Flash BIOS without previously installed BIOS or OS

My mainboard fried itself recently, so I bought a new Framework 13 11th gen Intel mainboard.

After replacing the mainboard, the laptop now turns on but has nothing to boot into. Attempting to install an OS does not work and the laptop will not boot from anything. I also cannot access the BIOS.

I tried running the bios installer, but I keep getting an error:

Script Error Status: Security Violation (line number 1)


Trying to manually run FWUpdLcl.efi, I get a similar error:

Script Error Status: Security Violation


I don’t know for sure, but I believe this means I need to disable secure boot before running the installer.

The problem is, I can’t disable secure boot to install the BIOS if I don’t first have a BIOS to boot into.

How can I install the BIOS with the limited functionality I have currently?

Just to confirm: pressing F2 (not F12!) repeatedly during boot does nothing?

F12 may not work if you have no registered boot entries. F2 should always work.

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That is correct. None of the keys I would normally use to access the boot menu, BIOS, etc. do anything and all that happens is I get a screen saying that no bootable devices were found. It then asks me to select a boot device, nothing except the BIOS install tool will do anything else besides flash a black screen for about a second before returning me back to the same screen.

I have tried multiple USB drives flashed with different ISOs using different tools and the SSD which should still have an OS installed on it. All of the USB drives were verified to be at least bootable from another device.

It sounds like you might have a problem with the keyboard.
Try a usb keyboard plugged in one of the side slots. The try to get into the bios with f2 on that.

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I agree with @DHowett and @James3; the other [Fn] keys will not be active if there is no entries setup yet.

The window to hit [F2] is pretty short; after powering it on usually pressing [F2] about once a second, maybe a hair faster should trigger the command to bring up the BIOS screen.

The keyboard cable may not be seated correctly either and this not registering commands.

You mentioned you bought a new 11th gen board; if this is New Old Stock; it could have a fairly outdated BIOS already on it. Definitely update the BIOS before you install the operating system.

Depending on the version it shipped with; you may have to update it in steps. Always a good practice to load the setup defaults [F9? after entering the BIOS screen] after flashing a new BIOS as well in case something was not cleared in the NVRAM with the BIOS update.

If you are still getting the error message; resetting the mainboard might be a good idea if it managed to paint itself in a corner and still is not allowing BIOS updates.

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This fixed it for me, thank you!

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