How to Update Your BIOS Without a CPU 

For anyone stuck with a board that doesn't support the aforementioned BIOS flashback functionality, AMD still offers (at least, according to their site) a loaner CPU to those who qualify: www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/pa-100#faq-Short-Term-Processor-Loan-Boot-Kit If you've used this service recently, let us know below!

Starting to think Greg is working with google. Second time he’s uploaded a video that I’ve looked for within 2 weeks...

It's nice to see you talking about this feature. BIOS Flashback is truly underrated!

Perfect timing! My friend just built a pc and needs to do a bios update.

It has been almost 10 years since I last bought a motherboard and did not know they are so interesting these days! Thanks!

Thank you, Greg. This is good stuff, sometimes reviewers get caught up in talking about $900 graphic cards and $400 cases and so forth, you're really doing a great job here with sticking to the simple-ish matter of BIOS updating.

This video has definitely given me more clarity and confidence with building my first PC this december. Thanks for the great video!

This is exactly what I needed! I was afraid I had to return any of my new toys, but you saved me from making a n00b mistake. Thanks a lot!

Don't you just love it when you spent weeks and weeks trying to find the CPU you want. When you finally get it, you realize that your board was not compatible without updating the bios. Just bought an expensive x570 board, and a 5800x and now I need to update my bios because my "top of the line" motherboard doesn't support the CPU.

For reference: CPU does need to be installed for bios flashback to work. (For some motherboards the usb won’t have power sent to it unless there is a cpu to complete the circuit) Spent about 2 hours trying to troubleshoot why it wasn’t working for me (first time bios flash after switching to amd). The paper manual did not mention the cpu had to be installed but the online manual definitely did!

damn this is good timing, was wondering about this as i just got one of the new ryzen 5000 processors

Thanks for putting this out there, Greg. It has been 4 years since I built my last rig, and this was a great refresher! Please keep videos like this coming. So many tech tubers forget to go back to the basics, especially with how fast technology evolves!

Audiovisual step-by-step. Nice and easy, paying attention to the obvious that may not be that obvious for first timers. Well done.

Quality content, and at exactly the right time! Now all we have to do is wait another 8 months to have the cpus in stock

Thank you for explaining this as this needs to be made more clear by AMD and board manufacturers. They should link to your Video Greg.

Thank you! Very easy and simple to follow 😄 Build a new PC after around 5 years and paired a 13th gen i7 with a Z690. Was very confused why it wasn't working and showing the dram light but then after watching this, I realised what a fool I was 😅 Worked in a couple of minutes and now I'm able to get into the bios

Great info! I don't think I have seen this covered on any other channel before.

Thank you so much Greg, you really dont know how much this is meaning too me as a child i was growing up watching my father and my uncle playing videos games all the time at holidays then my uncle showed the pc world to me when i was still young like 9 to 10 years idk and i was never happier then that day you and LTT inspired me too build my pc and here i am watching your videos too fix the issue after the build my monitor showed no signal thinking why cant my monitor show any signal i fell happy again so i can use my free time again as i loved to do it escaping from reality and spend so much time again with my friends over the internet again thank u so much i fell again like i could doo something usefull again love from austria love ur content

WOW man, I really have to thank you a lot!!! This BIOS update video tutorial literally made possible that I could use my new build PC without having to pay extra money for someone to do the job...I feared some of the components could be malfunctioning (and they were all new) Someone even told me that maybe I had to buy another motherboard and I was starting to get worried. Your video really deserves all those Likes bro; and I even saved it for the future, just in case that I forget something, or to help someone who's building their PC for the first time, like myself in this case...Greetings from Puerto Rico pal!

GREAT VIDEO FOR PEOPLE JUST BUILDING FOR THE FIRST TIME AND THEY THINK THEY HAVE DONE SOMETHING WRONG , BUT IT JUST NEEDS A BIOS UPDATE .

Great video, never had to do this yet...Yet being operative word here, nice to these sort of videos that can be very helpful to your viewer's.

Thank you so much. After 4 hours of troubleshooting the problem I found out it was because the bios version does not supported my ryzen 9 processor. After updating the bios everything worked fine and i got the post signal

Thank you for this step by step tutorial, you couldn't do better. I once updated BIOS without CPU directly from the BIOS interface. There was some sort of installation wizard that only requires an ethernet connection. I don't remember if it was an Asus or MSI board. It is really easy to update BIOS nowadays, board manufacturers got really better at making it easy. Just follow the guidelines and that will be okay.

Super appreciative of how straightforward this video is. I feel like I legitimately understand why my new build isn't booting and how to fix the issue, which is not always how I feel when troubleshooting! thanks a ton.

Perfect timing! I just started my new build this weekend and need to do this.

This with some guides I found on internet helped me so much!!!I cant describe how much I was stressing when I saw blank screen and gpu fans not spinning.I have B450 and Bios version was b52 I think, while for any processor from 5000 series my motherboard need to have b60 or higher version.The amount of digging I had to do just to find that one information on 1 site.Just upgraded to ryzen 5 5500 and I must say its amazing, every single game is running on max settings without lag.Thank you again king💪👑

Used this feature on my MSi motherboard last year. Worked a treat.

Thank you so much, Greg!!! After days of troubleshooting and a new psu later I have found the solution to my problem! My b550-e and my ryzen 7 5800x were working on and booting to windows without any problems but anytime I launched a game between 0-30 seconds it would cause the pc to force restart to windows! I was on bios version 1004 and updated it to 1401 and now my new system appears to be stable!!! Thanks again for the guide my guy!!!

I actually had this with my new 5800X and this exact motherboard. The weird thing was that I did get a post with older bios but it got stuck on the post screen and I couldn't do anything. But after updating the bios it works perfectly.

you are one of those you tubers who have knowledge and want every one to gain that knowledge by showing every detail and steps.. kudos man.. you are awesome

There are a couple of videos for the MSI procedure, but for MSI, you want the board without the CPU or memory installed.

I never, ever comment on youtube but you saved my mental health with this video. Thank you!! Not updating the bios was exactly the problem with my new pc not getting any post. This was a great step by step video

Cool, don't think I've ever made it this early for a video.

I have one of the older MSI B450 mothers.One of the first once to get the bios flash back buttons.I am glad to see more companies making the a standard feature rather than make people pay a premium for it.

This video isn’t for me, I just stopped by to show support with a Thumbs up 👍 keep up the good work Greg.

THANK YOU, been trying to update my bios via flash for a while, a lot of other guys showed how it's done but never specifically said the pc needs to be off Life saver man

Just a few years ago you could easily swap out the bios chip on a lot of motherboards as they very often socketed. This made it possible to perform something called a hot swap flash if you had access to a working system. You pulled the bios chip from the board you wanted to update. Then you boot the working system on a drive with DOS, the flash utility and the bios image you want to upgrade the non working motherboard to. Use a puller to extract the BIOS chip from the working system WITHOUT TURNING IT OFF! Install the chip you want to flash and run the flash utility. Once that's done you can just power everything down and swap back the original BIOS chips to each system and now your previously non working MB will hopefully POST with the new BIOS. Now I have done that probably more than 100 times and it works, except when you do something stupid such as try to pry the BIOS chip from the socket with the wrong kind of tools and end up damaging the socket, or you short circuit the socket on the live system, though I've never done that. The most common failure is damaging the connectors on the BIOS chip when extracting it, again something that usually only happen if you don't have the right tools. I also have to admit that I've only done this with motherboards of the same model. The flash tools try to verify that the bios you are flashing to is correct for the motherboard, and I'm not certain how they perform that check. If it's by reading some ID from the BIOS chip then it could work across motherboard models, but as I'm pretty sure all modern motherboards caches the entire BIOS for performance reasons that's not a given. There used to be an option to enable or disable this in the BIOS setup, but it's been ages since I saw that option so I can only guess that it's now on by default. Another option was to just have someone else program a bios chip and send you using snail mail.Where I worked we had those chips as hand and just threw one in the programmer whenever someone called us asking about it. They were so cheap that we didn't even charge for the service. A chip cost a few cents and the postage didn't amount to much either. The cost was easily worth it to keep the customers happy. Unfortunately though chip sockets has pretty much gone the way of the dodo, cost cutting and space considerations make it more economic to surface mount two bios chips rather than a single one in a socket. Even so most motherboards only have one bios chip, so be careful when flashing...

i was starting to stress about what i did wrong, but your guide about the bios update was just what i needed, Thank you!!

Thanks! Just finished my first build, added a 5600X to an X570. Your instructions were exactly what I needed! Awesome content!

Thank you, this vid helped. I was so nervous doing this since this is my first time building a pc ever and i didn't have a compatible CPU yet

Clear instructions, wonderful. However, do we need to remove the cpu, memory, gpu, storage etc before updating bios?

Not a zen CPU but i updated my bios and my performance increased, only due to the fact that my FPS seemed to be a lot more stable in games and in benchmarks, not as many spikes. Thanks for the video.

I was looking exactly for a video like this yesterday Ok, algorithm i see you 👀

Hello Greg, you are the first youtuber I have seen, who has given thorough, detailed instructions on how to use BIOS flashback. Thanks!

I just found and subscribed to you this morning and then you upload a video I was literally going to look up.

My first board With bios flash back, and its a really useful feature it makes bios updating simple and it just seems a safer way to update your bios.

Needed this for the 5600X on the way!

Awesome video! Thank you for all the information about what to look for in boards from multiple vendors. Really helpful when trying to decide on what motherboard to buy. Also side note, I hope SCDkey continues as a sponsor. Used it. Love it!

Exactly what I've been looking for.

This was AMAZING. Thank you! Short yet thorough!

Loving the Los Pollos Hermanos Shirt

Awesome video! I can definitely see this video being helpful once there is actually products in stock. I will be saving this for next year.

Never knew you could do this

Your video was really easy to follow. Thank you! I'm gonna be building my new pc soon with a similar motherboard and I couldn't find any simple tutorials on BIOS updates anywhere but here.

So I’m getting ready to do this. Should I keep the CPU out of the motherboard and update? Or build the PC completely then update?

I'm waiting on my ROG STRIX X299-E GAMING and a 10-920k and been looking for a video like this one. Thanks and keep it up!

This was really helpful Greg. Very clear instructions. Asus should be sponsoring/hosting this, it was infinitely more useful than their troubleshooting/support info.

Just want to thank you for this easy to follow video. Couldn't get my new set-up to post and this fixed everything. Cheers!

Bad Luck Brian: Got a board with flashback, bios flashback button was broken off the board in shipping.

I have been looking for this type of video for so long, it was so helpful, I appreciate you making this video

Hey can I do this with the 5900x already installed and ready? Or do I need to do this before installation?

Thank you for the show and tell. Planning to build a computer and wanted to make sure I was going the right path before doing so.

>.> where was this 3 months ago when I needed it? 😂

thanks a lot! concise and thorough enough to be set really quickly. Helped clear some confusion without having to read and browse a ton on the manufacturers site

i'm new into this, can anyone tell me how do i specifically turn on only the motherboard and not the system? do I just unplug the power cables except for the motherboard one?

For most people you still need access to a computer to download the Bios to a flash drive. For a new build this maybe more difficult. If you have an android device with a USB OTG you can potentially download the files to a USB.

hey Greg thanks for the video! Truly appreciate it. I am however concerned of one thing. Should I build the pc in its entirety and then do this bios flashback? So should I build my computer like normal, putting in the cpu, gpu, psu, mobo etc, and then when it is all finished, should I do the flashback before testing to see if it posts? Thanks!

Very informative video, especially the part where you mention upgrade path and that it might be needed. Kudos!

When you apply the bios update, is the CPU in the motherboard?

You described my problem exactly! Even if this for some reason doesn't work now, I'm still so thankful for this video bc atleast I now know way more than before. Tysm

if my Asus x570-e says it's AMD 5000-series ready. Do i then still need to update my BIOS like shown?

Thank you bro, Just finished my build yesterday with that exact board B550e, I'll be updating the BIOS shortly

Rewatched this 3 times just so I don’t screw up.

You're a literal god, thought I bricked my brand new PC when I messed something up in the bios that I didn't catch before it was too late! After hours of trouble shooting and being like it just worked 10 minutes ago, found this little gem on youtube and it worked like a charm! keep up the good work!

But you still need another computer or a friend with a computer that you can make that usb stick.

Make sure the usb stick partition is MBR and not GPT, wasn't able to make it work until I made that change, the led stayed solid green after blinking 5 times but once I changed the partition it started blinking faster and a couple of minutes later the led turned off and the update finished

Hello everybody, I just wanna make sure am I able to have my CPU on my motherboard when when I do this haha, thank you

You just helped me big time! Thank you for the tutorial. Hope nothing but the best for you 👍

"How to run a PC without a CPU" imagine....

absolutely godsend video, was searching and ran into this, very concise, thank you!

Appreciate this 100%. I got a Tuf B550 plus MB with a Ryzen 7 5800x that I will need to update before using. Big help!

I'm just about to update the bios on my X570-E aswell. Thanks a lot, this was helpful! :) Gonna install my 5900x and hope that it works :P

Returning back to you video library. Watching you videos I was able to build my first PC. Ryzen 5 5600g with a Asus Prime B550M, but decided to go for full ATX build and now going to use a Asus B450 tuf gamming plus II. I don't think I will need to do a BIOS flash back but I will be ready if needed.

I've never attempted this and its nice to know that it works. I was already certain it would.

I kept getting the error "The selected file is not a proper BIOS" and spent a frustrating hour trying to figure out why. The last part of your video, where you talk about the in-between updates is the only place I found that solution, so thank you! I can't wait to go home and try this again lol

Holy cow you’re an angel, I was able to update my BIOS and now my system is posting, thank you so much

How am I supposed to download the bios without a computer

Just succusfully flashed my ROG Strix B550-E Gaming... i hope atleast, it stopped flashing after 5 minutes or so. I havn't gotten my DDR4 Ram yet, but hopefully i'm ready for my 5800X now ^^ Thanks for the tutorial!

Happy to have found this video, I'm about to pair a Ryzen 5 5600 G and a Asus B450-F and am going to have to update the bios to run the zen 3 cpu.

I had a friend struggle with a Gigabyte X570 board and a 5600x last week. This video would have helped him greatly

I’m telling you guys. I thought I was completely screwed I thought I wasted 2500$ on my brand new PC. But thanks to this awesome guy I can now use my pc. Thank you!

How am i meant to do this without a display signal to actually install the new bios

Thank You, Greg I reviewed your flashback video and ***** for telling us where to or how to get our particular flashback mine happens to be Gigabyte. In appreciation for your video presentation that is relaxing and assuring that all will go as you mentioned, I clicked "Like", "Subscribed", and chose "All" to get more from your channel

Thanks so much for this. Super helpful for my first PC build.

This is the most helpful video I have seen on this! Thank you!

Seeing it done is worth way more than just someone explaining it. The mobo manual already "tells" me how to do it, and it would have been infinitely more helpful if we could actually "see" it being done from start to finish (and not just a few frames of B-roll sprinkled in here and there).

just got a new X570 Asus board this week and will need to do this. Thanks Greg, perfect timing

Saved my butt, thanks for the great walkthough!

Dude, this is bloody brilliant. I was curious about these particular situations, and you completely resolved my curiosity. However, at 6:36 you scared the absolute shit out of me; I thought something had gone wrong with my PC and it was restarting automatically xDDD

Thanks! looking (tyre kicking the concept) at upgrading a Gigabyte ax370m-ds3h from a 2400G to a 3900x and this helps. A lot of old hardware that is perfectly fine for upgrading without spending too much in the process.