With ASSRock there's only their version of Q-flash plus and never had any issues with it but seeing a lot of posts about people having issues with PC not booting or posting after updating bios? But maybe it's just one or a couple of motherboards that have that issue? X870 aorus elite wifi7 iirc. I have the b850m gaming x wifi6e.

Public Service Announcement (PSA): Posting this in the hopes it helps others. I spent over two hours trying to get Q-Flash Plus (QFP) to work; failed! You are welcome to still try to get QFP to work, but I would suggest not spending more than 30min on it. If it doesn't work with a couple of USB 2.0 drives, keep reading for the other option. It worked for me, and maybe it'll work for you. I think QFP is a finicky, dubious feature that is hit-or-miss. It seems to work if you have the right type of ancient USB 2.0 flash drive. A few people posted links in the below references (bottom of my post) about a specific brand/model that worked for them, but I didn't want to order & wait for yet another thing in the mail.

BTW, if you'd like to try QFP this is a great reference. This is well explained and it seems simple, which made it all the more frustrating that this didn't work for me. I have experience building PCs, so to follow a simple process and NOT have it work, is very, very annoying. But the video is well done and easy to understand:

https://glennsqlperformance.com/2020/12/22/how-to-flash-a-gigabyte-motherboard-with-q-flash-plus/

I can't take credit for the workaround, as I learned it from another Reddit post. Here's the trick: Just configure the motherboard (build the PC) and try to boot it. Add your CPU, RAM, video card, etc. then connect your power supply to the motherboard. Then hook up the video card to a monitor, power the PC on and hopefully it will at least post (power-on self test) and let you boot into BIOS (just press DELETE key repeatedly when powering up the PC and odds are good you'll get into the BIOS). If so, congrats! You can now use the regular Q-Flash (within the Gigabyte BIOS) to upgrade the BIOS to a more recent version. You can even use the same USB stick you prepared to use for Q-Flash Plus.. Magically the USB drive is readable now, even though it didn't work when you tried to use it with Q-Flash Plus.

The above trick worked for me. I recently got a Gigabyte motherboard (B550 Aorus Elite v1.0; who names these things...) as part of a new computer build for an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU. I picked this board specifically for its Q-Flash Plus feature, which is advertised as allowing you to flash (upgrade) the BIOS without needing to have CPU/etc installed. I thought this would be great, since I don't have a Gen-3 CPU on hand (and I thought this was all the board is compatible with out of the box, until you flash it to a higher version of BIOS that supports Ryzen 5000 series CPUs). The sticker on the motherboard box proclaims "3rd Gen Ryzen Desktop Ready" but nothing about Ryzen 5000, so I thought I had to QFP to get this to work. Fortunately, when I followed the trick above, I was able to get into the BIOS and saw it had BIOS firmware version F11 installed. I used Q-Flash within the BIOS to browse to the USB I had plugged in (ironically, to the same dumb "BIOS" USB port, which failed to do anything when I tried to QFP) to upgrade to the latest firmware available for the motherboard I bought (F14c, released 09/06/21, 6 days ago). Rebooted and the PC still boots OK, so looks like the BIOS was successfully updated (confirmed in BIOS it recognizes the CPU, memory, etc & the BIOS version is F14c). Yay.

The strange thing about the F11 BIOS, is that you cannot download this version for this motherboard from Gigabyte's website. Here is the link; if you go there, you'll see F11 version isn't available for download: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550-AORUS-ELITE-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios. Looks like Gigabyte did an internal release of this BIOS to boards, to give them Ryzen 5000 capability (to allow them to boot up, at least). Version F10 is when Ryzen 5000 support was added for this motherboard, so I thought that was an interesting discovery.

If that didn't work, I would have probably had to get a Gen-3 CPU somewhere, as I really didn't want to send back the motherboard and get another one which may or may not allow me to flash it without CPU/etc. attached. So if QFP doesn't work for you, hopefully you'll be able to boot the PC like I did & update the BIOS via the regular Q-Flash method within the BIOS.

For reference, here are some other posts of folks having issues. I probably spent almost an hour of time reading every single post, hoping to learn the secret trick to getting this damn QFP to work. One recurrent theme I saw in the posts was that folks opened support tickets with Gigabyte and got crappy replies; basically just telling folks to "follow the directions" or suggesting that they RMA the board and get another one. Ugh! Hopefully nothing ever goes wrong with this motherboard, because it sounds like customer support is horrendous. Good luck everyone!

https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabyte/comments/nz31jv/b550_aorus_elite_ax_v2_cant_flash_bios/

https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabyte/comments/kazqli/yet_again_someone_else_who_cant_flash_their_bios/

https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabyte/comments/k4nnoh/q_flash_plus_not_working_on_three_gigabyte_b550i/

https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabyte/comments/k6694v/possible_qflash_plus_fix_b550_aorus_elite5600x/

I've just ordered a new motherboard, a Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X DDR4, (from Amazon, but not available for dispatch for a few weeks).

I will be installing an i7 13700K on it, and I'd be grateful for some answers to a few questions, ready for when I do this.

1)is the M/B likely to come with the latest F21 BIOS , or will it more likely have the F2 BIOS only?

2) If I need to use the Q-Flash Plus button, do I need to enable the button somehow, or just connect power, insert USB and hold the button?

3) Am I right that I must change the name of the file Z690GAMINGXDDR4.F21 to GIGABYTE.bin ?

(When I lupdated the BIOS on my current motherboard only a month or so ago, the instructions on the Gigabyte site were woefully outdated, telling me to 'insert the floppy disc'! at one point, so it would be nice to hear some genuinely current experience to help me setup my new board).

Thank you to anyone who can clarify the process for me.

EDIT I changed my order to Aorus Elite AX DDR4 instead of waiting weeks for the Gaming X.

It's all fitted, bios update went smoothly, and it seems to be working fine, thank you all for the helpful info.

im trying to update bios with qflash i have a ryzen 9700x in a b650 gaming x ax motherboard. Basically it starts flashing and instantly shuts off. Even tried a different bios version just instantly shuts off.

to specify the PC turns on all the fans run I know it shouldnt work because of the bios I just cant seem to update the bios with qflash. I've tried 2 usbs one it flashes for 2 seconds and shuts off and the other just turns from flashing to a solid orange light and doesn't do anything.

I'm helping my cousin put together his computer. He needs to update the BIOS because the CPU is a new model, so it needs the new BIOS to recognize it.

Nothing I do gets the Q-Flash Plus LED to turn on at all.

Here's what I've been doing and what happens:

1. Connect the power supply to the barebones motherboard (no CPU, RAM, etc.), the main power connector and one of the CPU power connectors.

2. Turn the power supply on.

3. The DRAM light turns on.

4. Wait a few seconds.

5. Plug the USB into the BIOS USB slot (it's a 16 GB USB 2.0, formatted FAT32, uses MBR, and named GIGABYTE.bin).

6. Press down the Q-Flash Plus button.

7. While the Q-Flash Plus button is being held, the Q-Flash Plus LED never turns on, but the following happens over and over: DRAM LED and CPU LED turns on, CPU LED turns off, DRAM LED turns off, then both turn back on and the whole thing repeats.

8. When letting off of the Q-Flash Plus button, the CPU LED turns off and the DRAM LED stays on.

9. Nothing happens.

Oh, and the whole time the USB is plugged in, its LED is slowly turning on and off over and over. But the Q-Flash LED never turns on, not even once.

I tried holding the little power button on the motherboard to try to get it into the "shutdown state", but nothing happens when pressing it.

Edit: I bought a 4 GB USB 2.0 drive, and it worked!

I've tried several methods and the problem persists. I formatted the USB drive to FAT32, put the BIOS in "GIGABYTE.bin," and the error continues. When I press the Q-flash button, the LED blinks 5 times, stays on intermittently without blinking, and then turns off... Please help 🙏😔

Hello all,

I am trying to update the BIOS on my Z790 Aorus Pro X to the latest F6e BIOS version. I have followed the instructions in the included PDF in the zip folder and the process completes successfully within the EFI shell environment.

However, my system doesn't reboot, it just shuts down. When i manually restart my system attempts to flash the BIOS as usual but every time I just see this screen and I have to hard reboot my system.

Does anyone have any idea where I'm going wrong? I've tried 2 separate USB sticks, both reformatted and confirmed to be FAT32, and plugged in to the q-flash port on my motherboard.

See screenshot for details, and thanks in advance