Installed a Ryzen 7 5700G processor to a Gigabyte GA-AB350M-HD3 motherboard. Plugged computer back in, hit power button. Computer powered on but no video output. Double-checked cables, then started Googling. Apparently this is commonly a result of an out-of-date BIOS. Got the latest BIOS update on a flash drive with my roommate’s assistance, then went to put the old processor (a Ryzen 5 1500X) back in so that I could run the system BIOS and flash the update, at which point I learned that I accidentally bent several of the pins when removing it. Tried to seat the processor out of a sense of wishful thinking, and sure enough, no number of attempts would get the computer to turn on with it inside.
So, in short: I have a new processor my motherboard doesn’t recognize, an old processor it does recognize but is now broken, and a BIOS update that would presumably let it recognize the new processor but that I can’t install without a working processor. I’ve read that some Gigabyte motherboards support loading BIOS updates from a flash drive without a processor, but as far as I can tell, the GA-AB350M-HD3 isn’t one of them. Not sure what I’m supposed to do here. I could order another Ryzen 5 1500X, but 1) that costs money and 2) I’d have to wait for it to arrive.
Does the BIOS get updated automatically when Windows updates? I haven’t been manually updating it.
BIOS isn’t updated with Windows updates. It’s a manual process generally through a flash drive.
Looks like Gigabyte does not probably but it will if the manufacturer pushes them to Windows update. I’ve had BIOS updates from another board vendor delivered via Windows update (in the past, when using Windows). A work laptop did it a few weeks ago. Rebooted and said it was applying BIOS updates on a manufacturer splash screen.
Okay yeah then mine is definitely wayyyyy out of date, lol
fwiw you’re not generally expected to keep up with bios updates, usually you would only ever update it when there’s some actual concrete issue the update solves (e.g. hardware support)