ASRock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 Bios Update

[Aus_Karlos]

Hey guys new to the forum but not computers.
So ive decided its time to update my BIOS to see if it will fix some issues with my DVD drive that continues to dissapear from device manager. (Already go the DVD firmware up-to-date). Its been buggging out since the swap from ATA to ACHI but my SSD seems to function loads better in this mode.
So i looked on the AsRock website and found 2 new BIOS updates, however one looks really important. I know in the past you just updated to the latest version but this one makes a massive change to the Motherboard, Enabling 3rd generation CPU (aka Ivy Bridge CPUs).
Heres the page. ASRock > Z68 Extreme7 Gen3

Do i update to 2.10 first or can i skip it and flash right to 2.30?
If not what are the steps to install 2.10. Do i flash the BIOS first or install the drivers? AXTU, Intel ME (Do i need this?) and the VGA driver.

Thanks guys awaiting your reply.

[- wardog -]

If not what are the steps to install 2.10. Do i flash the BIOS first or install the drivers? AXTU, Intel ME (Do i need this?) and the VGA driver.

Thanks guys awaiting your reply.

Hold off updating until one of the Intel Members here advises you. Had you searched the forum here you'd have noticed a long thread or two that delves into the hazards with updating to the new IB BIOS's on the board.

[Aus_Karlos]

Im well aware of the dangers of flashing a BIOS ive done quite a few in the past. But its just this boards BIOS update that concerns me as i havn't had a board thats had a massive feature upgrade.
Anyway i'll wait for the Intel guys to reply thanks.

[- wardog -]

Im well aware of the dangers of flashing a BIOS ive done quite a few in the past.

Specifically, it's not your knowledge I was threatening there. Rather that your browser displayed the on-screen pop-up pre-downloading 2.10 with very confusing instructions that have resulted in many hosed BIOSs.

Many users here have pop-ups disabled in their browsers. Even those that did see the pop-up, many were confused by it and ended up in a messy situation.

It's a two "step' procedure with 2.10 that if not followed properly .........................

[Aus_Karlos]

bumps...

[profJim]

With your i7-2600K cpu, don't update the bios until Parsec posts a reply.
Part of the problem might be with a Sandy Bridge cpu with the UEFI bios, Parsec can provide the details.
If the flash goes bad, you will probably need to buy a new bios chip with the older"Sandy Bridge" bios.

[Aus_Karlos]

Thanks for the reply.
I thought these boards come with Dual BIOS. So if you flash the main and it fails it can boot the secondary BIOS and restore the main. Or that might of been my other Gigabyte board.

[profJim]

You're welcome, it was your Gigabyte board that had two physical bios chips.
I'm not aware of any newer ASRock boards with dual bios chips, but they do however have a single replaceable plug-in bios chip.

[parsec]

Aus_Karlos, I would NOT suggest skipping the 2.10 BIOS update, its update method is different and it's very important to be done correctly. Those who have not done it correctly have found the BIOS is corrupted, with options missing and/or not working, and they usually need to replace the BIOS chip to get back to normal.

As Prof Jim said, the situation of updating to a BIOS that supports Ivy Bridge CPUs, on a Sandy Bridge chipset board (Intel 6 series, like Z68), but NOT using an Ivy Bridge CPU, is where things get confusing.

I researched this a bit, and Intel's documentation about this specified a "Transition BIOS" version, for the change from SB to IB CPU usage. It also seemed to show that if you are not changing to an IB CPU, you can skip the transition BIOS update, and simply use new versions beyond the transition BIOS. Note that this does not seem to be how things work with the ASR BIOS updates, so I don't recommend that you skip 2.10 and go directly to 2.30.

BIOS 2.10 seems to be the transition BIOS given Intel's information, but ASR and no other board manufacture has ever used that terminology that I have ever seen.

Having experience building PCs, I'm sure you know the usual standard is all new BIOS versions have all the previous updates in them, with no need to update them one after another. This transition BIOS concept seems to not follow that standard, and I can see why that makes sense. OTOH, is that even possible? How can subsequent BIOS versions be independent of one earlier version? Unless it contains the logic to do one thing or another, given the current state of the PC and BIOS.

Regardless, the 2.10 BIOS update has additional specific instructions that must be followed. They are appear when you click the 2.10 download file. The process is not difficult at all, just a little different:



Just leave the USB drive in the PC until you see a second message to reboot, or until Windows starts after the first reboot. If the PC goes into Windows, reboot again and remove the USB drive after you click Restart. Same thing if you get the second reboot message.

Part of the problem is the 2.30 BIOS download does not display this message when it is clicked. So is that a mistake on ASR's part, or does that imply that you can skip to 2.30 from a per-2.10 version, without leaving the USB drive in the PC, as that message for the 2.10 update states? We've seen conflicting information in this forum about that by users, and ASR support has never explained what you can or cannot do in this situation. That is why we cannot tell you to just update to 2.30 from a pre-2.10 version.

The Instant Flash instructions are on the BIOS download page, click the red cross in the How to Update column. Instructions should also be in your boards manual. I can't get a picture of it, since it's in a fixed size window that must be scrolled to see all of it.

Install the drivers after the two stage 2.10 BIOS update. You should not need the new version of IME with your SB CPU, but check device manager in Windows, and if you find a PCI problem entry, you then should install the newer version of IME.