Gigabyte GA-71XE motherboard flash problems

I recently tried to upgrade my GA71XE from the giga-byte flash page. Everything went fine, i used the amiflash program instead of awdflash for obvious reasons, and it said "operation completed successfully". However, on rebooting ... well ... it didn't

I got a message "CMOS/GPNV Checksum error"

I then tried reflashing it with the backed up version but to no avail.

Anyone had this problem?

any help greatly appreciated because i am on the verge of having to buy a new 'board

cheers