Having trouble updating the BIOS on your GIGABYTE AM5 motherboard? Find the solution here!

by Giancarlo C. Dalmedico "NoMS" April 21, 2023 · Articles / Guides

Recently, there has been a surge of comments on the review of the B650M Aorus Elite AX, with users complaining about difficulties in updating the BIOS. At first, this might seem like a simple question or even a mistake in finding the correct product page on the manufacturer’s website, since there are several other models sharing the same design. However, it became clear that this was not the case…

The “issue”, which did not manifest itself immediately after the first BIOS update from F1 to F3c, but rather afterwards, is that when attempting to update the BIOS, whether through Q-Flash or using the EFI Shell, a message appears asking the user to restart the machine to disable ‘SecureFlash’, and upon restarting, nothing changes, with the board passing through post normally. This problem seems to be recurrent, with many people reporting it in forums such as Reddit.

“Oh, but you just need to enter Q-Flash and tell it to update”, yes, in theory, it should be that simple, but in practice, it will ask the user to restart the machine again, and when it comes to updating the BIOS, nothing happens. All seems lost, but there is still hope, and its name is “Q-Flash Plus”.

This feature allows the user to update the motherboard’s BIOS via a USB drive and a button on the back panel, all without needing to have a CPU or memory installed! If this doesn’t seem like news, it’s because it isn’t! Top-of-the-line motherboards from both GIGABYTE and other manufacturers have integrated a similar feature for over 10 years, where finally AMD took the initiative to include it natively in the AM5 platform, bringing the functionality to simpler models.

The first step to using “Q-Flash Plus” on the B650M Aorus Elite AX is to obtain a suitable USB drive and format it in the FAT32 standard. After that, download the BIOS file from the manufacturer’s website, extract it, rename the BIOS file to “GIGABYTE.bin” (without the quotes), and place it in the root of the USB drive.

Once you have completed the previous step, simply power off the machine and insert the USB drive into the correct USB port. For the B650M Aorus Elite AX, this is the second red USB port located below the LAN RJ45 connector. If you are using a different motherboard model, be sure to consult the manual for the correct port.

Next, press the Q-Flash button. If all goes well, you will see an LED light flashing – at first, it will flash rapidly and then slowly.

The entire procedure takes just over 5 minutes, and if you have already assembled the rest of the system, the motherboard will automatically go through the post process and display video with the updated BIOS.