It should be illegal to retroactively take back features from products that you've already sold, regardless of whether the feature was advertised or how buggy it is.
At least users can go back to older firmware and get 5.0 back.
There was a story not long ago about some exercise equipment (I think) that remotely bricked the devices (when the company was being shutdown or something) though they could have worked offline just fine without that final update.
Lately, some BIOS updates have been advertised as not revertable. I'm sure you can still program the old firmware with an external programmer, but "for security reasons", the in-system update won't let you revert some updates that fix security issues.
Even without that barrier, it's not great when you have to pick between things like the bus speed and memory stability or other updates you want.
The company isn't shutting down, probably just an attempt to get more subscriptions.
The company used to support Strava integration from their app in Free Ride mode. That broke last year, the app still reports that a ride happened, but the ride is reported as 0 miles, 0 minutes long. I have the low end bike and rower from them. The machines are great physically.
The HN title does not match the actual article title. Didn't look super closely, but I don't see anything in the article suggesting the article title was changed after publishing.
> Gigabyte removes unofficial PCIe 5.0 support from B650 motherboards in latest BIOS update
It seems that the board was actually running in PCIe 5.0 mode, even though it was only supposed to (by the specs/manual) do PCIe 4.0
How does that work for the PC I just got a month ago that has this motherboard and was advertised as having PCIe 5.0 ? https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX00129652 I just lose capability that was clearly marked as a specific feature in the item I purchased?
Ah, I see that the PCIe 5.0 mentioned in the product specs is for the M.2 storage, not for the PCI slot for a graphics card. The post title should probably say "removes unofficial GPU slot PCIe 5.0 support" or something.
But yeah, considering I have a 5060ti 16gb on this motherboard, I guess I'll be staying with the current BIOS version indefinitely... Just checked with CPU-Z, it says Bus: PCI Express 5.0, current link width: x8 , current link speed: 16GT/s
Some important information missing from the headline: B650 motherboards never officially supported PCIe 5.0 on the GPU slot. You always had to get a B650E motherboard for that.
You have to pay close attention to the difference between the M.2 slot (which can be PCIe 5.0 on B650) and the expansion slots (which were never advertised as PCI 5.0)
Leaving PCIe 5.0 enabled on the GPU slot could have caused problems if the designs and boards were qualified with the expectation they'd only run PCIe 4.0 speeds. If a board physically can't handle PCIe 5.0 but it gets enabled, it could lead to random crashes and instability, which turns into a higher return rate and angry customers.
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[ 6.7 ms ] story [ 22.4 ms ] threadThere was a story not long ago about some exercise equipment (I think) that remotely bricked the devices (when the company was being shutdown or something) though they could have worked offline just fine without that final update.
Even without that barrier, it's not great when you have to pick between things like the bus speed and memory stability or other updates you want.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/07/firmware-update-hind...
The company isn't shutting down, probably just an attempt to get more subscriptions.
The company used to support Strava integration from their app in Free Ride mode. That broke last year, the app still reports that a ride happened, but the ride is reported as 0 miles, 0 minutes long. I have the low end bike and rower from them. The machines are great physically.
> Gigabyte removes unofficial PCIe 5.0 support from B650 motherboards in latest BIOS update
It seems that the board was actually running in PCIe 5.0 mode, even though it was only supposed to (by the specs/manual) do PCIe 4.0
It was never advertised as supporting 5.0
Ah, I see that the PCIe 5.0 mentioned in the product specs is for the M.2 storage, not for the PCI slot for a graphics card. The post title should probably say "removes unofficial GPU slot PCIe 5.0 support" or something.
But yeah, considering I have a 5060ti 16gb on this motherboard, I guess I'll be staying with the current BIOS version indefinitely... Just checked with CPU-Z, it says Bus: PCI Express 5.0, current link width: x8 , current link speed: 16GT/s
You have to pay close attention to the difference between the M.2 slot (which can be PCIe 5.0 on B650) and the expansion slots (which were never advertised as PCI 5.0)
Leaving PCIe 5.0 enabled on the GPU slot could have caused problems if the designs and boards were qualified with the expectation they'd only run PCIe 4.0 speeds. If a board physically can't handle PCIe 5.0 but it gets enabled, it could lead to random crashes and instability, which turns into a higher return rate and angry customers.
"... please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."