BIOS Flash gone bad

[AcftMecH]

errrrr..... yet another lesson learned

Oh well, I dont know exactly why, but today I got an itch to upgrade something, so I decided to Flash my BIOS on my ASUS A7V mobo. I know anytime you flash a BIOS you are flirting with disaster... Ya know anytime ya have an itch, when ya mess up, ya mess up mutliple times. so I know to always make a backup, but for some strange reason I didnt anticipate any problems....errrrrr...

anyways, it erased my BIOS and proceeded to write over, but then errored out because it could not verify. So I neglecting rebooted and as I thought may happen, it wouldnt boot. I tried to jumper the CMOS with no luck. when it boots it nerver gets past the cd rom wind up. No video, no floppy, no nothing. So, I guess it is probably going to be cheaper to buy a new mobo.

I found this one for $24. It is a MSI K7T (Gateway OEM Version).

http://www.gearxs.com/gearxs/product_info.php?cPath=75_107&products_id=2850

Everything is compatible as the ASUS A7V, but just wanted to make sure that a Gateway OEM version isn't proprietory in any way? I don't suspect it is.

BTW, sysem specs are: AMD 1.0 ghz socket A with the required 'A' prefix, 512mb pc133 mem, standard everything else....

Thanks!

AcftMecH

 

[Dubbin1]

Why not just get a new bios for it?

 

[Sazar]

he would have to install the bios... if he can't get to his floppy then he's screwed basically...

some of the newer boards allow you to work around the problem using the dual-boot option...

but if he can't even post then there is not really much he can do...

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

There is something I read about how the boards can be force fed a bios flash

Conclusion

Regardless of the process utilized, each of these techniques has saved countless thousands of dollars for many people. Trying to order BIOS chips can prove a tedious and nerve wrecking, plus replacing an entire motherboard can prove rather costly to say the least. I personally have recovered several boards through these techniques, and thus have lowered my hardware replacement overhead while increasing positive response for my clients due to minimal repair times. Hopefully this guide will prove equally valuable for others as well.


http://www.sysopt.com/articles/recoverbios/

Here maybe this can help I hope

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.cfm?catid=72&threadid=37421

Read this maybe a bit more help

 

[American Zombie]

Might try here if you want a new bios chip.
http://www.badflash.com/

 

[AcftMecH]

thanks for the replys. The BIOS is "toast". I was aking about the OEM version of the MSI mobo thought to replace my ASUS. I am looking for as little trouble and as little money to soak into an already 4 yrs old machine. I looked at new BIOS chips, but they were around $25... well heck, I can just get a new MOBO for that.

I really dont think there would be any proprietory conflicts with this mobo being a Gateway OEM. I think the only difference is that it will have a Gateway splash screen on boot. So I went on ahead and purchased it from www.tigersurplus.com

I was originally going to buy it from www.gearxs.com but that online store did not get good reviews. So I spent an extra few dollars for that piece of mind.

thanks!

AcftMecH!

 

[dreamliner77]

It will also be a very slimmed downed bios, ie, there won't be many options in there at all.

 

[Son Goku]

He might have to get another board, though there is one way around this... The BIOS chip is basically soketable on most of these boards, and if one can yank out the chip and plug another one in...then it might be possible to boot off the second chip, then try to flash the first... If one has a BIOS flasher thingy (they do at the factory) or whatever...

I ran into this one time and it was an Asus A7V, and well it didn't error out or anything... I had flashed it a few times before and no problem, but this one time everything seemed to complete sucessfully (no abnormal errors or anything), but then it wouldn't boot. I took it into some place around town and they looked to see if they had another A7V lieing around they could grab the BIOS chip off of. If they had another, they were going to try swapping BIOS chips to re-flash mine with...

The board was discontinued and they didn't have any left lieing around. In the end, I ended up having to buy another board...

 

[Mainframeguy]

it is possible - the flasher thingy is called an Eprom programmer.... but if you were going this was you might want a BIOS Saviour gizmo. AcFtMEch might like to google that up for future reference after this bad experience, it's a handy way of ensuring against this kind of this and so far as I remember is pretty low price.

 

[ZeroHour]

I have fecked my board before.
My mate had the same motherboard as me so we tried something REALLY dodgy.
A hotswap of bios chips.
Basically I put his one in my machine. Booted to dos and took his one out and stuck my fecked one in and flashed it. It actually worked as well.
Strange but true

 

[GoNz0]

thats an old trick that works very well if done right.

 

[dreamliner77]

Most uni's with a Computer or Electrical engineering dept will have an eeprom burner or programmer. As I've found though, many don't have ones that will fit the newest eeproms