(Answer requested by Hong Shen)
I have bad news, and not-as-bad news.
The bad news is ASUS’ official BIOS update guide, which says in part:
“READ THIS BEFORE YOU BRICK YOUR MACHINE!… A failed or interrupted BIOS update process almost always means death for the computer. For this reason, never ever interrupt a BIOS update that is already in process….”
The not-as-bad news is that ASUS is overstating a bit. It is possible for a PC (or phone, or whatever) to survive a mangled BIOS/UEFI/firmware update, but it depends exactly when the power failure occurred during the update process.
A failure during a write-verify operation probably wouldn’t brick a PC, for example.
But there are many points during a firmware update where a power failure would leave the affected part halfway updated, with an unrunnable mix of old and newly-altered code.
What can you do? The only way you’ll know if a mis-flashed device is OK or not is to try to start it back up. It’s often a very binary thing — your device will either work OK, or not at all.
Note: It’s sometimes possible to re-erase/re-flash/reuse a mis-flashed firmware, but that usually depends on the device at least being able to start.
It’s also sometimes possible to physically replace a damaged BIOS/UEFI/firmware chip. But that usually requires specialized tools and experience.
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I was at my girlfriends house and I noticed that her Asus router needed an update. While it was updating, it takes several minutes, her son came over and turned the router off and then back on again, he had lost his WiFi. Needless to say the router was bricked. Some motherboards have a dual bios so there may be a way to recover.