Corrupted my Bios

harker · Post by **harker** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 9:06 pm

I am switching to a faster board and giving the BP6 to my Son....well in my hast I tried to flash the bios with a old disk I had and now I get a check sum error. I downloaded the RV bios and tried doing dereks fix but I am a DOS idiot and don't know how to make a autoexec.bat file that self executes. any way when I try to flash manually the 1st 10 boxes or so are red....not written to.... and I have the same problem. Any one that can help? Will the autoexec method let those 1st boxes be written to? Have I permanently fried my chip? Does any one have a dead BP6 laying around they would be willing to sell their Bios chip? Any other options?

Yes I did get a error message about the asset number not matching but got happy fingers and hit enter on accident. That is how all this started.

Post by **Derek** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 9:27 pm

Hey harker,

I got your email... Sorry I didn't respond... I guess we'll answer here then

Derek

harker · Post by **harker** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 10:41 pm

no problem....I just thought I get it on the board too

BCN · Post by **BCN** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 7:38 am

if you want ALL the bios flash updated...

1. load to minimum boot from your dos/windows98/ME boot diskette.

2. put-in the diskette where you have AWDFLASH.EXE and your BIOSFILE.BIN (eg. BP6RV128.bin)

3.now YOU ARE IN A:\ so type this:

AWDFLASH YOURBIOSFILENAME.BIN /PY /SN /CC /CD /CP

and you are done.

if you wanna do an autoexec.bat file, so do it with notepad where you put this line:

A:\AWDFLASH YOURBIOSFILENAME.BIN /PY /SN /CC /CD /CP

then execute autoexec.bat in DOS.

This should solve your CRC checksum errors. I advise the latest RV bios with HPT (but just do not use it...)

harker · Post by **harker** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 6:34 pm

OK did as instructed and I get a error in BIOS. it says warning

System was not new award bios version!
Please update ROM Bios first....

Now what?

When I do it w/o the switches it flashes but it doesn't right to the 1st 10 or so boxes on the screen.

Am I Screwed? Do I need a new chip?

Post by **Derek** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 9:05 pm

Try using the standard RU first. If that works, you can then flash to RV without the switches.

You don't need a new chip if it successfully flashes all sectors.

harker · Post by **harker** » Tue Apr 27, 2004 10:44 pm

Damn...tried that and that did not work either....but I only tried the manual method...I did not try an autoexec.bat file...would that matter? 1st 14 sectors ot blocks are red which means write fail.

If I pull the chip from the board will that reset it? Any other ideas? or am I skirewed

BCN · Post by **BCN** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 7:30 am

between the manual method and autoexec actually there is no differrence, only that one you write in the comand line, the other you do the file under windows for eg.

If it does no work, then i think it is your chip. try to get the same winbond chip and hot swapping after POST, then flash it with BIOS.

My guess is that you have bios chip partially screwed...

nullshark · Post by **nullshark** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 7:35 pm

Hmm, almost sounds like your BIOS was being cached with the "System BIOS Cacheable" enabled in the Chipset section.

From what I've heard (was long ago), if the cache was enabled while trying to flash, the flash utility will write the first bit to the cache in RAM, and then the rest to the BIOS itself, FUBARing the whole process.

harker · Post by **harker** » Mon May 03, 2004 7:58 pm

I email Abit and this was their response...went there found my chip and ordered it...21.99 including fed ex. Pretty cheap so any of you who need a bios here you go. also anything special I need to do ? or is it just a matter of pulling the old and puttin in the new? also they say it is flashed with the latest bios.

Dear customer,

Please order a new bios chip for this motherboard from www.excaliberpc.com.

Thank you for choosing ABIT.

Regards

Holodeck2 · Post by **Holodeck2** » Tue May 04, 2004 1:12 am

Oh wow, I never knew that they sold those preflashed w00t

InactiveX · Post by **InactiveX** » Tue May 04, 2004 11:54 pm

harker wrote:anything special I need to do ? or is it just a matter of pulling the old and puttin in the new?

Should just be a case of out with the old, in with the new.

Check this guide for the correct physical procedure. Wouldn't want to screw up that nice new chip!

http://www.jumperz.de/english/ausbau.ht ... 9c3a741169

If you don't have the correct tool, use a small screwdriver and slowly lever the chip out, alternating between both ends. Go careful now.

Sayang · Post by **Sayang** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 3:27 pm

Same for me

I flashed a bad BIOS: awdflash tells "checksum error"... anyway I forced by using the /f option and succeeded flashing it.

Now I am like harker: the bios doesn't boot but tells ROM checksum error!
Hopefully the bootblock software (that normally loads the bios) is intact and runs: it can boot a floppy in order to flash and restore bios.
BUT the 10 first blocks fail writing (red squares under awdflash)!

I tried RU and RV... always these red squares (10 with RU and 14 with RV)
I tried awdflash 7.5 and 8.4... always these red squares.

Did someone get rid of this write error?

It happened at least to 2 people on the exact same flash blocks: as a result it must be a (software?) issue in the bootblock code (if you're not yet convinced, read hereafter)
My mobo is a 1.0 rev (bought as soon as it was available in the shops) with 2xCeleron I @333MHz (not overclock for ages)

Normally, when the flash is dead, random blocks would fail writing, and also reading!
The same flash area (first 10 blocks, contiguous) fail for both of harker & me!
Moreover with RV bios: 14 blocks fail but with RU bios: only 10 blocks fail, so that 4 blocks can be written when trying to flash RU bios that can't be written when trying to flash RV bios! This proves the flash is not dead but it's a (software?) issue from the bootblock (or from every version of awdflash when in crisis recovery mode).

The bootblock software is very minimalistic: floppy support only (no hard disk) in read-only! and "standard" video output in text mode. This mode is called the crisis recovery (as called on other websites)

Sayang · Post by **Sayang** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 3:31 pm

any idea?

by the way, the ISA card is a legend: the crisis recovery mode works with my old Rage 128 Fury AGP card!

Sayang · Post by **Sayang** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 7:43 am

Sayang wrote:any idea?

by the way, the ISA card is a legend: the crisis recovery mode works with my old Rage 128 Fury AGP card!

The ISA card is not a legend, it works: I removed my AGP card and the write error vanished.
Obviously I didn't see anything without any gfx card in, I used the autoexec.bat

Great

BP6.Com

Corrupted my Bios

Corrupted my Bios

Any Idea On The Flash Writing Issue?

Re: Any Idea On The Flash Writing Issue?