utility either. Is it a foregone conclusion at this point that the motherboard is unusable?

Any help here is very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Have you checked this out
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/s...desktop/sb/recoverybiosupdateinstructions.pdf

 

This says it's for Intel Desktop Boards, but I have a Gigabyte board.

From what I understand, shorting the pins has the same effect as removing the battery for about a minute. https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-clear-cmos-2624545

 

Not necessarily. Short the pins.

 

Okay, I did go ahead and try the CLR_CMOS option by touching a metal screwdriver against the pins for a few seconds. Still nothing. What IS happening, though, is that every time I clear the CMOS, the PC seems to turn on, quickly reboot, then turn on again to display the BIOS.

 

I have indeed tried that as well to no avail.

 

I find it better to use short piece of wire, with its insulation on up to the bare ends, clipping small ends similar to those on the ends, so as to keep them there, , and, then start the machine for a few seconds and turn off, - I have seen someone create a short piece like that, put a switch in that, an that enabled him to switch the cable on and off , and removing it afterwards- seemed a safe way to do it, too. I had a laptop that I could not unlock, because the charging circuit was not working, -no power- no clearing cmos...... ddual bios...
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/437978/Gigabyte-Ga-Z77x-D3h.html?page=47#
When you restart, it may go into the second bios chip (dual bios),or, start in the original.

 

It can sometimes be a suck it and see experiment- I have been successful a few times, but I find it frustrating, too, TimW.
Often, it is because identifying the two pins is often the difficulty- That small picture on the manual does not show it too well, and you need to be careful not to short the wrong ones.

 

Did you have an insulated screwdriver, and did you start it up for a few seconds while shorting out ?

 

No and no. I was informed via the manual that it should be done while the PC is unplugged.

I was given some other advice to try booting up the PC without the battery in it. I tried that, it turned on and rebooted itself quickly a couple of times, then came back to the same BIOS splash with the same issues. Could it be that the battery needs to be replaced?

 

As yu are stuck on the bios screen-It could apparently also be caused by any of the following, and try by checking one at a time.......

Unplug anything that is not required- any usb connections/sticks'-external hard drives etc:
Check that you have not loosened a cable end near the cmos battery, or, elsewhere
Make sure video card connections are o.k (any cables, and remove and replace to ensure it connects properly.
Check ram is clipped in properly- try removing all but one stick.
In other words, run only what needs to be connected.

These links might interest..... you- one uses a tool like I mentioned when I said about a cable with a switch- unfortunately He des not talk, or,say where he got it,or,which pins it shorts out.
https://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/49279-gigabyte-z77-d3h-bios-flash-failure.html


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhI-t5lh_38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFQpDn_GB7k

 

It is sometime since I did a bios recovery, but I am trying to think what you might not have done
First, switched off at plug socket,
then unplugged mains cable from rear
then press and hold power button for at least 10 seconds (to dispel any power left)
then remove cmos battery
then unplug any other connections except monitor.
use an insulated handled screwdriver to bridge the connections as described in the manual (too small for me to see in diagram)

Hold it there for about 30 seconds, and press the power button for a brief time (until the pc fires up- switch off by holding power button in for 10 seconds
Then remove screwdriver.
Switch off at mains, replace cmos battery,and restart.
Please note I offer this route at your own risk- and you understand that working inside a pc with the power on is dangerous, and should really be done by those experienced with electronics

 

This actually got me somewhere!

I left in one stick of RAM, disconnected the GPU, disconnected the CMOS battery and connected the monitor to the onboard graphics.

The PC turns on for about 10 seconds, reboots, turns on for about 3 seconds, reboots, then turns on again to show a display. It's the BIOS splash screen and THEN a blue screen saying "GIGABYTE DualBIOS." However, nothing happens after that.

Thank you for this link! This is progress!

 

Update: Well, despite my earlier excitement, I really cannot wait any longer to get this fixed. Tomorrow morning I'll be taking it to a PC repair store. So, if anyone can think of or find something else by then, it'd help save me some money. If not, I'm going to let a professional take a crack at it.

Also, for my earlier post, I wanted to clarify that it says "Gigabyte UEFI DualBIOS."

 

IT WORKED!

Okay now should I pick Load optimized defaults then boot, Load optimized defaults then reboot, or Enter BIOS?

I'm just so excited right now I'm shaking.

 

Sorry, I got a little impatient and picked "Load optimized then reboot." That isn't what got me into this mess. What happened was I tried to enable "Intel Virtualization" in the BIOS. Then that's when it rebooted and got stuck in the boot splash.

I'm so grateful to all you guys for all the help you gave me. This is so amazing I can't even believe it. I thought for SURE I was going to have to replace my BIOS or the CPU or that my HDD was somehow corrupted -- all these things went through my head and gave me so much panic and worry.

Thank you all again so much.

 

Erm, oops, it seems I spoke a little too soon. I think I may be having an additional issue.

By getting it to finally boot, I had to do it with one stick of RAM and no GPU installed. So now that everything was fixed, I put the RAM and the GPU back in and it gave me the frozen BIOS screen again.

I just took them back out and performed the BIOS reset again and it's re-installing the BIOS once again. What do I do here about the RAM and GPU?

 

Put back either (not both) to determine which is the cause of the problem.

 

I put the RAM in and it booted up fine again. Does this mean the GPU is the source of the problem? Should I try to put it in again?

 

All right I'm in there. What info should I post?

 

I'm not quite sure what MIT is. It's not in the information.

 

So put the RAM in slots 1/2 and then install the GPU?

It's showing this:
https://i.imgur.com/aTGul5l.jpg

 

Add the GPU.

 

Plugged in the GPU. The BIOS splash screen froze.

 

Time to buy a new GPU.

 

Ah, shoot. All things considered, with what I went through over the past 48 hours, this is not the worst outcome that could've happened. I am happy to say that I'm making this post from my PC.

Thank you all again so much for all your incredible help.

 

Well pleased to see that- TimW, and Eldon have completed it, for you- Great
What I would appreciate would be telling us exactly how you proceeded.
What I would like to know is,did you follow the general method, power down, unplug, discharge with power button, and WHILST BRIDGING THE TERMINALS , DID YOU DO THE QUICK RESTART WITH POWER/ON/AND QUICK SHUTDOWN.
The reason I ask is because that part of it was not as directed by manufacturer, and something several of us found over the years.
I had a Toshiba Laptop, a short time ago that I could not reset the bios, because the power side was inoperative- I could not power on with power cord, only battery, and on a laptop, that would not work- so I was defeated.
Please confirm ALL the steps you did. This will then be available to others.
As I said, I could not see the terminals in the manual (too small) and am pleased that TimW offered those ,saon the further help part (well done TimW), and Eldon ram and graphics card.

 

Of course, it may have been the graphics card that caused it to freeze in the first lace, after you enabled Intel virtualization-
One to remember,in case

 

What I ended up trying was this one:
"So I tried force bios recover - disable PSU power, hold front power button, enable PSU, when fan starts, disable PSU, repeat 3 times (without releasing front power button) and it will go to recovery screen and it will flash bios"

And that was the one that worked. What I did prior to attempting it, however, was I removed the GPU and left one stick of RAM in (I have 2x 4 GB's). Then I went about the method here. It went to the UEFI DualBIOS screen and began its BIOS recovery utility which looks like this:
https://i.imgur.com/cJnGmFG.jpg

It is possible that the GPU somehow died after I enabled the Intel Virtualization option. The odd thing, though, was that I had enabled it before a few months prior and nothing went awry. I ended up disabling after determining I didn't need it, but decided to try it again after I installed Windows 10 Pro x64 (upgraded from Windows 7 Ultimate x64). The new OS may have also contributed to the failure? Additionally, I did have an external HDD plugged in when the initial BIOS screen crash occurred so that may also have contributed, too.

I am infinitely pleased to be back on my PC, though. I'm not upset about having to replace the GPU. It was a Geforce 750 TI so it was fairly dated anyway. It's amazing that such a fix came through the very night before I was going to send it to a PC repair store. Monday was a holiday so they were closed, otherwise I would've done it then. Guess it was just good fortune! I have definitely learned not to touch anything in the BIOS unless it's important (like an update).

 

Thanks for reporting back- we now know which method worked in your case Others will benifit from this posting.

That was probably the first bit that - the graphics went to on board- Got some life !

TimW got the right one for actual recovery of bios -Great work, TimW