Solved Forced BIOS updates ASUS gaming boards

Bios and firmware updates through the Windows Update channel is not new. This has been the norm on Dell and HP computers (just to mention a few) for a while.
But latest forced Windows Update on Asus mainboards (including High end gaming boards) is a first.
This latest move by Asus and MS has end users up in arms (myself included).

Most builders of high end boards want to manage driver, firmware and bios updates themselves. A lot of gamers and high end users tweak their systems for their own pleasure and personal use.

So you can understand why a lot of Asus users started crying foul when they noticed that their BIOS had just been updated by Windows Update. On top of that a lot of users are seeing voltage spikes on their rigs since this update.

SEE POST ASUS ROG FORUM

For those who have this issue and wish to temporarily disable bios update, you can go to your device manager and disable firmware. This is a temporary fix not a solution.

Some users have suggested to disable PTT and trusted computer security in BIOS. Disabling trusted computer security setting in the bios will disable security ID and render your PIN login options unusable for those using this option in Windows.

This is only a temporary workaround not a solution.

I haven't noticed any forced BIOS updates. But I'm on an AMD motherboard.
Do you have any ASUS utilities running?

Ghot said:

I haven't noticed any forced BIOS updates.
Do you have any ASUS utilities running?

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Never in a million years I don't know if this is only on Z690 series or what.
I don't see anyone making comments about this in the Z490-590 section, so it seems to be only Z690 boards

Zardoc said:

Never in a million years I don't know if this is only on Z690 series or what.

Click to expand...

Good man. ^^

I dunno. It might be some anti-ransomware microcode update?

Interesting. I have a couple of Asus Z690 boards (Prime Z690-A, ROG Strix Z690-E), and have never had a firmware update pushed on me through Windows Update.

I have, however, manually updated the Strix to 1720. No issues so far. Asus was its usual uninformative self:

ROG STRIX Z690-E GAMING WIFI BIOS 1720
"1. Improve system stability
2. Update Microcode for next generation Intel Processors.

Before running the USB BIOS Flashback tool, please rename the BIOS file (SZ690E.CAP) using BIOSRenamer."

This is the second BIOS update that appears intended to support Gen13 CPUs. 1601 appeared to be intended to allow booting with a Gen13, but not full support. I wonder whether 1720 will be the first full-featured BIOS for Gen13 on Z690 boards?
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/BIOS/ROG-STRIX-Z690-E-GAMING-WIFI-ASUS-1720.zip

I have a mid - high end Asus board, B660 ProArt D4, currently on BIOS 1503 since build time, I have BIOS versions 1601 and 1720 ready, had to download them myself, I'm just waiting for any issues to come to light first as both were released within a month and my system works perfectly at the moment.
I have checked Windows update several times since 06:00, it is now 20:39, no BIOS or firmware updates being offered or forced by Windows Update or listed as optional updates.
Not saying the OP didn't get a forced update, just I haven't experienced the same as of this post.

Well, just for the halibut, I flashed my BIOS to the latest version. April 2022.

DigitalGoat said:

I have a mid - high end Asus board, B660 ProArt D4, currently on BIOS 1503 since build time, I have BIOS versions 1601 and 1720 ready, had to download them myself, I'm just waiting for any issues to come to light first as both were released within a month and my system works perfectly at the moment.
I have checked Windows update several times since 06:00, it is now 20:39, no BIOS or firmware updates being offered or forced by Windows Update or listed as optional updates.
Not saying the OP didn't get a forced update, just I haven't experienced the same as of this post.

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If you check the thread on ROG forum, you can see that quite a bit of users got hit with that update.

Message from Asus
Hi all,
ASUS is aware of the recent 1720 BIOS that was pushed by Windows Update as well as the complaints of voltage regulation. This thread will be updated when more information is available.

Click to expand...

Now the fact that the complaining has stopped on that post seems to indicate that the forced option seems to have been disabled. Also, only certain types of boards seem to have been targeted for this update.

I will activate my firmware and see if it gets forced. If not, that answers the question.

Yes I did look at the forum and saw a lot of posts about it, I never doubted you, was just letting you know it didn't seem to be all boards/ chipset versions affected.
It is a bit worrying, as you stated in your OP, that a forced update method could be used and possibly 'brick' a lot of boards or lock people out of their systems by setting the BIOS to optimised defaults after the update, if the BIOS is designed that way.
Takes our control away, not good.

Update,
In my case, the bios update has been disabled by MS. So they did remove it as suspected

I have a Asus Z690 board... no sign of any forced bios updates... yet!, still using 1404, purrs along quite nicely

As a side note the only mod I've done is to put the Asus supplied M.2_1 heat sink on my WD Black SN850 drive. Temps in UK were hitting 30-40 ºC and my drive (during gaming) was peaking out at 70 ºC so with the heat sink the temps are now down to around 60 ºC.

What I really like about this is what Asus says about it,

Message from Asus
Hi all,
ASUS is aware of the recent 1720 BIOS that was pushed by Windows Update as well as the complaints of voltage regulation. This thread will be updated when more information is available.

Click to expand...

Aware? Of course they were aware of it, they submitted it to Windows Update in the first place. It's not like Microsoft arbitrarily just up and went "Asus has a bios update available, maybe we should push it out for them".

At least it looks to have been resolved for you and any others affected by it.

@stormy13 after building Asus machines for over 20 years I have learned that Asus builds good machines but is lousy at communicating and admitting failures.

It's not in the culture. They will bombard you with questions that have no answers or will say things like CAN'T REPRO even if a boatload of users submit reliable tests. The USB audio codec is the best one so far. I got rid of my ROG board and went with a tough series. ALC 1220. Far from being the best but at least I don't hear scratching in my spkrs.

It's not only gaming boards, or ASUS motherboards in general that are getting automatic BIOS updates. A friend wanted me to update his little ASUS laptop, a very simple machine with a Celeron CPU and 4GB RAM. When I installed updates, it automatically installed a new BIOS version on the system.