From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

Minutes after the last posts I went into BIOS to take out the CPU native
GPU by setting Integrated Graphics to Disabled and leaving the PCIe GPU
as Primary. On reboot (NO beeps on the these new boards) got a steady
yellow Q-Led mening RAM problems. Reseated one ddr5 card and went with
only that one. It worked, reseated the other one too. The yellow LED now
lasts about 1:30 and then the white LED (GPU) takes over. This one
doesn't leave, not after reseating the GPU, not after removing it and
plugging the HDMI into the onboard slot instead of the GPU one, not
after changing HDMI cables and even monitor. CMOS was cleared at every
step. The green (boot) LED never lights up, with no disk plugged in BIOS
is never entered. Starting to have enough of this outfit (the GPU is
also Asus)!




--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On Sat, 7/12/2025 12:45 AM, bad sector wrote:

Minutes after the last posts I went into BIOS to take out the CPU native GPU by setting Integrated Graphics to Disabled and leaving the PCIe GPU as Primary. On reboot (NO beeps on the these new boards) got a steady yellow Q-Led mening RAM problems. Reseated one ddr5 card and went with only that one. It worked, reseated the other one too. The yellow LED now lasts about 1:30 and then the white LED (GPU) takes over. This one doesn't leave, not after reseating the GPU, not after removing it and plugging the HDMI into the onboard slot instead of the GPU one, not after changing HDMI cables and even monitor. CMOS was cleared at every step. The green (boot) LED never lights up, with no disk plugged in BIOS is never entered. Starting to have enough of this outfit (the GPU is also Asus)!

You have to be very careful, with some of the stuff you mentioned in passing.

The CMOS can only be cleared, with mains disconnected.

When reseating materials, it is a good idea to have mains disconnected
for that too.

You can try taking it back to the single-stick-NON-ECC and see if
you can bring it up that way.

1) Power off.
2) Remove plugin GPU.
3) Put ECC RAM in its antistatic package.
4) Put the "teaser RAM" that brought it up one time before,
into the far slot on one of the memory channels.
5) Plug HDMI monitor cable into motherboard.
6) Power up, wait patiently for recovery :-)
Remember the annoying habit of "BIOS, taking longer after a change".

The monitor I'm typing on (X193W 1440x900) is flaking out, I think three power fails
and one lightning storm, have disturbed its gentle nature. It's
every time it goes into power-save, it is getting very hard to
bring it back from the dead.

It's a good thing I own several mallets.

Paul

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 12/07/2025 06.45, bad sector wrote:

Minutes after the last posts I went into BIOS to take out the CPU native
GPU by setting Integrated Graphics to Disabled and leaving the PCIe GPU
as Primary.

Have you tweaked the RAM settings in the BIOS? If so, reset to default
values.


If I had bought an AM5 board, I would have gone for x670 based one
instead, those are better feature wise regardless of brand.
--
//Aho

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 7/12/25 4:23 AM, J.O. Aho wrote:

On 12/07/2025 06.45, bad sector wrote:

Minutes after the last posts I went into BIOS to take out the CPU
native GPU by setting Integrated Graphics to Disabled and leaving the
PCIe GPU as Primary.

Have you tweaked the RAM settings in the BIOS? If so, reset to default values.

If I had bought an AM5 board, I would have gone for x670 based one
instead, those are better feature wise regardless of brand.

Next whatever I buy sure as muck ain't gonna be Asus, not for decades! I
would never tweak ram, don't even wanna hear about OC, and it's always
been defaults. I can't get to BIOS, not until the green (boot) LED
lights up, there's no point in wearing out the Del key before that. I'll
try Paul's advice with my teaser ddr5 but the LED now is about GPU, not
ram anymore.



--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 7/12/25 3:04 AM, Paul wrote:

On Sat, 7/12/2025 12:45 AM, bad sector wrote:

Minutes after the last posts I went into BIOS to take out the CPU native GPU by setting Integrated Graphics to Disabled and leaving the PCIe GPU as Primary. On reboot (NO beeps on the these new boards) got a steady yellow Q-Led mening RAM problems. Reseated one ddr5 card and went with only that one. It worked, reseated the other one too. The yellow LED now lasts about 1:30 and then the white LED (GPU) takes over. This one doesn't leave, not after reseating the GPU, not after removing it and plugging the HDMI into the onboard slot instead of the GPU one, not after changing HDMI cables and even monitor. CMOS was cleared at every step. The green (boot) LED never lights up, with no disk plugged in BIOS is never entered. Starting to have enough of this outfit (the GPU is also Asus)!

You have to be very careful, with some of the stuff you mentioned in passing.

The CMOS can only be cleared, with mains disconnected.

When reseating materials, it is a good idea to have mains disconnected
for that too.

You can try taking it back to the single-stick-NON-ECC and see if
you can bring it up that way.

1) Power off.
2) Remove plugin GPU.
3) Put ECC RAM in its antistatic package.
4) Put the "teaser RAM" that brought it up one time before,
into the far slot on one of the memory channels.
5) Plug HDMI monitor cable into motherboard.
6) Power up, wait patiently for recovery :-)
Remember the annoying habit of "BIOS, taking longer after a change".

Stripped it naked..

Seated single 8gb non-ecc ddr5 in slot 2 [A2].. green

BIOS-1401 to defaults, put everything back in... green

Swapped ecc-B into slot 2 [A2].. green

Swapped ecc-A into slot 2 [A2].. green

Seated ecc-B into slot 4 [B2].. WHITE led (VGA fail)

Disabled ecc in BIOS and repeated the above.. green

Swapped non-ecc 8gb ddr5 into slot 4 [B2].. green

BIOS-1401, enabled ecc.. green

Returned ecc-B into slot 4 [B2].. YELLOW led (DRAM fail)

Removed ecc-B from slot 4 [B2].. green

BIOS-1401, disabled integrated graphics.. green

Returned ecc-B into slot 4[B2].. YELLOW (DRAM fail)

Swapped ecc's in the 2 slots..

...... either ecc card works in slot 2 [A2]
...... slot 4 [B2] fails with either ecc card in it

taking a break, million other chores awaiting.

The monitor I'm typing on (X193W 1440x900) is flaking out, I think three power fails
and one lightning storm, have disturbed its gentle nature. It's
every time it goes into power-save, it is getting very hard to
bring it back from the dead.

It's a good thing I own several mallets.

Paul

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 12/07/2025 14.53, bad sector wrote:

On 7/12/25 4:23 AM, J.O. Aho wrote:

On 12/07/2025 06.45, bad sector wrote:

Minutes after the last posts I went into BIOS to take out the CPU
native GPU by setting Integrated Graphics to Disabled and leaving the
PCIe GPU as Primary.

Have you tweaked the RAM settings in the BIOS? If so, reset to default
values.

If I had bought an AM5 board, I would have gone for x670 based one
instead, those are better feature wise regardless of brand.

Next whatever I buy sure as muck ain't gonna be Asus, not for decades! I would never tweak ram, don't even wanna hear about OC, and it's always
been defaults.

I'm a kind of a default person too, I wish for boards that could UC
(under clock) things a bit, for less heat and maybe slightly longer life.

I have loved my ASUS boards a lot, but MSI are dreadful, specially disk storage are slow and needs tweaking to work.

I have had issues with GPU, but the reason is the computer case, which I
had used for quite many years, been loving it, but using PCIe based GPU
cards been a pita, it's having the motherboard a bit too low on the port
side, which makes the GPU card to not be properly installed, sure you
can add a mm on the distances on the port side, but then you may have
port a bit covered, so in worst case test things outside the computer
case, just be careful to not electrocute yourself.

I can't get to BIOS, not until the green (boot) LED
lights up, there's no point in wearing out the Del key before that. I'll
try Paul's advice with my teaser ddr5 but the LED now is about GPU, not
ram anymore.

Yeah, it's a sane way to test.
--
//Aho

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 12/07/2025 17.02, bad sector wrote:

...... either ecc card works in slot 2 [A2]
...... slot 4 [B2] fails with either ecc card in it

taking a break, million other chores awaiting.

If you have a can of air, you could spray port, in case there is some
dust in the port and test once more. Just wait a bit before you plugin
the ram again so that the slot ain't wet.

Also, would upgrade the BIOS, 1504 has some DIMM-slot related fixes and
1512 has a vulnerability patch, but if you install this one you can't downgrade to older versions.
--
//Aho
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On Sat, 7/12/2025 11:02 AM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/12/25 3:04 AM, Paul wrote:

On Sat, 7/12/2025 12:45 AM, bad sector wrote:

Minutes after the last posts I went into BIOS to take out the CPU native GPU by setting Integrated Graphics to Disabled and leaving the PCIe GPU as Primary. On reboot (NO beeps on the these new boards) got a steady yellow Q-Led mening RAM problems. Reseated one ddr5 card and went with only that one. It worked, reseated the other one too. The yellow LED now lasts about 1:30 and then the white LED (GPU) takes over. This one doesn't leave, not after reseating the GPU, not after removing it and plugging the HDMI into the onboard slot instead of the GPU one, not after changing HDMI cables and even monitor. CMOS was cleared at every step. The green (boot) LED never lights up, with no disk plugged in BIOS is never entered. Starting to have enough of this outfit (the GPU is also Asus)!

You have to be very careful, with some of the stuff you mentioned in passing.

The CMOS can only be cleared, with mains disconnected.

When reseating materials, it is a good idea to have mains disconnected
for that too.

You can try taking it back to the single-stick-NON-ECC and see if
you can bring it up that way.

1) Power off.
2) Remove plugin GPU.
3) Put ECC RAM in its antistatic package.
4) Put the "teaser RAM" that brought it up one time before,
    into the far slot on one of the memory channels.
5) Plug HDMI monitor cable into motherboard.
6) Power up, wait patiently for recovery :-)
    Remember the annoying habit of "BIOS, taking longer after a change".

Stripped it naked..

Seated single 8gb non-ecc ddr5 in slot 2 [A2]..  green

BIOS-1401 to defaults, put everything back in... green

Swapped ecc-B into slot 2 [A2].. green

Swapped ecc-A into slot 2 [A2].. green

Seated  ecc-B into slot 4 [B2].. WHITE led (VGA fail)

Disabled ecc in BIOS and repeated the above.. green

Swapped non-ecc 8gb ddr5 into slot 4 [B2].. green

BIOS-1401, enabled ecc.. green

Returned ecc-B into slot 4 [B2].. YELLOW led (DRAM fail)

Removed ecc-B from slot 4 [B2].. green

BIOS-1401, disabled integrated graphics.. green

Returned ecc-B into slot 4[B2].. YELLOW (DRAM fail)

Swapped ecc's in the 2 slots..

...... either ecc card works in slot 2 [A2]
...... slot 4 [B2] fails with either ecc card in it

taking a break, million other chores awaiting.

The CPU is Land Grid Array. (Very sharp metallic spring bites
into gold plated land.) Normally, this is reproducible any time
the CPU is removed and replaced. And the arm that applies pressure
is locked down. The pin sharp point, always goes precisely back
into the bite mark.

Is the CPU arm locked down right now ? You could have some pretty substantial cooler on it, so sometimes inspection is difficult.

Land Grid Array works up to (so far), around 9000 contacts,
but I have no idea how the "pressing-force" is equally distributed
so all the lands have good spring contact. The hobby CPUs don't
have nearly the same LGA counts.

There have been CPUs that burned in sockets, because of poor contact.
There were two brands of sockets, Lotes (good) and Foxconn.
The Foxconn issue was not repeated on the next generation.

The generation I use here (AM4) is PGA or pin grid array. And the
socket is ZIF (Zero Insertion Force). Moving the lever on those,
provides side force making the "contacts touch the pins". When you
remove a heatsink on those, you can pull the CPU right out of the
("locked") PGA socket :-) That does not hurt anything. There have been
cases where PGA pins were crushed. A metallic ball point pen refill, could
be used to (carefully) bend a PGA pin upright again. And that kind of
surgery is not always successful (but, ya gotta try). When you make a mistake and that happens, you can usually tell the patient is not going to survive
the attempt to straighten a pin.

*******

DIMM socket pins, almost never foul...

It would take a determined individual, bent on destruction,
to do actual damage to a DIMM socket. The pins are very very stiff.
It takes mallet-level attempts to damage it, to mess it up. I
highly doubt there is any reason whatsoever, to be "cleaning"
the DIMM socket.

Similarly, the "pink eraser crowd", I'm not with them. Gold on
electronics, can be applied 10u or 50u. The latter thickness
is used on telecomm contacts. The former number is used
on computer industry equipment. Applying abrasives to
10u gold is a "mistake", doing more damage than good. There
are already pinholes in the finish, due to the thinness of
the plating.

There is so much wiping-force on DIMM insertion, there can't possibly
be a contact problem. Only a corrosive liquid (Kings Reagent would do),
could do a job on the contacts.

I just don't see a reason to be fooling around with the socket.
I'd rather reseat the CPU, then bash on the RAM (the RAM interface
is on the CPU package). There's no question something bad is going on,
but it probably isn't the fault of the DIMM contact there. If you actually managed to bend a DIMM contact (!), the DIMM would no longer seat and lock.

I've visually inspected DIMM sockets with a magnifier, and have
not had a reason to be suspicious of what I'm seeing.

Paul
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 7/12/25 7:14 PM, Paul wrote:

On Sat, 7/12/2025 11:02 AM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/12/25 3:04 AM, Paul wrote:

On Sat, 7/12/2025 12:45 AM, bad sector wrote:

Minutes after the last posts I went into BIOS to take out the CPU native GPU by setting Integrated Graphics to Disabled and leaving the PCIe GPU as Primary. On reboot (NO beeps on the these new boards) got a steady yellow Q-Led mening RAM problems. Reseated one ddr5 card and went with only that one. It worked, reseated the other one too. The yellow LED now lasts about 1:30 and then the white LED (GPU) takes over. This one doesn't leave, not after reseating the GPU, not after removing it and plugging the HDMI into the onboard slot instead of the GPU one, not after changing HDMI cables and even monitor. CMOS was cleared at every step. The green (boot) LED never lights up, with no disk plugged in BIOS is never entered. Starting to have enough of this outfit (the GPU is also Asus)!

You have to be very careful, with some of the stuff you mentioned in passing.

The CMOS can only be cleared, with mains disconnected.

When reseating materials, it is a good idea to have mains disconnected
for that too.

You can try taking it back to the single-stick-NON-ECC and see if
you can bring it up that way.

1) Power off.
2) Remove plugin GPU.
3) Put ECC RAM in its antistatic package.
4) Put the "teaser RAM" that brought it up one time before,
    into the far slot on one of the memory channels.
5) Plug HDMI monitor cable into motherboard.
6) Power up, wait patiently for recovery :-)
    Remember the annoying habit of "BIOS, taking longer after a change".

Stripped it naked..

Seated single 8gb non-ecc ddr5 in slot 2 [A2]..  green

BIOS-1401 to defaults, put everything back in... green

Swapped ecc-B into slot 2 [A2].. green

Swapped ecc-A into slot 2 [A2].. green

Seated  ecc-B into slot 4 [B2].. WHITE led (VGA fail)

Disabled ecc in BIOS and repeated the above.. green

Swapped non-ecc 8gb ddr5 into slot 4 [B2].. green

BIOS-1401, enabled ecc.. green

Returned ecc-B into slot 4 [B2].. YELLOW led (DRAM fail)

Removed ecc-B from slot 4 [B2].. green

BIOS-1401, disabled integrated graphics.. green

Returned ecc-B into slot 4[B2].. YELLOW (DRAM fail)

Swapped ecc's in the 2 slots..

...... either ecc card works in slot 2 [A2]
...... slot 4 [B2] fails with either ecc card in it

taking a break, million other chores awaiting.

The CPU is Land Grid Array. (Very sharp metallic spring bites
into gold plated land.) Normally, this is reproducible any time
the CPU is removed and replaced. And the arm that applies pressure
is locked down. The pin sharp point, always goes precisely back
into the bite mark.

Is the CPU arm locked down right now ? You could have some pretty substantial cooler on it, so sometimes inspection is difficult.

Land Grid Array works up to (so far), around 9000 contacts,
but I have no idea how the "pressing-force" is equally distributed
so all the lands have good spring contact. The hobby CPUs don't
have nearly the same LGA counts.

There have been CPUs that burned in sockets, because of poor contact.
There were two brands of sockets, Lotes (good) and Foxconn.
The Foxconn issue was not repeated on the next generation.

The generation I use here (AM4) is PGA or pin grid array. And the
socket is ZIF (Zero Insertion Force). Moving the lever on those,
provides side force making the "contacts touch the pins". When you
remove a heatsink on those, you can pull the CPU right out of the
("locked") PGA socket :-) That does not hurt anything. There have been
cases where PGA pins were crushed. A metallic ball point pen refill, could
be used to (carefully) bend a PGA pin upright again. And that kind of
surgery is not always successful (but, ya gotta try). When you make a mistake and that happens, you can usually tell the patient is not going to survive the attempt to straighten a pin.

*******

DIMM socket pins, almost never foul...

It would take a determined individual, bent on destruction,
to do actual damage to a DIMM socket. The pins are very very stiff.
It takes mallet-level attempts to damage it, to mess it up. I
highly doubt there is any reason whatsoever, to be "cleaning"
the DIMM socket.

Similarly, the "pink eraser crowd", I'm not with them. Gold on
electronics, can be applied 10u or 50u. The latter thickness
is used on telecomm contacts. The former number is used
on computer industry equipment. Applying abrasives to
10u gold is a "mistake", doing more damage than good. There
are already pinholes in the finish, due to the thinness of
the plating.

There is so much wiping-force on DIMM insertion, there can't possibly
be a contact problem. Only a corrosive liquid (Kings Reagent would do),
could do a job on the contacts.

I just don't see a reason to be fooling around with the socket.
I'd rather reseat the CPU, then bash on the RAM (the RAM interface
is on the CPU package). There's no question something bad is going on,
but it probably isn't the fault of the DIMM contact there. If you actually managed to bend a DIMM contact (!), the DIMM would no longer seat and lock.

I've visually inspected DIMM sockets with a magnifier, and have
not had a reason to be suspicious of what I'm seeing.

Paul

I never touched the CPU, the next boot failed after I edited the BIOS
and among a few other things disabled the CPU-native graphics.

Then following your advice I managed to reboot into BIOS, ultimately
able to launch an OS. I ha it made using 1/2 of my memory!

J. O. Aho suggested and I prepped a BIOS upgrade usb drive (there are 3 different BIOS sections in the manual, all of them full of mistakes).

As I pressed the bios flash button the LED never illuminated so after
about 6 seconds I let it go.

Now I cannot get past the yellow (ram) LED no matter what ddr5 I set in
no matter what ram slot.




--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On Sat, 7/12/2025 8:46 PM, bad sector wrote:

I never touched the CPU, the next boot failed after I edited the BIOS and among a few other things disabled the CPU-native graphics.

Then following your advice I managed to reboot into BIOS, ultimately able to launch an OS. I ha it made using 1/2 of my memory!

J. O. Aho suggested and I prepped a BIOS upgrade usb drive (there are 3 different BIOS sections in the manual, all of them full of mistakes).

As I pressed the bios flash button the LED never illuminated so after about 6 seconds I let it go.

Now I cannot get past the yellow (ram) LED no matter what ddr5 I set in no matter what ram slot.

Hmmm.

Restore non-ECC DIMM in the "best working socket" your previous testing revealed.

You are likely going to need to flash the BIOS back to some
previous version, at a guess.

On some systems, switching off the power three times, when the machine
is in trouble, initiates "load setup defaults" so you (in theory) can
get back in control of the machine.

*******

The purpose of a non-bricking BIOS design, is to never erase the bootstrap section.

Then, one of the BIOS flashing options, should always have an interpreter ready to
read the USB stick and FAT file system, find the named file, and flash it in.

I don't know if that BIOS flashing code has been written to work with
only CPU registers (so a non-working memory is not a problem). Some of the BIOs code must operate that way, in order so the BIOS code can commission the DRAM subsystem.

On my ten year old machine, the flasher is a chip connected right to the USB port.

On my three year old machine, the CPU and RAM must be working, for a flash operation
to move forward. Which means, even if AGESA isn't optimal, there is some code present that can do a flash, but a lot more things can still go wrong. It is definitely not as foolproof as a flasher-chip type solution.

When a "machine has a button", we don't really know how that works. and while you
would hope a flasher-chip, if it existed, would be physically placed near the USB stack that supports flashing, the board layout could be such the chip is just about anywhere. But usually the layout done by humans, the chip is closer to where it is being used, rather than being routed across from the other side of the board.

We don't know, if the flasher button terminates in a GPIO signal on the SOC portion
of the CPU, or whether it terminates on a flasher-chip. I guess that is part of the
fun. Even when you have a flasher-chip, the board *still* has firmware or software
based flashing options, in addition to the "unbrickable" USB flasher chip.

*******

You may be at the point, you're going to need to take this in somewhere, and see if a techie can flash it back to something that works. You *used* to be able to flash a BIOS backwards, but it took some standalone flasher and an MSDOS boot media, to "free-form flash", meaning a version check was not
done on purpose, and you could move backwards. We stopped using such flashers, more than ten years ago, which is why I'm kinda wondering what options
are available for going back to an older version.

At a minimum, what is supposed to happen, is a model number string in the
BIOS image is checked, so you can't flash in the BIOS from some other board. The version is a separate issue. The only interface you may have, is a
single LED, where the "blink frequency" is all that tells you whether
the flash is ongoing, or, the blinking represents a failure on the
users part, to pass all the model and version number requirements. A single
LED has a definite lack of expressive power.

The behavior of the machine I'm typing this on, changed after a year. The machine seemed to develop an address map problem. Shutting off the iGPU and using an NVidia video card, was part of the solution. My first hint of
(some sort of) trouble, was the RealTek Ethernet chip would stop sending/receiving
packets after 30 seconds. At first I thought I had a DNS problem, but no, the chip
just stopped after 30 seconds (looked driver-related). I purchased a replacement
Intel NIC (possibly a Startech), and shut off the RealTek in the BIOS. And after
that, I was "back in control" after a fashion, but this is only a superficial fix,
and whatever is wrong in there, still seems to be wrong. And in my case, flashing up (a couple times to date), made absolutely no difference to the symptom set. It wasn't like an older BIOS was "bugged" and a newer one made
a difference.

But at this point, until things stabilize in your computer room, you'll be working with the non-ECC DRAM in its "best" socket. While you try to
re-gain a stable BIOS behavior.

Paul
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 13/07/2025 07.58, Paul wrote:

On Sat, 7/12/2025 8:46 PM, bad sector wrote:

I never touched the CPU, the next boot failed after I edited the BIOS and among a few other things disabled the CPU-native graphics.

Then following your advice I managed to reboot into BIOS, ultimately able to launch an OS. I ha it made using 1/2 of my memory!

J. O. Aho suggested and I prepped a BIOS upgrade usb drive (there are 3 different BIOS sections in the manual, all of them full of mistakes).

As I pressed the bios flash button the LED never illuminated so after about 6 seconds I let it go.

Now I cannot get past the yellow (ram) LED no matter what ddr5 I set in no matter what ram slot.

Hmmm.

Restore non-ECC DIMM in the "best working socket" your previous testing revealed.

You are likely going to need to flash the BIOS back to some
previous version, at a guess.

On some systems, switching off the power three times, when the machine
is in trouble, initiates "load setup defaults" so you (in theory) can
get back in control of the machine.

This been true on my earlier Asus boards, my current one is an ASRock,
which is a bit different compared with Asus branded. Both have the
common on newer cards that you should be able to flash from usb with a
clean board, described on page 57 in the manual for the ProArt x870e
Creator (copy can be downloaded from asus homepage).

You may be at the point, you're going to need to take this in somewhere, and see if a techie can flash it back to something that works. You *used* to be able to flash a BIOS backwards, but it took some standalone flasher and an MSDOS boot media, to "free-form flash", meaning a version check was not
done on purpose, and you could move backwards. We stopped using such flashers,
more than ten years ago, which is why I'm kinda wondering what options
are available for going back to an older version.

Asus do tell when you can and can't downgrade, the 1512 isn't
down-gradable while 1504 is but just till another version has the text mentioning that you can't downgrade.

I think the BIOS version is connected to the AGESA which I don't think
do support downgrades (don't take my word for it).
--
//Aho
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 7/13/25 5:35 AM, J.O. Aho wrote:

On 13/07/2025 07.58, Paul wrote:

On some systems, switching off the power three times, when the machine
is in trouble, initiates "load setup defaults" so you (in theory) can
get back in control of the machine.

This been true on my earlier Asus boards, my current one is an ASRock,
which is a bit different compared with Asus branded. Both have the
common on newer cards that you should be able to flash from usb with a
clean board, described on page 57 in the manual for the ProArt x870e
Creator (copy can be downloaded from asus homepage).

That's one of three sections I was looking at but it's unclear, I'll
also include a link to a youtube video for the benefit of anyone
googling for info.

3.3 ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3
=========================

..
2. Rename the file using one of the following methods:

- Launch the BIOSRenamer.exe application to
automatically rename the file.

- Manually rename the file to the BIOS CAP filename
specified in the Specifications summary section.

(A5560.CAP in my manual)

- Manually rename the file to ASUS.CAP.

so is it A5560.CAP or ASUS.CAP?
The download page says to use A5560.CAP


3. Copy the renamed file to your USB storage device.

4. Turn on the system.

5. Insert the USB flash drive containing the BIOS file
to a USB port.

6. The utility automatically checks the devices for the
BIOS file. When found, the utility reads the BIOS
file and enters ASUS EZ Flash 3 automatically.

... WHICH 'utility'?


7. The system requires you to enter BIOS Setup to recover
the BIOS setting. To ensure system compatibility and
stability, we recommend that you press the <F5> hotkey
to load default BIOS values.

... Presumably the BIOS is loaded (with some data) enough to be
'enterable' to be then reset to defaults. What is the data loaded if it
is not 'defaults'?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb6FbJwVg8Y

includes a step missing in the manual which possibly explains that the 'utility' is in fact the UEFI BIOS setup:

@ 1:34
it shows a winblows BIOSRenamer doing the renaming
but I can't make out what it ranames to

@ 2:01
- insert usb
- power ON, *then*
"Press the Del or F2 key to enter UEFI BIOS"

This one to get the CrashFree BIOS 3 going


@ 2:26
"the system will auto reboot"

at which time you again 'Press the Del or F2 key to enter UEFI BIOS

This one to advisedly revert BIOS to 'defaults'


So..

- I disconnected everything down to a near naked box

- 8gb non-ecc memory only and in slot 2 [A2]

- cleared CMOS

- plugged in an old cheap keyboard that even my old
crosshair-IV can detect (as opposed to DURGOD-320
which in 15 years it detected maybe 20 times)

- inserted the 14gb fat32 usb labeled ESD-USB with
only one file on it
A5560.CAP size = 33,558,528 (32.0 mb)

- powered ON

- held the 'Del' key for over 3 minutes

- repeated with a freshly downloaded/unpacked/renamed file

All I got was the yellow (DRAM) LED.

So much for the *ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3* that works after a BIOS hose.


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 7/13/25 7:20 PM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/13/25 5:35 AM, J.O. Aho wrote:

On 13/07/2025 07.58, Paul wrote:

On some systems, switching off the power three times, when the machine
is in trouble, initiates "load setup defaults" so you (in theory) can
get back in control of the machine.

This been true on my earlier Asus boards, my current one is an ASRock,
which is a bit different compared with Asus branded. Both have the
common on newer cards that you should be able to flash from usb with a
clean board, described on page 57 in the manual for the ProArt x870e
Creator (copy can be downloaded from asus homepage).

That's one of three sections I was looking at but it's unclear, I'll
also include a link to a youtube video for the benefit of anyone
googling for info.

3.3 ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3
=========================

..
2. Rename the file using one of the following methods:

  - Launch the BIOSRenamer.exe application to
    automatically rename the file.

  - Manually rename the file to the BIOS CAP filename
    specified in the Specifications summary section.

    (A5560.CAP in my manual)

  - Manually rename the file to ASUS.CAP.

so is it A5560.CAP or ASUS.CAP?
The download page says to use A5560.CAP

3. Copy the renamed file to your USB storage device.

4. Turn on the system.

5. Insert the USB flash drive containing the BIOS file
   to a USB port.

6. The utility automatically checks the devices for the
   BIOS file. When found, the utility reads the BIOS
   file and enters ASUS EZ Flash 3 automatically.

... WHICH 'utility'?

7. The system requires you to enter BIOS Setup to recover
   the BIOS setting. To ensure system compatibility and
   stability, we recommend that you press the <F5> hotkey
   to load default BIOS values.

... Presumably the BIOS is loaded (with some data) enough to be
'enterable' to be then reset to defaults. What is the data loaded if it
is not 'defaults'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb6FbJwVg8Y

includes a step missing in the manual which possibly explains that the 'utility' is in fact the UEFI BIOS setup:

@ 1:34
  it shows a winblows BIOSRenamer doing the renaming
  but I can't make out what it ranames to

@ 2:01
 - insert usb
 - power ON, *then*
 "Press the Del or F2 key to enter UEFI BIOS"

This one to get the CrashFree BIOS 3 going

@ 2:26
 "the system will auto reboot"

at which time you again 'Press the Del or F2 key to enter UEFI BIOS

This one to advisedly revert BIOS to 'defaults'

So..

- I disconnected everything down to a near naked box

- 8gb non-ecc memory only and in slot 2 [A2]

- cleared CMOS

- plugged in an old cheap keyboard that even my old
  crosshair-IV can detect (as opposed to DURGOD-320
  which in 15 years it detected maybe 20 times)

- inserted the 14gb fat32 usb labeled ESD-USB with
  only one file on it
  A5560.CAP size = 33,558,528 (32.0 mb)

- powered ON

- held the 'Del' key for over 3 minutes

- repeated with a freshly downloaded/unpacked/renamed file

All I got was the yellow (DRAM) LED.

So much for the *ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3* that works after a BIOS hose.

As usual Asus *haven't got a clue* about manual writing!

It should read

- insert usb
- power ON
- Press the Del or F2 key to enter UEFI BIOS
- Observe BIOS GUI interface on Monitor?

OR

Since it is an automatic process does it get done without displaying the
BIOS GUI interface? Does it get done if no monitor is attached or if the monitor is tango uniform? How do you KNOW it is BEING done so as not to
cut power (seeing that virtually every page cautions against powering
down WHILE it's being done)? How do I know via some positive feedback,
other than a monitor, that the CrashFree BIOS 3 process has actually
started, or do I sit here staring at the yellow LED until the cows come
home?



--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On Sun, 7/13/2025 7:20 PM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/13/25 5:35 AM, J.O. Aho wrote:

On 13/07/2025 07.58, Paul wrote:

On some systems, switching off the power three times, when the machine
is in trouble, initiates "load setup defaults" so you (in theory) can
get back in control of the machine.

This been true on my earlier Asus boards, my current one is an ASRock, which is a bit different compared with Asus branded. Both have the common on newer cards that you should be able to flash from usb with a clean board, described on page 57 in the manual for the ProArt x870e Creator (copy can be downloaded from asus homepage).

That's one of three sections I was looking at but it's unclear, I'll also include a link to a youtube video for the benefit of anyone googling for info.

3.3 ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3
=========================

..
2. Rename the file using one of the following methods:

  - Launch the BIOSRenamer.exe application to
    automatically rename the file.

  - Manually rename the file to the BIOS CAP filename
    specified in the Specifications summary section.

    (A5560.CAP in my manual)

  - Manually rename the file to ASUS.CAP.

so is it A5560.CAP or ASUS.CAP?
The download page says to use A5560.CAP

3. Copy the renamed file to your USB storage device.

4. Turn on the system.

5. Insert the USB flash drive containing the BIOS file
   to a USB port.

6. The utility automatically checks the devices for the
   BIOS file. When found, the utility reads the BIOS
   file and enters ASUS EZ Flash 3 automatically.

... WHICH 'utility'?

7. The system requires you to enter BIOS Setup to recover
   the BIOS setting. To ensure system compatibility and
   stability, we recommend that you press the <F5> hotkey
   to load default BIOS values.

... Presumably the BIOS is loaded (with some data) enough to be 'enterable' to be then reset to defaults. What is the data loaded if it is not 'defaults'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb6FbJwVg8Y

includes a step missing in the manual which possibly explains that the 'utility' is in fact the UEFI BIOS setup:

@ 1:34
  it shows a winblows BIOSRenamer doing the renaming
  but I can't make out what it ranames to

@ 2:01
 - insert usb
 - power ON, *then*
 "Press the Del or F2 key to enter UEFI BIOS"

This one to get the CrashFree BIOS 3 going

@ 2:26
 "the system will auto reboot"

at which time you again 'Press the Del or F2 key to enter UEFI BIOS

This one to advisedly revert BIOS to 'defaults'

So..

- I disconnected everything down to a near naked box

- 8gb non-ecc memory only and in slot 2 [A2]

- cleared CMOS

- plugged in an old cheap keyboard that even my old
  crosshair-IV can detect (as opposed to DURGOD-320
  which in 15 years it detected maybe 20 times)

- inserted the 14gb fat32 usb labeled ESD-USB with
  only one file on it
  A5560.CAP size = 33,558,528 (32.0 mb)

- powered ON

- held the 'Del' key for over 3 minutes

- repeated with a freshly downloaded/unpacked/renamed file

All I got was the yellow (DRAM) LED.

So much for the *ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3* that works after a BIOS hose.

ProArt-X870E-CREATOR-WIFI-ASUS-1504.zip

ProArt-X870E-CREATOR-WIFI-ASUS-1504.CAP 33,558,528
BIOSRenamer.exe 128,088

[Picture] I would try A5560.CAP, as I see it inside the BIOS file as a string

https://i.postimg.cc/WzLNPHGR/Pro-Art-X870-E-Creator-Wifi-Asus-1504-filename.gif

Is the memory stick in A2 ?

Since the flash is CPU mediated, it's going to need working DRAM.

The DMI should update each time the BIOS sees that the
DRAM has been moved.

Power off at the back, wait 60 seconds, move the DRAM to another
position, try to get that DRAM LED to go off.

*******

You can try the FlashBack button, section 2.7 of the manual.
Maybe that starts earlier than the CrashFree "I see a USB stick in my port" stage :-)

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/LXSjv2Xw/X870-E-CREATOR-Flash-Back-Button.gif

Since that seems to operate, with just the PSU going from OFF to ON at the
back (making only +5VSB available and NO FANS SPIN),
followed by pressing the button, that implies it's not going to
need working DRAM. That could be the same kind of microcontroller my
4930K system has.

Who knows, maybe that also "goes backwards", but let's not be greedy :-)

First we want to prove we are the boss, right :-)
PLEASE PLEASE LET ME BE THE BOSS. ITS MY TURN TO BE BOSS.

It's why I work on computers, for the humor they bring
to an otherwise dull day.

Paul
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 7/14/25 1:36 AM, Paul wrote:

On Sun, 7/13/2025 7:20 PM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/13/25 5:35 AM, J.O. Aho wrote:

On 13/07/2025 07.58, Paul wrote:

On some systems, switching off the power three times, when the machine >>>> is in trouble, initiates "load setup defaults" so you (in theory) can
get back in control of the machine.

This been true on my earlier Asus boards, my current one is an ASRock, which is a bit different compared with Asus branded. Both have the common on newer cards that you should be able to flash from usb with a clean board, described on page 57 in the manual for the ProArt x870e Creator (copy can be downloaded from asus homepage).

That's one of three sections I was looking at but it's unclear, I'll also include a link to a youtube video for the benefit of anyone googling for info.

3.3 ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3
=========================

..
2. Rename the file using one of the following methods:

  - Launch the BIOSRenamer.exe application to
    automatically rename the file.

  - Manually rename the file to the BIOS CAP filename
    specified in the Specifications summary section.

    (A5560.CAP in my manual)

  - Manually rename the file to ASUS.CAP.

so is it A5560.CAP or ASUS.CAP?
The download page says to use A5560.CAP


3. Copy the renamed file to your USB storage device.

4. Turn on the system.

5. Insert the USB flash drive containing the BIOS file
   to a USB port.

6. The utility automatically checks the devices for the
   BIOS file. When found, the utility reads the BIOS
   file and enters ASUS EZ Flash 3 automatically.

... WHICH 'utility'?


7. The system requires you to enter BIOS Setup to recover
   the BIOS setting. To ensure system compatibility and
   stability, we recommend that you press the <F5> hotkey
   to load default BIOS values.

... Presumably the BIOS is loaded (with some data) enough to be 'enterable' to be then reset to defaults. What is the data loaded if it is not 'defaults'?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb6FbJwVg8Y

includes a step missing in the manual which possibly explains that the 'utility' is in fact the UEFI BIOS setup:

@ 1:34
  it shows a winblows BIOSRenamer doing the renaming
  but I can't make out what it ranames to

@ 2:01
 - insert usb
 - power ON, *then*
 "Press the Del or F2 key to enter UEFI BIOS"

This one to get the CrashFree BIOS 3 going


@ 2:26
 "the system will auto reboot"

at which time you again 'Press the Del or F2 key to enter UEFI BIOS

This one to advisedly revert BIOS to 'defaults'


So..

- I disconnected everything down to a near naked box

- 8gb non-ecc memory only and in slot 2 [A2]

- cleared CMOS

- plugged in an old cheap keyboard that even my old
  crosshair-IV can detect (as opposed to DURGOD-320
  which in 15 years it detected maybe 20 times)

- inserted the 14gb fat32 usb labeled ESD-USB with
  only one file on it
  A5560.CAP size = 33,558,528 (32.0 mb)

- powered ON

- held the 'Del' key for over 3 minutes

- repeated with a freshly downloaded/unpacked/renamed file

All I got was the yellow (DRAM) LED.

So much for the *ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3* that works after a BIOS hose.

ProArt-X870E-CREATOR-WIFI-ASUS-1504.zip

ProArt-X870E-CREATOR-WIFI-ASUS-1504.CAP 33,558,528
BIOSRenamer.exe 128,088

[Picture] I would try A5560.CAP, as I see it inside the BIOS file as a string

https://i.postimg.cc/WzLNPHGR/Pro-Art-X870-E-Creator-Wifi-Asus-1504-filename.gif

Is the memory stick in A2 ?

Since the flash is CPU mediated, it's going to need working DRAM.

The DMI should update each time the BIOS sees that the
DRAM has been moved.

Power off at the back, wait 60 seconds, move the DRAM to another
position, try to get that DRAM LED to go off.

*******

You can try the FlashBack button, section 2.7 of the manual.
Maybe that starts earlier than the CrashFree "I see a USB stick in my port" stage :-)

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/LXSjv2Xw/X870-E-CREATOR-Flash-Back-Button.gif

Since that seems to operate, with just the PSU going from OFF to ON at the back (making only +5VSB available and NO FANS SPIN),
followed by pressing the button, that implies it's not going to
need working DRAM. That could be the same kind of microcontroller my
4930K system has.

Who knows, maybe that also "goes backwards", but let's not be greedy :-)

First we want to prove we are the boss, right :-)
PLEASE PLEASE LET ME BE THE BOSS. ITS MY TURN TO BE BOSS.

It's why I work on computers, for the humor they bring
to an otherwise dull day.

Paul

I tried everything, the only NEW fit it's showing is that pressing and
holding the power button does NOT shut the board down anymore, this was especially so when the 8gb card was in slot 1B or 2B. Looks like it's
going in for one last RMA, then I'll decide if I keep it.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On Tue, 7/15/2025 7:26 PM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/14/25 1:36 AM, Paul wrote:

On Sun, 7/13/2025 7:20 PM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/13/25 5:35 AM, J.O. Aho wrote:

On 13/07/2025 07.58, Paul wrote:

On some systems, switching off the power three times, when the machine >>>>> is in trouble, initiates "load setup defaults" so you (in theory) can >>>>> get back in control of the machine.

This been true on my earlier Asus boards, my current one is an ASRock, which is a bit different compared with Asus branded. Both have the common on newer cards that you should be able to flash from usb with a clean board, described on page 57 in the manual for the ProArt x870e Creator (copy can be downloaded from asus homepage).

That's one of three sections I was looking at but it's unclear, I'll also include a link to a youtube video for the benefit of anyone googling for info.

3.3 ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3
=========================

..
2. Rename the file using one of the following methods:

   - Launch the BIOSRenamer.exe application to
     automatically rename the file.

   - Manually rename the file to the BIOS CAP filename
     specified in the Specifications summary section.

     (A5560.CAP in my manual)

   - Manually rename the file to ASUS.CAP.

so is it A5560.CAP or ASUS.CAP?
The download page says to use A5560.CAP


3. Copy the renamed file to your USB storage device.

4. Turn on the system.

5. Insert the USB flash drive containing the BIOS file
    to a USB port.

6. The utility automatically checks the devices for the
    BIOS file. When found, the utility reads the BIOS
    file and enters ASUS EZ Flash 3 automatically.

... WHICH 'utility'?


7. The system requires you to enter BIOS Setup to recover
    the BIOS setting. To ensure system compatibility and
    stability, we recommend that you press the <F5> hotkey
    to load default BIOS values.

... Presumably the BIOS is loaded (with some data) enough to be 'enterable' to be then reset to defaults. What is the data loaded if it is not 'defaults'?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb6FbJwVg8Y

includes a step missing in the manual which possibly explains that the 'utility' is in fact the UEFI BIOS setup:

@ 1:34
   it shows a winblows BIOSRenamer doing the renaming
   but I can't make out what it ranames to

@ 2:01
  - insert usb
  - power ON, *then*
  "Press the Del or F2 key to enter UEFI BIOS"

This one to get the CrashFree BIOS 3 going


@ 2:26
  "the system will auto reboot"

at which time you again 'Press the Del or F2 key to enter UEFI BIOS

This one to advisedly revert BIOS to 'defaults'


So..

- I disconnected everything down to a near naked box

- 8gb non-ecc memory only and in slot 2 [A2]

- cleared CMOS

- plugged in an old cheap keyboard that even my old
   crosshair-IV can detect (as opposed to DURGOD-320
   which in 15 years it detected maybe 20 times)

- inserted the 14gb fat32 usb labeled ESD-USB with
   only one file on it
   A5560.CAP size = 33,558,528 (32.0 mb)

- powered ON

- held the 'Del' key for over 3 minutes

- repeated with a freshly downloaded/unpacked/renamed file

All I got was the yellow (DRAM) LED.

So much for the *ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3* that works after a BIOS hose.

ProArt-X870E-CREATOR-WIFI-ASUS-1504.zip

    ProArt-X870E-CREATOR-WIFI-ASUS-1504.CAP  33,558,528
    BIOSRenamer.exe                          128,088

   [Picture]  I would try A5560.CAP, as I see it inside the BIOS file as a string

    https://i.postimg.cc/WzLNPHGR/Pro-Art-X870-E-Creator-Wifi-Asus-1504-filename.gif

Is the memory stick in A2 ?

Since the flash is CPU mediated, it's going to need working DRAM.

The DMI should update each time the BIOS sees that the
DRAM has been moved.

Power off at the back, wait 60 seconds, move the DRAM to another
position, try to get that DRAM LED to go off.

*******

You can try the FlashBack button, section 2.7 of the manual.
Maybe that starts earlier than the CrashFree "I see a USB stick in my port" stage :-)

     [Picture]

      https://i.postimg.cc/LXSjv2Xw/X870-E-CREATOR-Flash-Back-Button.gif

Since that seems to operate, with just the PSU going from OFF to ON at the >> back (making only +5VSB available and NO FANS SPIN),
followed by pressing the button, that implies it's not going to
need working DRAM. That could be the same kind of microcontroller my
4930K system has.

Who knows, maybe that also "goes backwards", but let's not be greedy :-)

First we want to prove we are the boss, right :-)
PLEASE PLEASE LET ME BE THE BOSS. ITS MY TURN TO BE BOSS.

It's why I work on computers, for the humor they bring
to an otherwise dull day.

    Paul

I tried everything, the only NEW fit it's showing is that pressing and holding the power button does NOT shut the board down anymore, this was especially so when the 8gb card was in slot 1B or 2B. Looks like it's going in for one last RMA, then I'll decide if I keep it.

You're using the power button on the front, because you
think the flash is programmed now ?

As I understand it, the FlashBack is not supposed to need pressing
the power button on the front. Pushing the FlashBack button, while
the system has +5VSB only (switched on at the back), should be enough
for the microcontroller to try to flash in the USB stick content,
together with the flashing of some LED indicating it is actively
programming the thing.

Starting the board, while it's not ready to be started, I couldn't
tell you what to expect for behaviors.

*******

To analyze the ability to control the power supply, we look at
what is working in the sequence.

When you turn on at the back, the fans don't spin. The +5VSB is running
at that point. That's the supervisor voltage.

When you push the button on the front (momentary contact), the
onboard logic latches that and makes a "steady ON" out of it. At that point, the front button does not matter, in terms of keeping the fans spinning
and the system running.

Let's say an OS boots. In the process of handoff, the BIOS says "we need
to engage the four second filter now, on the front panel button, to
prevent inadvertent brushing against the switch". If you press the
front button, the button must be held down for the four second interval (because the OS or something, set the hardware to start using the logic filter).

In an OS, you can "bind" the front button input to a response. You can
make the system "Sleep" by pushing the front button, or "Hibernate". But
most people just leave the ACPI interface set to "When I press the button,
shut off". So after the four seconds, the hardware logic shuts off.
That should be the default as far as I know.

If the pad driver that asserts "PS_ON#" on the 24 pin was able
to switch the system ON, it should be able to switch the system OFF
by "letting go" of the pin. The 8mA open collector signal, stops
pulling down on PS_ON# and the pullup resistor on the PSU end,
pulls the signal to the deasserted state (the five volt level)
and the fans go off.

The +5VSB is still running at shutdown, but the main rails are
off and the fans should have stopped (because the fans depend on
the main rail +12V for power).

Off for your RMA I guess. I can't see how it would fail that way. It
would have needed a logic clock to run the state machine (something
it can use to time a 4 second event in hardware). The RTC (Real Time Clock)
has a 1PPS output (pulse per second) and counting four of those ticks
should suffice as a logic conditioner for the momentary power button
in the front of the PC.

Paul
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 7/16/25 4:44 AM, Paul wrote:

On Tue, 7/15/2025 7:26 PM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/14/25 1:36 AM, Paul wrote:

On Sun, 7/13/2025 7:20 PM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/13/25 5:35 AM, J.O. Aho wrote:

On 13/07/2025 07.58, Paul wrote:

On some systems, switching off the power three times, when the machine >>>>>> is in trouble, initiates "load setup defaults" so you (in theory) can >>>>>> get back in control of the machine.

This been true on my earlier Asus boards, my current one is an ASRock, which is a bit different compared with Asus branded. Both have the common on newer cards that you should be able to flash from usb with a clean board, described on page 57 in the manual for the ProArt x870e Creator (copy can be downloaded from asus homepage).

That's one of three sections I was looking at but it's unclear, I'll also include a link to a youtube video for the benefit of anyone googling for info.

3.3 ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3
=========================

..
2. Rename the file using one of the following methods:

   - Launch the BIOSRenamer.exe application to
     automatically rename the file.

   - Manually rename the file to the BIOS CAP filename
     specified in the Specifications summary section.

     (A5560.CAP in my manual)

   - Manually rename the file to ASUS.CAP.

so is it A5560.CAP or ASUS.CAP?
The download page says to use A5560.CAP


3. Copy the renamed file to your USB storage device.

4. Turn on the system.

5. Insert the USB flash drive containing the BIOS file
    to a USB port.

6. The utility automatically checks the devices for the
    BIOS file. When found, the utility reads the BIOS
    file and enters ASUS EZ Flash 3 automatically.

... WHICH 'utility'?


7. The system requires you to enter BIOS Setup to recover
    the BIOS setting. To ensure system compatibility and
    stability, we recommend that you press the <F5> hotkey
    to load default BIOS values.

... Presumably the BIOS is loaded (with some data) enough to be 'enterable' to be then reset to defaults. What is the data loaded if it is not 'defaults'?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb6FbJwVg8Y

includes a step missing in the manual which possibly explains that the 'utility' is in fact the UEFI BIOS setup:

@ 1:34
   it shows a winblows BIOSRenamer doing the renaming
   but I can't make out what it ranames to

@ 2:01
  - insert usb
  - power ON, *then*
  "Press the Del or F2 key to enter UEFI BIOS"

This one to get the CrashFree BIOS 3 going


@ 2:26
  "the system will auto reboot"

at which time you again 'Press the Del or F2 key to enter UEFI BIOS

This one to advisedly revert BIOS to 'defaults'


So..

- I disconnected everything down to a near naked box

- 8gb non-ecc memory only and in slot 2 [A2]

- cleared CMOS

- plugged in an old cheap keyboard that even my old
   crosshair-IV can detect (as opposed to DURGOD-320
   which in 15 years it detected maybe 20 times)

- inserted the 14gb fat32 usb labeled ESD-USB with
   only one file on it
   A5560.CAP size = 33,558,528 (32.0 mb)

- powered ON

- held the 'Del' key for over 3 minutes

- repeated with a freshly downloaded/unpacked/renamed file

All I got was the yellow (DRAM) LED.

So much for the *ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3* that works after a BIOS hose.

ProArt-X870E-CREATOR-WIFI-ASUS-1504.zip

    ProArt-X870E-CREATOR-WIFI-ASUS-1504.CAP  33,558,528
    BIOSRenamer.exe                          128,088

   [Picture]  I would try A5560.CAP, as I see it inside the BIOS file as a string

    https://i.postimg.cc/WzLNPHGR/Pro-Art-X870-E-Creator-Wifi-Asus-1504-filename.gif

Is the memory stick in A2 ?

Since the flash is CPU mediated, it's going to need working DRAM.

The DMI should update each time the BIOS sees that the
DRAM has been moved.

Power off at the back, wait 60 seconds, move the DRAM to another
position, try to get that DRAM LED to go off.

*******

You can try the FlashBack button, section 2.7 of the manual.
Maybe that starts earlier than the CrashFree "I see a USB stick in my port" stage :-)

     [Picture]

      https://i.postimg.cc/LXSjv2Xw/X870-E-CREATOR-Flash-Back-Button.gif

Since that seems to operate, with just the PSU going from OFF to ON at the >>> back (making only +5VSB available and NO FANS SPIN),
followed by pressing the button, that implies it's not going to
need working DRAM. That could be the same kind of microcontroller my
4930K system has.

Who knows, maybe that also "goes backwards", but let's not be greedy :-) >>>
First we want to prove we are the boss, right :-)
PLEASE PLEASE LET ME BE THE BOSS. ITS MY TURN TO BE BOSS.

It's why I work on computers, for the humor they bring
to an otherwise dull day.

    Paul

I tried everything, the only NEW fit it's showing is that pressing and holding the power button does NOT shut the board down anymore, this was especially so when the 8gb card was in slot 1B or 2B. Looks like it's going in for one last RMA, then I'll decide if I keep it.

You're using the power button on the front, because you
think the flash is programmed now ?

Not because I think it's programmed but because Ive alwayused the front
power button exlusively considering it to be THE power button. I'd need
to read "press the motherboard power-buton" to do otherwise.

As I understand it, the FlashBack is not supposed to need pressing
the power button on the front. Pushing the FlashBack button, while
the system has +5VSB only (switched on at the back), should be enough
for the microcontroller to try to flash in the USB stick content,
together with the flashing of some LED indicating it is actively
programming the thing.

Starting the board, while it's not ready to be started, I couldn't
tell you what to expect for behaviors.

*******

To analyze the ability to control the power supply, we look at
what is working in the sequence.

When you turn on at the back, the fans don't spin. The +5VSB is running
at that point. That's the supervisor voltage.

When you push the button on the front (momentary contact), the
onboard logic latches that and makes a "steady ON" out of it. At that point, the front button does not matter, in terms of keeping the fans spinning
and the system running.

Let's say an OS boots. In the process of handoff, the BIOS says "we need
to engage the four second filter now, on the front panel button, to
prevent inadvertent brushing against the switch". If you press the
front button, the button must be held down for the four second interval (because the OS or something, set the hardware to start using the logic filter).

In an OS, you can "bind" the front button input to a response. You can
make the system "Sleep" by pushing the front button, or "Hibernate". But
most people just leave the ACPI interface set to "When I press the button, shut off". So after the four seconds, the hardware logic shuts off.
That should be the default as far as I know.

If the pad driver that asserts "PS_ON#" on the 24 pin was able
to switch the system ON, it should be able to switch the system OFF
by "letting go" of the pin. The 8mA open collector signal, stops
pulling down on PS_ON# and the pullup resistor on the PSU end,
pulls the signal to the deasserted state (the five volt level)
and the fans go off.

The +5VSB is still running at shutdown, but the main rails are
off and the fans should have stopped (because the fans depend on
the main rail +12V for power).

Off for your RMA I guess. I can't see how it would fail that way. It
would have needed a logic clock to run the state machine (something
it can use to time a 4 second event in hardware). The RTC (Real Time Clock) has a 1PPS output (pulse per second) and counting four of those ticks
should suffice as a logic conditioner for the momentary power button
in the front of the PC.

You're never wrong so 'ideally' I should put the board together again
and try the motherboard power-button but all the CPU installation and
removal risks bending the pins so I won't. The board is back in its box
and goes RMA as soon as I get the shipping label. I asked them to foot
the shipping both ways but they'll probably decline, that means that by
the time it leaves here it will already have cost me retail price + $150
or so + many months of my life and I STILL haven't seen the NEW and
faultless product that I had *PAID* for.


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On Wed, 7/16/2025 9:34 AM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/16/25 4:44 AM, Paul wrote:

Off for your RMA I guess.

You're never wrong so 'ideally' I should put the board together again and try the motherboard power-button but all the CPU installation and removal risks bending the pins so I won't. The board is back in its box and goes RMA as soon as I get the shipping label. I asked them to foot the shipping both ways but they'll probably decline, that means that by the time it leaves here it will already have cost me retail price + $150 or so + many months of my life and I STILL haven't seen the NEW and faultless product that I had *PAID* for.

My experience here wasn't flawless either.

My Zen3 build "started in blackness and watching little LEDs",
so I've been through the rough parts of this exercise. And making
mistakes, on "what that LED actually means".

Then, months after the build is finished, I was getting
the weird OS shutdowns (not seen on Linux), which cost me
a small fortune to fault-isolate. The knee jerk reaction,
would have been to send my 5000 series processor for an RMA,
but experience tells me it's not the processor as
they're very reliable as parts go.

So I ended up getting an extra motherboard, testing, finding
the CPU was fine. And then I started fuzzing the config
(shut off RealTek NIC, shut off iGPU, install Nvidia card,
install Intel NIC, finally it settled down). That does not mean
it is "fixed", either. it means I'm allowed to use it.

I think the experience is intended to "build character",
if you know what I mean.

Paul
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 7/16/25 11:11 AM, Paul wrote:

On Wed, 7/16/2025 9:34 AM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/16/25 4:44 AM, Paul wrote:

Off for your RMA I guess.

You're never wrong so 'ideally' I should put the board together again and try the motherboard power-button but all the CPU installation and removal risks bending the pins so I won't. The board is back in its box and goes RMA as soon as I get the shipping label. I asked them to foot the shipping both ways but they'll probably decline, that means that by the time it leaves here it will already have cost me retail price + $150 or so + many months of my life and I STILL haven't seen the NEW and faultless product that I had *PAID* for.

My experience here wasn't flawless either.

My Zen3 build "started in blackness and watching little LEDs",
so I've been through the rough parts of this exercise. And making
mistakes, on "what that LED actually means".

Then, months after the build is finished, I was getting
the weird OS shutdowns (not seen on Linux), which cost me
a small fortune to fault-isolate. The knee jerk reaction,
would have been to send my 5000 series processor for an RMA,
but experience tells me it's not the processor as
they're very reliable as parts go.

So I ended up getting an extra motherboard, testing, finding
the CPU was fine. And then I started fuzzing the config
(shut off RealTek NIC, shut off iGPU, install Nvidia card,
install Intel NIC, finally it settled down). That does not mean
it is "fixed", either. it means I'm allowed to use it.

I think the experience is intended to "build character",
if you know what I mean.

Paul

You're a jewel Paul, but I'll postulate that the character building
effort should target a supply chain that increasingly is dumping
untested more bleeding than edge products on the DIY market trying to
get its members to do their testing and saving them millions before they
start volume sales at deep discounts to a different market, one that
forgives nothing and goes to court on every opportunity. Take the
example if BIOS, there should hardly ever be a need for upgrades but
instead of this we're getting one almost monthly. Mea-Kurva dammit,
natural selection is doing its thing.

My previous Crosshair-IV board 15 years ago worked all-around out of the
box with a total of maybe 5 BIOS revisions. The only snag was that it
never detected my Durgod keyboard. Had I known the hell facing me with
this proart flash-in-the-pan (with my son's sudden death in the middle
of the episode) I would never have touched it, not even for free!

Latest is: it 'might' be replaced by a new one.




--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 7/16/25 5:19 PM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/16/25 11:11 AM, Paul wrote:

On Wed, 7/16/2025 9:34 AM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/16/25 4:44 AM, Paul wrote:

Off for your RMA I guess.

You're never wrong so 'ideally' I should put the board together again
and try the motherboard power-button but all the CPU installation and
removal risks bending the pins so I won't. The board is back in its
box and goes RMA as soon as I get the shipping label. I asked them to
foot the shipping both ways but they'll probably decline, that means
that by the time it leaves here it will already have cost me retail
price + $150 or so + many months of my life and I STILL haven't seen
the NEW and faultless product that I had *PAID* for.

My experience here wasn't flawless either.

My Zen3 build "started in blackness and watching little LEDs",
so I've been through the rough parts of this exercise. And making
mistakes, on "what that LED actually means".

Then, months after the build is finished, I was getting
the weird OS shutdowns (not seen on Linux), which cost me
a small fortune to fault-isolate. The knee jerk reaction,
would have been to send my 5000 series processor for an RMA,
but experience tells me it's not the processor as
they're very reliable as parts go.

So I ended up getting an extra motherboard, testing, finding
the CPU was fine. And then I started fuzzing the config
(shut off RealTek NIC, shut off iGPU, install Nvidia card,
install Intel NIC, finally it settled down). That does not mean
it is "fixed", either. it means I'm allowed to use it.

I think the experience is intended to "build character",
if you know what I mean.

    Paul

You're a jewel Paul, but I'll postulate that the character building
effort should target a supply chain that increasingly is dumping
untested more bleeding than edge products on the DIY market trying to
get its members to do their testing and saving them millions before they start volume sales at deep discounts to a different market, one that forgives nothing and goes to court on every opportunity. Take the
example if BIOS, there should hardly ever be a need for upgrades but
instead of this we're getting one almost monthly. Mea-Kurva dammit,
natural selection is doing its thing.

My previous Crosshair-IV board 15 years ago worked all-around out of the
box with a total of maybe 5 BIOS revisions. The only snag was that it
never detected my Durgod keyboard. Had I known the hell facing me with
this proart flash-in-the-pan (with my son's sudden death in the middle
of the episode) I would never have touched it, not even for free!

Latest is: it 'might' be replaced by a new one.

Well it went back on RMA #2 and this time they paid the postage. I
received the report saying 'board does not post, replaced with new one'.
Put it together for the Nth time, again it wouldn't go into BIOS. Tried
the old 'test' ddr5, back and forth for hours absolutely 'fuming'.
Finally got into it and tried to upgrade but it failed (actually didn't
even start, and as said many times before the manual and the BIOS
dialogs are a total disgrace). After another eternity got the
'Crash-Free' BIOS upgrade procedure started and managed to flash in the
latest #1605. On the 1st reboot with this BIOS all previous boot issues
GONE, two 48gb ECC cards booting in a second, no problems at all. WHY
wasn't this the case when I got my first board in December last year?????

But then only windows booted, still can't get into BIOS no matter how
much I press Del or F2 and the previuous workaround of having nothing
bootable (which forced it into BIOS before) is gone too and all I get is
a notice to plug in something bootable. With the disk 'in' windows boots again. Finally I booted the Tumbleweed install DVD and forced a re-grub
by just changing the timeout. Back in business.

Still can't get into BIOS, just like the old Crosshair-IV board. I'm
sorry to say these people obviously have their customers do the BIOS development after a premature product release and they have microcancer
so far up their bazooka they can't tell if it's night or daylight.


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On Thu, 7/31/2025 10:48 PM, bad sector wrote:

On 7/16/25 5:19 PM, bad sector wrote:

Latest is: it 'might' be replaced by a new one.

Well it went back on RMA #2 and this time they paid the postage. I received the report saying 'board does not post, replaced with new one'. Put it together for the Nth time, again it wouldn't go into BIOS. Tried the old 'test' ddr5, back and forth for hours absolutely 'fuming'. Finally got into it and tried to upgrade but it failed (actually didn't even start, and as said many times before the manual and the BIOS dialogs are a total disgrace). After another eternity got the 'Crash-Free' BIOS upgrade procedure started and managed to flash in the latest #1605. On the 1st reboot with this BIOS all previous boot issues GONE, two 48gb ECC cards booting in a second, no problems at all. WHY wasn't this the case when I got my first board in December last year?????

But then only windows booted, still can't get into BIOS no matter how much I press Del or F2 and the previuous workaround of having nothing bootable (which forced it into BIOS before) is gone too and all I get is a notice to plug in something bootable. With the disk 'in' windows boots again. Finally I booted the Tumbleweed install DVD and forced a re-grub by just changing the timeout. Back in business.

Still can't get into BIOS, just like the old Crosshair-IV board. I'm sorry to say these people obviously have their customers do the BIOS development after a premature product release and they have microcancer so far up their bazooka they can't tell if it's night or daylight.

"Crazy cool, man". You survived.

It sounds like they really know how to write a BIOS, for sure.

My guess is, the BIOS problems is one of keyboards. Take the machine
across the way for example. Two keyboards. You use the keyboard
that works for the occasion :-)

The guy that "owns a Dell", he has a Microsoft keyboard that he
can't get into the BIOS with either. He has a second keyboard
attached, for that reason as well.

So the idea would be:

1) Your primary keyboard should be the one you do all your typing on.
2) The auxiliary keyboard is for things like BIOS-key-pressing. The
keyboard could be some cheap piece-of-crap, whatever passes for
a keyboard this week at the computer store.

For testing purposes, I've had two keyboards and three mice on the
Test Machine, and it took the OSes over there, quite a few years
before that test case passed. Around 2015, there was "70% detect rate",
and random ones would work or not work. I was never locked out of
the PC, but it was hit and miss on detection. There was a USB mouse,
a PS/2 mouse, and a serial (RS232) mouse.

I'm pretty well out of spare keyboards. I have a beige plastic USB Apple keyboard
as a "spare" (glare off keycaps is awful). And an ancient ADB bus Apple keyboard
and a USB to ADB adapter (a lucky acquisition for sure), and can run that keyboard
on a PC. I'm all out of spare PC-keyboards. I would "stock up", but the selection
of keyboards at the store is "not so good".

But it does sound like you've learned a lot (about RMAs mainly :-) )
and you might have a working computer now. Might. And with ECC, too.
That's something I never got, in my efforts, was a working ECC.
Victory! The staff at Intel are envious, that they've managed to
get another customer set up with ECC... by having AMD as a competitor.

Paul
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 2025-07-12 06:45, bad sector wrote:

On reboot (NO beeps on the these new boards)

Sure?

My board did not beep, till one day I noticed that there was a connector
for the beeper. I only had to buy beepers to connect there.

Google confirms:

AI Overview
ASUS ProArt X870E-CREATOR WIFI review: For content creators!
The Asus ProArt X870E-CREATOR WIFI motherboard does not have a built-in speaker for beeps. Instead, it uses a series of short and long beeps
from a connected speaker or buzzer (if one is installed) to indicate
system status or errors during the boot process, similar to other ASUS motherboards. These beeps are part of the AMI BIOS and can help diagnose problems.
--
Cheers, Carlos.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On Fri, 8/1/2025 8:02 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2025-07-12 06:45, bad sector wrote:

On reboot (NO beeps on the these new boards)

Sure?

My board did not beep, till one day I noticed that there was a connector for the beeper. I only had to buy beepers to connect there.

Google confirms:

AI Overview
ASUS ProArt X870E-CREATOR WIFI review: For content creators!
The Asus ProArt X870E-CREATOR WIFI motherboard does not have a built-in speaker for beeps. Instead, it uses a series of short and long beeps from a connected speaker or buzzer (if one is installed) to indicate system status or errors during the boot process, similar to other ASUS motherboards. These beeps are part of the AMI BIOS and can help diagnose problems.

OEM boards, like a Dell motherboard, they use a piezo beeper, black in color, the size of a quarter or so. It is soldered to the board.

Retail motherboards use a small speaker, the small speaker is SUPPOSED to be
in the computer case. However, costly fancy computer cases don't have the speaker any more. The speaker is "8 ohm 0.25W" as printed on the back.

This means, users are ripping the speaker out of older computers and
stuffing the speaker into a new computer (while they debug).

My newest PC, is using the beep speaker pulled from an Apple computer :-)
The tones sound so much better, when they come from an Apple Speaker.
The sounds are "richer" :-)

Paul
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 2025-08-01 15:41, Paul wrote:

On Fri, 8/1/2025 8:02 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2025-07-12 06:45, bad sector wrote:

On reboot (NO beeps on the these new boards)

Sure?

My board did not beep, till one day I noticed that there was a connector for the beeper. I only had to buy beepers to connect there.

Google confirms:

AI Overview
ASUS ProArt X870E-CREATOR WIFI review: For content creators!
The Asus ProArt X870E-CREATOR WIFI motherboard does not have a built-in speaker for beeps. Instead, it uses a series of short and long beeps from a connected speaker or buzzer (if one is installed) to indicate system status or errors during the boot process, similar to other ASUS motherboards. These beeps are part of the AMI BIOS and can help diagnose problems.

OEM boards, like a Dell motherboard, they use a piezo beeper, black in color, the size of a quarter or so. It is soldered to the board.

Retail motherboards use a small speaker, the small speaker is SUPPOSED to be in the computer case. However, costly fancy computer cases don't have the speaker any more. The speaker is "8 ohm 0.25W" as printed on the back.

Yes. Exactly my experience.

This means, users are ripping the speaker out of older computers and
stuffing the speaker into a new computer (while they debug).

Well, Amazon sold me a bag of such speakers/beepers for a trifle.

My newest PC, is using the beep speaker pulled from an Apple computer :-)
The tones sound so much better, when they come from an Apple Speaker.
The sounds are "richer" :-)

:-DDD
--
Cheers, Carlos.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> writes:

Still can't get into BIOS, just like the old Crosshair-IV board. I'm
sorry to say these people obviously have their customers do the BIOS development after a premature product release and they have
microcancer so far up their bazooka they can't tell if it's night or daylight.

You can usually put an entry for entering BIOS in the Grub menu, these
days. Like this, for example:

menuentry 'UEFI Firmware Settings' $menuentry_id_option 'uefi-firmware' {
fwsetup
}

Of course, it needs EFI grub, BIOS grub isn't going to know about that.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 8/2/25 7:59 AM, Anssi Saari wrote:

bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> writes:

Still can't get into BIOS, just like the old Crosshair-IV board. I'm
sorry to say these people obviously have their customers do the BIOS
development after a premature product release and they have
microcancer so far up their bazooka they can't tell if it's night or
daylight.

You can usually put an entry for entering BIOS in the Grub menu, these
days. Like this, for example:

menuentry 'UEFI Firmware Settings' $menuentry_id_option 'uefi-firmware' {
fwsetup
}

Of course, it needs EFI grub, BIOS grub isn't going to know about that.

Yes, it's what's saving my butt but I'll put it in my notes anyway for a
rainy day, Tumbleweed does it by default. If it were not for that I
would have been up the proverbial creek. The board just kept booting
windows, until I got fed up with the scam and booted a TW installer into upgrade mode. There all you need do is change the timeout (<c> Carlos)
to get grub code rewritten to disk with no other upset.


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux

On 8/1/25 8:02 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2025-07-12 06:45, bad sector wrote:

On reboot (NO beeps on the these new boards)

Sure?

My board did not beep, till one day I noticed that there was a connector
for the beeper. I only had to buy beepers to connect there.

Google confirms:

AI Overview
ASUS ProArt X870E-CREATOR WIFI review: For content creators!
The Asus ProArt X870E-CREATOR WIFI motherboard does not have a built-in speaker for beeps. Instead, it uses a series of short and long beeps
from a connected speaker or buzzer (if one is installed) to indicate
system status or errors during the boot process, similar to other ASUS motherboards. These beeps are part of the AMI BIOS and can help diagnose problems.

The horn used to be connected to pins in the panel group but it's not
there anymore. There are some undocumented pinouts, probably for
testing, one of them you can only get to before installing any of the
larger cpu coolers.

The qLEDs are a very good idea as they provide loads of info
_possibilities_ with their combinations but none of that is documented
either. You get shorter and longer flashes of different coolors but
nothing is written in the manual*. (* word used extremely liberally). I suspect one could write many pages of decoding guidance.

The BIOS display itself also sucks like Electrolux! Why does it have to
be black? Where's the option of getting rid of all the totally idiotic graphical 'smearings'? Too many Darwin laureates in the design cubicles?
I understand and am in no position to totally reject EFI bios but as far
as presentation goes the 'new' interfacing of otherwise traditionally itemizable switches is RIDICULOUS. All of it could fit on one page but
there you are with a 4k monitor and two or three words per 'page'
because no one knows (or gives a shit about) how to compose displays and dialogs anymore.


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2