Does "Q-Flash" work while all of the components are installed?

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.

Long story short I upgraded from F3 to F5B and it bricked, I run the PC but no screen

Since the motherboard from the looks of it has no dual bios can someone tell me step to step how to deal with the situation

I have a FAT32 16gb USB stick I plugged it in the white USB bios port I have a folder named GIGABYTE.bin with the bios inside it, the same content the .zip has if you download it from the website It's the F5B bios I have removed the GPU, I have a single ram and the CPU plugged on I start the PC press the q flash plus bios on the motherboard, the orange LED is on for 10mins now nothing happens

What to do ?

Edit; I am trying now with GPU (on HDMI) and no RAM, se response, orange LED blinks twice in the beginning then stays on, minutes pass nothing happens

Edit2: Maybe my rename of the BIOS is wrong ? Do I have to rename the folder containing the BIOS to GIGABYTE.bin or do I have to throw the BIOS file without a folder inside the flash drive without renaming ?

Onto my 3rd motherboard where I'm upgrading from Intel 12th Gen to Intel 13th or 14th Gen.

All attempts to use Q-Flash Plus to update the bioses have failed.

None of my four USB 2.0 flash drives are recognised - two old and two new, all 16GB or less, all FAT32 and MBR, full reformat, and checked for errors. The QLED light never comes on. The flash of the new BIOS - checked for mobo version, never starts. I've read, and re-read, their god-awful doco, watched video after video, read blog after blog, and Reddited hours and hours of time trying the plethora of suggestions that worked for other people.

Time for Gigabyte to include a known-good USB flash drive in the motherboard boxes? Yes !!! Otherwise, they should admit this 'feature' is as flaky as f### and can't be relied upon.

Edit: So what did work? A brand new 8GB USB 2.0 from Netac. No reformatting - just copied the bios image to the new stick ... and it worked first time.

My advice - Ignore GB's bollocks about what should work - buy a new USB 2.0 stick and try that first. Trust me - life is too short.