I updated my mobo firmware.. Now Windows 7 no longer works?

ZodaEX

Supreme [H]ardness
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Sep 17, 2004
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I'm at my wits end with this problem. I've tried absolutely everything I can think of and if someone can help me resolve this, it would mean a lot to me and save me from replacing this computer.


-I have a Gigabyte GB-BXBT-2807 motherboard (technically a barebones style pc build)
-This motherboard finally got a firmware update for the Spectre/Meltdown CPU exploits so I installed it (bios F9)
-Immediately after updating the bios and after rebooting Windows 7 stopped working. When I try to boot into Win7 it says Windows had problems and needs to be repaired, but it can't finish the repair for some reason.
-I decided to re-install Windows to attempt to fix the PC
-When I boot the PC from the Windows disk, the moment the Windows 7 installer comes up, the keyboard and mouse both just shut off. They both work in bios, but not within the Win7 installer.



Anyone have any ideas for me to try? At this point my running theory is that the newest F9 motherboard bios is bugged and has destroyed this PC's ability to run Windows 7. I'm really not positive though so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
I'm think the latest F9 bios firmware fucked everything up because that's when all the problems started. My issue with trying this though is I used a Winflash to update the bios from inside Windows, but now I can't get into Windows to attempt the downgrade. Is is possible to downgrade the bios from outside of windows somehow? I'm also open to any other suggestions.
 
Most motherboards you can flash directly from the BIOS / pre OS with a USB drive formatted in fat32. Just not sure about this one since it seems to be an all in one PC, but if it uses gigabyte's standard bios, it would be able to.
 
Most motherboards you can flash directly from the BIOS / pre OS with a USB drive formatted in fat32. Just not sure about this one since it seems to be an all in one PC, but if it uses gigabyte's standard bios, it would be able to.

This motherboard's bios is extremely simple with very few options and settings. Unfortunately it does not feature any kind of firmware flasher within it's bios like most motherboards do. That's actually the initial way I tried to update the bios but after discovering there was no such option I used a windows based flasher.

I just tried to install Ubuntu Linux, and it won't install or even load into the live-cd environment. It gave a monstrous amount of error messages seemingly related to the CPU, which is what this latest firmware was supposed to update/address.

Now I just put in a Windows 10 install disc, and it's installer not only loaded up, but my keyboard and mouse still are working. So for now i'm going to attempt to downgrade the bios from within Windows 10 using the Winflasher, once that finishes installing. I'm praying that it will allow me to downgrade to the original bios version so I can fix the PC. Scared that it won't, but I cannot think of anything else to try. I'll check back in with the results once i've tried this.
 
Well fuck :(

Gigabyte does not appear to have the original firmware available to download. https://www.gigabyte.com/Mini-PcBarebone/GB-BXBT-2807-rev-10#support-dl-bios
They only have the bugged F9 bios file that screwed my PC up.

Now what can I possibly try? I feel like I screwed myself over so bad, but I was just trying to get the PC to run as well as it can (with the latest updates) and didn't anticipate the possibility of this happening.
 
BIOS versions F8 and F7 are available from the Gigabyte website by changing the download URL:
F8: http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/BIOS/gb-bxbt-2807_f8.zip
F7: http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/BIOS/gb-bxbt-2807_f7.zip
I tried looking for F6 and F5 as well but they do not appear to exist.
I do not know the BIOS numbering scheme for this motherboard, so previous versions could have been something that starts with a different letter.
If you cannot get into any version of Windows to flash, it appears, though I could be wrong, that you should run flash.bat from DOS in order to flash the BIOS. So you could try searching for and downloading a bootable DOS image and flashing that way.
 
I had a similar problem when assembling my new system. Check bios for USB emulation options. (legacy or perhaps ps2)

Kid
 
Assuming its posting, check the sata settings, flashing often resets it to ahci/legacy(ide) which would cause it not to start/blue screen at start. Try the opposite setting its set to currently.
 
2 suggestions that worked for a buddy of mine that was able to use his keyboard and mouse in the BIOS but not during his windows 7 installation.

1) use a PS2 keyboard.
2) the CD he was using was older and didn't have drivers for his motherboards usb controllers. I downloaded the most recent available windows 7 pro ISO and this solved his issue. The older windows 7 cd he was trying to use just didn't have the drives his usb controllers required.
 
BIOS versions F8 and F7 are available from the Gigabyte website by changing the download URL:
F8: http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/BIOS/gb-bxbt-2807_f8.zip
F7: http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/BIOS/gb-bxbt-2807_f7.zip
I tried looking for F6 and F5 as well but they do not appear to exist.
I do not know the BIOS numbering scheme for this motherboard, so previous versions could have been something that starts with a different letter.
If you cannot get into any version of Windows to flash, it appears, though I could be wrong, that you should run flash.bat from DOS in order to flash the BIOS. So you could try searching for and downloading a bootable DOS image and flashing that way.

Wow so they were on Gigabyte's website all along but the links were taken down from the support page. I've never seen a company do that before.

Thanks to your help I believe i'm on the right track, however I am still working at it.

From within Windows 10 using the Winflasher utility, I was able to successfully downgrade to bios F7. This actually totally fixed Ubuntu Linux from not working and it also added a secure boot setting to the bios that wasn't there before. This encourages me that Linux will work now, but unfortunately Windows 7 is still doing the same thing.

Using your trick however I poked around some more on their website, and I believe I have discovered some kind of parent directory page that has the rest of the older bios versions on there. http://download.gigabyte.cn/FileList/BIOS/

If my memory serves me right, I believe the date on my bios back when it was working was a 2014 dated bios so i'm just going to continue to roll back and try each bios file one by one until I hit one from 2014 and hopefully that will restore this PC to working order. Thanks again for the great advice and i'll check in later to report how things went.
 
I bet it's a combination of your previous Windows install being installed in legacy BIOS mode and the new BIOS defaulting to UEFI mode (or perhaps changes in AHCI and ATA storage controller modes), and Windows 7 being too old to have a built-in driver for the USB chipset in the installer, so it's not able to find a keyboard to use.
 
I bet it's a combination of your previous Windows install being installed in legacy BIOS mode and the new BIOS defaulting to UEFI mode (or perhaps changes in AHCI and ATA storage controller modes), and Windows 7 being too old to have a built-in driver for the USB chipset in the installer, so it's not able to find a keyboard to use.

The problem with this theory though, is that i'm the one who originally built this barebones PC and when I first initially set it up, the Windows 7 installer worked with my USB chipset perfectly fine. This is a Baytrail motherboard with two native USB 2.0 ports coming right out of the board so the Windows 7 install disc shouldn't have any problems with it. I even broke out a newer Windows 7 installation disc with SP1 integrated into it and got the same results.
 
I'm checking in again with my progress (or lack there of)


I've downgraded and downgraded the bios several times now with no success. I made it all the way back to a year 2014 bios, which came out actually even before Windows 10 released, and am still getting the exact same problem (that is my mouse and keyboard both die as soon as the Windows 7 installer pops up)

Since trying older bios versions didn't help me much aside from enabling Ubuntu Linux to work (which I don't want to use), I guess i'm going to re-flash the bios with the latest version and unbuild this computer to retire it and sell it or give it to someone who wants to run Windows 10. Unfortunately for me though i'm not willing to run Win10 on it. The CPU is very low powered and I don't want the hassle of waiting for this 1.5 GHZ Celeron to install updates every time I turn the PC on.

If anyone has any other advice for me to try, i'd love to hear it, however at this point I feel like i've exhausted every reasonable attempt for a fix. Thanks again for all the advice everyone. Even though I didn't fix it, I feel better that i've been so thorough in my attempts.
 
One more thing I wanted to share. After re-flashing to the latest bios again, Ubuntu Linux again will not install. When I try to install it it's saying 0.252903 byt_gpio INT33FC:02: GPIO interrupt error, pins misconfigured
watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU0 stuck for 23s! migration/0:10
INFO: rcu_sched self-detected stall on CPU

And after this this error messages just keep coming. Miles and miles of error messages, exactly like before.


My final thought/theory about what happened, is i'm speculating that once a CPU's micro code is updated, it must not able to be reverted by reflashing to an older bios. The Meltdown and Spectre microcode patches for my CPU must be causing Windows 7 to no longer be compatible with this CPU anymore. At the same time, the newest firmware also breaks Linux compatibility, but not due to the CPU microcode update, this must be some other aspect of the firmware breaking compatibility so this is why downgrading to one firmware version older fixes Linux, but not Windows 7.


What i've taken from this is that Gigabyte is a shitty motherboard company. They clearly must have published their Meltdown CPU patched without proper testing. This isn't the first time i've seen screwed up shit on Gigabyte motherboards. My last Gigabyte motherboard before this one also had a really fucked up issue where the setting for unganged dual channel RAM wouldn't save no matter how many times I set it and saved it.

Glad to be done with all of this, whew.
 
^what he said. i honestly havent had a singe Gb product fail that wasnt my fault.
try another sata cable to rule that out. double check your settings in the bios, ahci/ide mode and move your mouse/kb to a usb2 port as usb 3 isn't supported during win7 setup.
 
^what he said. i honestly havent had a singe Gb product fail that wasnt my fault.
try another sata cable to rule that out. double check your settings in the bios, ahci/ide mode and move your mouse/kb to a usb2 port as usb 3 isn't supported during win7 setup.


Here's the problem with trying another sata cable:
A- This is a barebones Mini PC that has one built-in sata cable. The sata cable cannot be removed or replaced. It's soldered in.
B- If the problem was the SATA cable, wouldn't this also keep Windows 10 and Ubuntu Linux from working also? Windows 10 runs perfectly fine, and if I downgrade the firmware to below version F9, Ubuntu Linux also runs and works perfectly.


About the double checking bios settings:
A: This bios is incredibly simple and bare. There is not much to see here and also not much to miss. I've tried every semi obvious bios settings. I've loaded the defaults over and over and over. I've tried disabling secure boot. I've tried setting the one USB port on the computer to USB 2.0 (which I haven't even been using anyway because the PC has two native USB 2.0 ports on it). I've checked about 12 times that the sata controller was still set on AHCI and it was. I've tried disabling the ultra low power state. I've also tried both the Windows 7 and Windows 8 mode from within the bios. There aren't many more settings than those that I could possibly think of that would keep the Keyboard and mouse from working during the Win7 installer.


I'm not trying to rip on Gigabyte, but as they are the ones who published the firmware updates and even incompetently took the links down to the only versions of the bios that will function with Ubuntu Linux, what they did was very negligent in my opinion. Like I said in an earlier post, i've never in my life seen another tech company ever do that before. There is a reason other companies likes Asus and Biostar leave older drivers and bioses on their website. In some cases it's imperative to have access to the original software. It's issues similar to this why sites like oldversion.com exist.
 
Here's the problem with trying another sata cable:
A- This is a barebones Mini PC that has one built-in sata cable. The sata cable cannot be removed or replaced. It's soldered in.
B- If the problem was the SATA cable, wouldn't this also keep Windows 10 and Ubuntu Linux from working also? Windows 10 runs perfectly fine, and if I downgrade the firmware to below version F9, Ubuntu Linux also runs and works perfectly.


About the double checking bios settings:
A: This bios is incredibly simple and bare. There is not much to see here and also not much to miss. I've tried every semi obvious bios settings. I've loaded the defaults over and over and over. I've tried disabling secure boot. I've tried setting the one USB port on the computer to USB 2.0 (which I haven't even been using anyway because the PC has two native USB 2.0 ports on it). I've checked about 12 times that the sata controller was still set on AHCI and it was. I've tried disabling the ultra low power state. I've also tried both the Windows 7 and Windows 8 mode from within the bios. There aren't many more settings than those that I could possibly think of that would keep the Keyboard and mouse from working during the Win7 installer.


I'm not trying to rip on Gigabyte, but as they are the ones who published the firmware updates and even incompetently took the links down to the only versions of the bios that will function with Ubuntu Linux, what they did was very negligent in my opinion. Like I said in an earlier post, i've never in my life seen another tech company ever do that before. There is a reason other companies likes Asus and Biostar leave older drivers and bioses on their website. In some cases it's imperative to have access to the original software. It's issues similar to this why sites like oldversion.com exist.
deep breaths dude deep breaths, we are trying to help. did you try the native usb 2 ports during setup or not? or as just suggested, ps2. if you have the bios set to ahci you might need to load the sata drivers during setup of win7.
 
A ps2 keyboard should work in the Win7 installer.

This PC does not have any ps2 ports on it so that's not an option. Plus the way I originally installed Win7 was with a USB keyboard so if it worked then, it should work again now.



deep breaths dude deep breaths, we are trying to help. did you try the native usb 2 ports during setup or not? or as just suggested, ps2. if you have the bios set to ahci you might need to load the sata drivers during setup of win7.

I appreciate all the help very much. I'm apologize if I sound stressed, i'm just upset with myself because i'm always telling people to "don't fix what ain't broke". I feel like I brought all of these problems upon myself for trying to update my motherboard's bios when it was previously running perfectly fine.

As I have already explained in post #14 and repeated myself again in post #19, this motherboard has two native USB 2.0 ports built right into the mobo. These are the ones i'm trying to use.

Windows 7, and even Windows Vista before it natively supports SATA AHCI ssd drives like mine. You only had to do that back in the Windows 2000/XP/XP X64 days. And as i've already explained in post #14, I am the person who originally build this PC. If I was able to install Windows 7 X64 with the bios in AHCI mode in 2014 like I did, then there is no reason I can think of that I wouldn't be able to install Win7 again in AHCI mode in 2018. The only thing that has changed with this PC is the motherboard's firmware, the cpu's microcode, and going back and forth re-installing Ubuntu and Windows 10 in order to try to troubleshoot and fix the PC.
 
ok. what are you loading windows from, usb? maybe the image is faulty.


I've said this 3 times in this thread already, but i'm loading Windows from the motherboard's native built-in USB 2.0 ports.

About faulty images, not only am I using a factory-made pressed retail Windows 7 DVD, but I own 4 copies of official Windows 7 X64 retail DVDs and have already tried two of my four installation DVDs. I've tried the original release version, as well as one with SP1 already integrated into the disc and neither of those are working for me. I could try my two other install DVDs but I feel like i've been pretty exhaustive at ruling this potential issue out. I have also bought another external DVD drive and am getting the same results with that one. Keep in mind that Windows 10 will install perfectly fine, and if I downgrade to an older bios, even Ubuntu Linux will work, but I really need to put Windows 7 back on here again. (assuming I didn't already ruin the PC by upgrading the micro-code and I think I did (The PC is actually only officially supported on Win7 and Win8 anyways.
 
I'm checking in again with my progress (or lack there of)


I've downgraded and downgraded the bios several times now with no success. I made it all the way back to a year 2014 bios, which came out actually even before Windows 10 released, and am still getting the exact same problem (that is my mouse and keyboard both die as soon as the Windows 7 installer pops up)

Since trying older bios versions didn't help me much aside from enabling Ubuntu Linux to work (which I don't want to use), I guess i'm going to re-flash the bios with the latest version and unbuild this computer to retire it and sell it or give it to someone who wants to run Windows 10. Unfortunately for me though i'm not willing to run Win10 on it. The CPU is very low powered and I don't want the hassle of waiting for this 1.5 GHZ Celeron to install updates every time I turn the PC on.

If anyone has any other advice for me to try, i'd love to hear it, however at this point I feel like i've exhausted every reasonable attempt for a fix. Thanks again for all the advice everyone. Even though I didn't fix it, I feel better that i've been so thorough in my attempts.

Use a PS2 keyboard until it's installed. Simple workaround.
 
I've said this 3 times in this thread already, but i'm loading Windows from the motherboard's native built-in USB 2.0 ports.

About faulty images, not only am I using a factory-made pressed retail Windows 7 DVD, but I own 4 copies of official Windows 7 X64 retail DVDs and have already tried two of my four installation DVDs. I've tried the original release version, as well as one with SP1 already integrated into the disc and neither of those are working for me. I could try my two other install DVDs but I feel like i've been pretty exhaustive at ruling this potential issue out. I have also bought another external DVD drive and am getting the same results with that one. Keep in mind that Windows 10 will install perfectly fine, and if I downgrade to an older bios, even Ubuntu Linux will work, but I really need to put Windows 7 back on here again. (assuming I didn't already ruin the PC by upgrading the micro-code and I think I did (The PC is actually only officially supported on Win7 and Win8 anyways.

Don't get snarky with people. You clearly glossed over my previous comment where I mentioned YOUR EXACT PROBLEM and said I fixed it for a friend by getting them the latest ISO and putting it on a usb.

By usb I mean a usb stick. Not a DVD that you then run from an external USB dvd drive.
 
^ that's also what I meant when I said "usb? maybe image is faulty".
I've said this 3 times in this thread already, but i'm loading Windows from the motherboard's native built-in USB 2.0 ports.

About faulty images, not only am I using a factory-made pressed retail Windows 7 DVD, but I own 4 copies of official Windows 7 X64 retail DVDs and have already tried two of my four installation DVDs. I've tried the original release version, as well as one with SP1 already integrated into the disc and neither of those are working for me. I could try my two other install DVDs but I feel like i've been pretty exhaustive at ruling this potential issue out. I have also bought another external DVD drive and am getting the same results with that one. Keep in mind that Windows 10 will install perfectly fine, and if I downgrade to an older bios, even Ubuntu Linux will work, but I really need to put Windows 7 back on here again. (assuming I didn't already ruin the PC by upgrading the micro-code and I think I did (The PC is actually only officially supported on Win7 and Win8 anyways.
 
Use a PS2 keyboard until it's installed. Simple workaround.

Like I just said in post #22, this motherboard does not have any ps2 ports.


Don't get snarky with people. You clearly glossed over my previous comment where I mentioned YOUR EXACT PROBLEM and said I fixed it for a friend by getting them the latest ISO and putting it on a usb.
By usb I mean a usb stick. Not a DVD that you then run from an external USB dvd drive.

If you don't mind me asking, how do I put the latest ISO onto a USB drive? I've tried doing this before but had a hard time figuring it out. I guess I had assumed that this wouldn't work since this is the same exact DVD that I used to install Windows 7 in the first place, but what do I know hehe it's something else for me to try, thanks!


^ that's also what I meant when I said "usb? maybe image is faulty".

How could the image be faulty when it was provided and manufactured straight from Microsoft? It isn't a home burned copy. I'm not trying to be snarky, I have used DVD tech since 2001 and have never seen official Windows install discs degrade like that over time. I've seen it with CD-Rs and DVD-Rs but not with factory made discs. There is an image verification option built right into the Win7 DVD I can try to ensure the image isn't faulty if you think it might help.
 
Like I just said in post #22, this motherboard does not have any ps2 ports.




If you don't mind me asking, how do I put the latest ISO onto a USB drive? I've tried doing this before but had a hard time figuring it out. I guess I had assumed that this wouldn't work since this is the same exact DVD that I used to install Windows 7 in the first place, but what do I know hehe it's something else for me to try, thanks!




How could the image be faulty when it was provided and manufactured straight from Microsoft? It isn't a home burned copy. I'm not trying to be snarky, I have used DVD tech since 2001 and have never seen official Windows install discs degrade like that over time. I've seen it with CD-Rs and DVD-Rs but not with factory made discs. There is an image verification option built right into the Win7 DVD I can try to ensure the image isn't faulty if you think it might help.

I guess I missed the PS2 thing and I apologize. Been a long time since I've seen one without lol

I use a program called Rufus to burn my windows 7 ISO's. You can download the windows 7 iso directly from Microsoft or torrent it from numerous places.

I don't imagine your copy has deteriorated. I think maybe the hardware ID for the usb changed with the bios update and now windows is having difficulty. I know you switched the bios back a few times and it didn't work, so I'm curious as to what happened there.
 
Like I just said in post #22, this motherboard does not have any ps2 ports.




If you don't mind me asking, how do I put the latest ISO onto a USB drive? I've tried doing this before but had a hard time figuring it out. I guess I had assumed that this wouldn't work since this is the same exact DVD that I used to install Windows 7 in the first place, but what do I know hehe it's something else for me to try, thanks!




How could the image be faulty when it was provided and manufactured straight from Microsoft? It isn't a home burned copy. I'm not trying to be snarky, I have used DVD tech since 2001 and have never seen official Windows install discs degrade like that over time. I've seen it with CD-Rs and DVD-Rs but not with factory made discs. There is an image verification option built right into the Win7 DVD I can try to ensure the image isn't faulty if you think it might help.
scratches, faulty drive... try creating a new usb stick using the iso from ms and rufus.
 
scratches, faulty drive... try creating a new usb stick using the iso from ms and rufus.

There are no scratches on either of the two install discs i've used, and the USB drive probably isn't faulty because not only does it work fine on my other PC, but I just bought a second external DVD drive to aid in troubleshooting and that one does the same exact thing. (not to mention that the external DVD drive works perfectly with both the Ubuntu and Win10 install discs) I'll try the updated ISO from USB stick method.
 
I skimmed through the rest of the thread... but have you tried resetting BIOS settings since you flashed the board?
 
I skimmed through the rest of the thread... but have you tried resetting BIOS settings since you flashed the board?

Yes I have. I reset the cmos settings to "recommended defaults" after each time I've upgraded and downgraded the firmware. My mobo didn't have "safe defaults" like I've seen avalible on other boards so I used recomended.
 
If you're giving up on Win7, Win10 actually runs fine with lower powered systems, updates are quick so long as you have an SSD.

Sorry don't have additional input that can help you
 
If you're giving up on Win7, Win10 actually runs fine with lower powered systems, updates are quick so long as you have an SSD.

Sorry don't have additional input that can help you

I know it's weird and probably doesn't make sense to people that aren't me, but building Windows 10 rigs with hard drives and super cheap parts is one of my ways of sort of disrespecting the O.S. It's like i'm saying "you suck Windows 10. You're not even worth installing onto an SSD, so I'll load you onto an old 80GB hard drive from 2005 and run you with a 10W APU instead because you don't deserve anything better." Thanks again for the great help guys. :)
 
Are you clearing the BIOS settings in the BIOS or with the motherboard jumper/button/switch? There could be some corrupted NVRAM settings that other pieces of firmware (Intel ME, platform controller, etc) use that the actual BIOS doesn't touch. Some ACPI data is stored in there too and if its corrupted, it could caused things to not work.

As far as microcode updates go. they're not permanent. They have to be reloaded every time the CPU boots. In fact Windows and Linux will update the microcode if it has a newer version than the BIOS.
 
To clear the CMOS "for sure" I remove the CMOS battery for 30 minutes and then I usually put in a new battery. Just a thought.
 
Like I just said in post #22, this motherboard does not have any ps2 ports.

https://www.amazon.ca/PS-2-to-USB-Adapter/dp/B001E6DTL6
Walmart has them too...


If you don't mind me asking, how do I put the latest ISO onto a USB drive? I've tried doing this before but had a hard time figuring it out. I guess I had assumed that this wouldn't work since this is the same exact DVD that I used to install Windows 7 in the first place, but what do I know hehe it's something else for me to try, thanks!

It used to be that you could simply format any drive and copy the ntldr.sys and ntkrnl.sys to the drive. Since windows 7, this changed to something called BCD. The only real option for you that I know of is to use RUFUS to create it.

How could the image be faulty when it was provided and manufactured straight from Microsoft? It isn't a home burned copy. I'm not trying to be snarky, I have used DVD tech since 2001 and have never seen official Windows install discs degrade like that over time. I've seen it with CD-Rs and DVD-Rs but not with factory made discs. There is an image verification option built right into the Win7 DVD I can try to ensure the image isn't faulty if you think it might help.

CDs and DVDs are not as indestructible as people think. They do degrade with age of either the disk itself or the drive. Seen it happen often.
 
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CDs and DVDs are not as indestructible as people think. They do degrade with age of either the disk itself or the drive. Seen it happen often.[/QUOTE]

Yes, but in my specific case I have been very detailed in my assessment of the disc. I've done enough tests and troubleshooting to reasonably rule the possibility of a corrupt disc out of the picture.
 
Does Gigabyte still use Ctrl+F1 to access the advanced options BIOS screen like they did back in the day?
 
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