A Tale of: Z490 Aorus Master (BIOS Update Request)

[CassGaming]

The Story: So I've had this PC for about 3 years now, and of course problems happened meanwhile, nothing I couldn't fix myself. One of these issues I had was that after moving the PC case from one room to the other (turning off the PSU, unplugging all cables etc.) the PC wouldn't immediately start anymore after reconnecting and turning on the power, it just powered on and off, on and off all the time. At some point frustrated me a lot and I did something with the power button, turning the PC on and off a few times and suddenly it worked again... BUT it no longer booted using the PCSpecialist logo. It turned into a low resolution version of the original Aorus icon.

From then on, I was somehow also able to manually flash my BIOS using the versions downloaded from Gigabyte. So I suspected it got borked straight into factory defaults after the power button mashing. It bothered me, until it didn't - because everything run perfectly fine, even after multiple manual Q-Flash BIOS updates. I got Resizable BAR to work, everything was fine. Then I upgraded the ZOTAC RTX 3090 Trinity for an ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4090, everything checked out and my games ran better than ever for about 3 weeks...

Now this morning I booted my PC, clickly tapped the power button once and the wheels started spinning, then it turned off on its own, turned on again... lo and behold! It was not the original Aorus icon that greeted me today, no, it was the PCSpecialist icon that has been missing for the past 2 or so years!

TL;DR: I figured out this motherboard has a Dual Boot function, and somehow it yeeted the original self-updated version of the BIOS, which was version F21 - back to the old F5 PI version and fixed the boot logo back to the PCSpecialist icon. But now I can no longer use the exact same BIOS updates I used before because Q-Flash gives this error: 'OEMid Mismatch'.

Now I tried to bork it again by mashing the power button like a loon, but alas - the safety measures were too powerful for my midas touch and I can no longer recreate the previous scenario. Even after unplugging the PC for 30 seconds, mashing the power button to release leftover charge.

Now here's the problem I have with that: The Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Master version F5 does NOT support Resizable BAR as it's added in the F8b version. Also, there were critical security updates that fixed BIOS problems I wanted patched out in later versions.

So it was obvious to me that I messed up with the BIOS update, as I needed them from PCSpecialist, and not Gigabyte due to different OEM IDs So that means there are two IDs on the motherboard, one for each BIOS. One uses original Gigabyte IDs and the other PCSpecialist IDs. So functional and back-up BIOS. That unfortunately may also mean that I may have unintentionally updated the backup BIOS but I do not know how to switch between. Sources tell me it's impossible as the system does it on its own as a security measure against corrupted BIOS versions.

So now we come to my request: Could I very kindly request the BIOS updates with the correct OEM IDs from PCSpecialist, so I can enable Resizable BAR again? I'd appreciate that very much Preferably Q-Flash compatible, saves me from downloading Rufus and figuring that one out as well.

 

[CassGaming]

Oh, I forgot to add: The very first time I updated the BIOS I used @BIOS. In hindsight that was a terrible decision since Q-Flash was safer and I didn't have to deal with Gigabyte's terrible software. Some info on what the motherboard info is currently:

Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Product: Z490 AORUS MASTER
SerialNumber: Default string
Version: x.x

EDIT: I know the effect of Resizable BAR is miniscule in some games, netting maybe only a +5% increase in FPS and some games it's even worse. But I'm primarily interested in frametiming and fixing security leaks of the old versions.

 

[SpyderTracks]

The Story: So I've had this PC for about 3 years now, and of course problems happened meanwhile, nothing I couldn't fix myself. One of these issues I had was that after moving the PC case from one room to the other (turning off the PSU, unplugging all cables etc.) the PC wouldn't immediately start anymore after reconnecting and turning on the power, it just powered on and off, on and off all the time. At some point frustrated me a lot and I did something with the power button, turning the PC on and off a few times and suddenly it worked again... BUT it no longer booted using the PCSpecialist logo. It turned into a low resolution version of the original Aorus icon.

From then on, I was somehow also able to manually flash my BIOS using the versions downloaded from Gigabyte. So I suspected it got borked straight into factory defaults after the power button mashing. It bothered me, until it didn't - because everything run perfectly fine, even after multiple manual Q-Flash BIOS updates. I got Resizable BAR to work, everything was fine. Then I upgraded the ZOTAC RTX 3090 Trinity for an ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4090, everything checked out and my games ran better than ever for about 3 weeks...

Now this morning I booted my PC, clickly tapped the power button once and the wheels started spinning, then it turned off on its own, turned on again... lo and behold! It was not the original Aorus icon that greeted me today, no, it was the PCSpecialist icon that has been missing for the past 2 or so years!

TL;DR: I figured out this motherboard has a Dual Boot function, and somehow it yeeted the original self-updated version of the BIOS, which was version F21 - back to the old F5 PI version and fixed the boot logo back to the PCSpecialist icon. But now I can no longer use the exact same BIOS updates I used before because Q-Flash gives this error: 'OEMid Mismatch'.

Now I tried to bork it again by mashing the power button like a loon, but alas - the safety measures were too powerful for my midas touch and I can no longer recreate the previous scenario. Even after unplugging the PC for 30 seconds, mashing the power button to release leftover charge.

Now here's the problem I have with that: The Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Master version F5 does NOT support Resizable BAR as it's added in the F8b version. Also, there were critical security updates that fixed BIOS problems I wanted patched out in later versions.

So it was obvious to me that I messed up with the BIOS update, as I needed them from PCSpecialist, and not Gigabyte due to different OEM IDs So that means there are two IDs on the motherboard, one for each BIOS. One uses original Gigabyte IDs and the other PCSpecialist IDs. So functional and back-up BIOS. That unfortunately may also mean that I may have unintentionally updated the backup BIOS but I do not know how to switch between. Sources tell me it's impossible as the system does it on its own as a security measure against corrupted BIOS versions.

So now we come to my request: Could I very kindly request the BIOS updates with the correct OEM IDs from PCSpecialist, so I can enable Resizable BAR again? I'd appreciate that very much Preferably Q-Flash compatible, saves me from downloading Rufus and figuring that one out as well.

PCS don't monitor the forums and none of us work for them, you'd need to contact them directly (details on home page), best to phone, they're open til 8pm tonight.

 

[CassGaming]

PCS don't monitor the forums and none of us work for them, you'd need to contact them directly (details on home page), best to phone, they're open til 8pm tonight.

I found something different here on these forums from a post made 2 years ago by JakAttack.

Hi guys, let me apply some clarity to this.

A while ago Gigabyte started publishing the BIOS we use with the PCS logo, these are loaded with an OEMID for us which appears to prevent flashing of normal Gigabyte BIOS applied from the gigabyte website, I guess this is some sort of failsafe to make sure people are checking with us. As a geeky enthusiast myself this would frustrate me if I was customer-side.

However, it's not the end of the world, there are two ways we can approach it:

1. Customers come to us for the BIOS< we will happily give out the latest PCS version of the BIOS, with the usual warnings and terms applied

2. You can download the BIOS from the Gigabyte website, get yourself a USB pen drive, use Rufus (http://rufus.ie/) and tell it to make an MSDOS (FreeDOS) bootable drive. Once this is made please extract ALL files from the Gigabyte BIOS folder (it will ask you to overwrite autoexec, please allow this). Then reboot and boot from the pen drive, it will automatically overwrite the BIOS, it will still give you the 'OEMID MISMATCH ERROR' but will then go straight past it and update the BIOS.

If you go for option number 2 you will be able to flash any BIOS after this, if you flash back to a PCS BIOS later you would need to do option 2 again.

So as I understand it, it will basically bypass the OEM ID mismatch error and turn the BIOS into a Gigabyte ID again like I had before. This would mean I'll have to do the Rufus method. I had already written PCS in technical support so I'll await their response first. If it doesn't work out I'll use JakAttack's method as a Plan B.

Thank you for your time!

 

[SpyderTracks]

I found something different here on these forums from a post made 2 years ago by JakAttack.



So as I understand it, it will basically bypass the OEM ID mismatch error and turn the BIOS into a Gigabyte ID again like I had before. This would mean I'll have to do the Rufus method. I had already written PCS in technical support so I'll await their response first. If it doesn't work out I'll use JakAttack's method as a Plan B.

Thank you for your time!

I would call though, email takes a while for a response. They have local numbers for most countries, you don't have to call abroad.

And you need their approval to flash the BIOS to avoid voiding your warranty.

 

[CassGaming]

I would call though, email takes a while for a response. They have local numbers for most countries, you don't have to call abroad.

And you need their approval to flash the BIOS to avoid voiding your warranty.

I know, unfortunately though they're open to receive calls until 17:00, not 20:00 here in the Netherlands. Also I'm going to need a PCS OEM ID file so they'll still have to message me, which is why I opted for the tech support e-mail. Also, I already flashed the BIOS before, like I said in OP but all my BIOS updates reverted to stock PCS settings, the OEM ID is incompatible with Gigabyte's OEM ID. Thank you for the response!