Thank you PS/2

[pctech]

Nearly borked my motherboard last night.

Was trying to flash the BIOS so that it supports secure boot so that if I wanted to install a future version of Windows I could.

Downloaded and extracted the correct BIOS image from Gigabyte, extracted it a USB flash drive.

Entered the BIOS and started the QFlash utility, had the good sense to save a copy of the existing image to the flash drive too.

Started the flashing process which appeared to go ok, it copied and verified successfully, I was then asked whether to power down or reboot, selected reboot and the machine completely powered off then started itself again.

Got a different splash screen so thought all had gone ok.

Windows 7 started to load and then blue screened and the hardware reset.

It then failed over to the automatic recovery mode and started looking for problems on the disk.

After about 15 minutes it reported it couldn't fix the problem.

Reset the machine and tried pressing Del to access the BIOS as per the onscreen prompt, no response!

Tried a system restore next which failed.

Then I noticed on the back it had a PS/2 port and luckily I had a USB to PS/2 converter so plugged the keyboard directly into that, started the machine and tried to access the BIOS which thankfully worked, reflashed it back to the existing version and all now running as before.

Here's hoping this port never disappears from motherboards as otherwise there might be a lot of stuffed up boards.

[Simon]

Weirdly, on both of the machines I've built, the USB keyboard has never worked 'pre-boot', which means I have to change to PS/2 if I need to use Safe Mode. 

[Lance]

Normally in the bios there is an option to enable USB input devices, although obviously you'll need a ps/2 connection initially.

[pctech]

I'll try flashing the BIOS again when I'm feeling brave and will then have to determine what's causing Windows to blue screen during startup, I expect its an option in the BIOS too.

[Technical Ben]

They say to never flash a bios unless it's required then and there. I did on mine as there were some memory problems on the old bios.
Also had a customer uninstall the USB drivers, although thankfully just the USB 3.0 ones. Mind you, I did have my spare keyboard and adapter with me just in case they had uninstalled all the drivers. I'd have to use a recovery disc I suppose as I'd not be able to do anything in windows after than accident. 

[Glenn]

I've got around 300 laptops to BIOS flash in the coming weeks

[Simon]

[Niall]

I've been wondering about this for a while as I've had similar problems in the past, which is why I've kept my usb/ps2 adapters (there are loads scattered around the house ). Now that being said when I had to boot into bios a while ago, despite the keyboard not looking powered it let me access the bios. I suppose though, if you've knackered your motherboard with a borked bios flash, that might not work. I haven't had that problem for a long time now, so I hope I haven't jinxed myself as my current motherboard is awful!

[pctech]

Well I'm using the PC now and everything appears stable