DualBIOS Becomes Standard Feature for All Gigabyte Motherboards

btarunr · Jun 16, 2009

Gigabyte decided to make its DualBIOS feature standard for all its motherboards. The feature involves using two BIOS EEPROM chips to store two copies of the BIOS. In the event of a failure of the first copy, the system starts with the second copy of the BIOS, and attempts to replace the first copy. The feature is especially useful when the BIOS is damaged in the process of updating it, or physical damage to the ROM chip. Gigabyte initially made this feature exclusive for its higher-end motherboards, and propagated it lower along the lineup.

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Deleted member 3 · Jun 16, 2009

A feature seen since s370 boards. Perhaps even slot 1. Foolish to solder them on the board though. If a chip dies physically you can't replace it. I've had it happen.

alexp999 · Jun 16, 2009

This system doesnt seem to work in practice form my experience, and if it wasnt for the fact my mobos chips were removable, id have a dead board in my hands.

BraveSoul · Jun 16, 2009

dual bios works great for me,,while ago had corrupted bios 'asus board' and had to send the chip away for a new one,, its a pain in the butt. Dual bios is great... used gigabyte ever since

Sihastru · Jun 16, 2009

It's still a good feature since, in theory, a bad flash is more likely to happen then a burned chip. From what I've seen on my board, I can make as primary any of the two chips, not just copy from B to A, so if I burn A, B will still live to tell the tale...

Cheeseball · Jun 16, 2009

Dual-BIOS is a lifesaver. I'd never use a custom BIOS if my board didn't have a backup of some kind..

btarunr · Jun 16, 2009

It works in practice. I had a failed BIOS flash. The next boot took slightly longer, and I was taken back to the "F1" BIOS (the one the board shipped with). Any other board should have broken. My ASUS M3A did.

scope54 · Jun 16, 2009

lol i wish i had this on my current board, had to RMA 3 times because of bad flashes....and yes i was doing it right. But when when i had my K8NS i loved the feature. I think it saved my ass a couple of times.

Mussels · Jun 16, 2009

i've never had to use it, so no comment. Then again i've never had a bad BIOS flash either.

PaulieG · Jun 16, 2009

btarunr said:
It works in practice. I had a failed BIOS flash. The next boot took slightly longer, and I was taken back to the "F1" BIOS (the one the board shipped with). Any other board should have broken. My ASUS M3A did.

Totally agree. The dual bios has saved my arse numerous times with beta bios flashes.

Deleted member 24505 · Jun 16, 2009

Great idea,but the chips should be socketed.

Paintface · Jun 16, 2009

Gigabyte saves money by implementing it on all their boards i bet

Great feature, never kicked in on the ones i used( flashes worked fine) but i dont mind flashing any kind of bios anymore.

Lumpy · Jun 16, 2009

It works great.
should really be a standard for ALL m/b makers.

Steevo · Jun 16, 2009

I have never used dual BIOS, but I have used a blind flash with a floppy to recover a BIOS.

Scrizz · Jun 16, 2009

dual BIOS is great
my next board is gonna be a giga
I always liked them better

qubit · Jun 16, 2009

Excellent!

This is excellent news.

My GA-EP45-UD3P has a dual BIOS and was one of the reasons why I bought it over the competition. The extra copper and fantastically tweakable BIOS were some of the other reasons.

iStink · Jun 16, 2009

What if the second one fails!? WE'RE DOOOOOOOMED!

Seriously though, maybe the higher end ones will now have 3 lol

t77snapshot · Jun 16, 2009

tigger said:
Great idea,but the chips should be socketed.

I agree, all mobo's should have a removable bios chip for replacements.

qubit · Jun 16, 2009

tigger said:
Great idea,but the chips should be socketed.

Absolutely. And you know what? They were on the boards from a few years ago. Guess Gigabyte is saving the pennies...

BazookaJoe · Jun 16, 2009

Interesting to see that so many ppl have made use of Dual-Bios.

I've had Dual-bios Gigabyte boards for YEARS and its never made any difference to me at all... I've never seen any advantage what-so-ever.

I've also never seen any disadvantage - It's just never made any difference to any bard I've ever fitted.

Come to think of it - of the many Gigabyte boards I've fitted over the years I've never had a bios failure - even on the single bios ones.

Socketed or not? well Geez, if you manage to crap out 2 BIOS chips then you either need to go back to hacker school, or get a new MoBo - having sockets wont help you either way.

PaulieG · Jun 16, 2009

BazookaJoe said:
Interesting to see that so many ppl have made use of Dual-Bios.

I've had Dual-bios Gigabyte boards for YEARS and its never made any difference to me at all... I've never seen any advantage what-so-ever.

I've also never seen any disadvantage - It's just never made any difference to any bard I've ever fitted.

Come to think of it - of the many Gigabyte boards I've fitted over the years I've never had a bios failure - even on the single bios ones.

Socketed or not? well Geez, if you manage to crap out 2 BIOS chips then you either need to go back to hacker school, or get a new MoBo - having sockets wont help you either way.

Yeah, if you can destroy dual bios chips, you have bigger problems than a soldered chip. One thing I've noticed about the Gigabyte x58 boards, is how well they recover from bad overclocks without needing to reset cmos. I have the UD5 and the UD3R, and no matter how hard I push them, they always reset themselves. I've never had a board like that, and I've owned 50-60 different boards over the last 5-6 years.

btarunr · Jun 16, 2009

iStink said:
What if the second one fails!? WE'RE DOOOOOOOMED!

Seriously though, maybe the higher end ones will now have 3 lol

2nd one is read-only. It holds the BIOS the board shipped with. You can't flash it. Only physical damage can destroy it.

Kitkat · Jun 16, 2009

yeah and it can save your settings incase u have to flash the first so u dont have to set it all up again.

(is on it now)

Wile E · Jun 16, 2009

Paulieg said:
Yeah, if you can destroy dual bios chips, you have bigger problems than a soldered chip. One thing I've noticed about the Gigabyte x58 boards, is how well they recover from bad overclocks without needing to reset cmos. I have the UD5 and the UD3R, and no matter how hard I push them, they always reset themselves. I've never had a board like that, and I've owned 50-60 different boards over the last 5-6 years.

My Maximus Formula (flashed tro rampage) does that as well. It's a nice time saving feature.

qubit · Jun 16, 2009

Paulieg said:
Yeah, if you can destroy dual bios chips, you have bigger problems than a soldered chip. One thing I've noticed about the Gigabyte x58 boards, is how well they recover from bad overclocks without needing to reset cmos. I have the UD5 and the UD3R, and no matter how hard I push them, they always reset themselves. I've never had a board like that, and I've owned 50-60 different boards over the last 5-6 years.

My new board is like that. Very good indeed.

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DualBIOS Becomes Standard Feature for All Gigabyte Motherboards

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