[PLUG] Help!!! PC won't boot to flash bios

Fri Jan 10 20:19:01 UTC 2003

On Fri, 2003-01-10 at 20:06, Jim Webb wrote:
> Cooper,
> 
> Thanks for the help.  Since I sent out my urgent appeal to the list,
> I've pulled the cmos battery and applied the default bios settings and
> then saved the changes.  I then attempted multiple times to stop the pc
> from booting up past the memory screen and was able to access an asus
> utility called ezflash.  I then was able to to reflash the bios to the
> original version.

Alright! 

> 
> What an adrenalin rush.

Yeah, been there! Another good one is 'rm -rf' on a production server.
That'll do it too. Solution: 'cp -R' from your NFS backup and after
having made sure everything is okay, wash your flush-red face with cool
water. 

And never do it again (hint: find / -type d -name directory_to_delete
-ok {} \; ).

> 
> Do you think that I should reflash the bios piecemeal or stepwise from
> version 11 to 15 and stop whenever it works and I can get my pc to both
> recognize the cpu correctly, which it did after I flashed the bios to
> version 15, and then be able to bootup?

I would. Given this experience might I suggest running out to their web
sight and seeing if the new versions will buy you anything. A lot of
times you'll find $version_one_up_from_the_one_you_have contains a fix
for the CPU reporting issue. Sometimes, though, the fixes listed for
each version have little bearing on your situation. It's not likely you
would need an update that fixes an issue with an Adaptec MegaRAID
controller, for example.

If one were paranoid on this, one does not need the potential for DRM
additions added to the new BIOS versions as a "feature." I seriously
doubt it in this case but reports I am hearing indicate that AMI has
basically said, "we'll give you DRM weather you like it or not" for
their latest BIOS releases.

-Cooper

> 
> On Fri, 2003-01-10 at 22:58, Cooper Stevenson wrote:
> > Jim,
> > 
> > If you are certain that the BIOS is not accessing the devices correctly
> > because of a problem with the BIOS's logic (i.e. there are no cable
> > issues, etc.) then there still is a way out.
> > 
> > CAUTION: What I am about to show you is an _extremely_ sensitive
> > operation and could render a motherboard useless. PROCEED WITH EXTREME
> > CAUTION AND MAKE SURE TO WEAR STATIC PROTECTION
> > 
> > 1) Boot a working machine that is not particularly vital to your
> > operations with the BIOS flash disk (having the original BIOS version
> > code; there's no sense re-burning to the new version until at the very
> > least things are squared away).
> > 
> > 2) While the machine is running, pull the BIOS chip from the motherboard
> > with a pair of chip-puller tongs. Again I cannot stress enough how
> > careful you must be doing this; if you bend the motherboard or ground
> > out one of the contacts you will destroy it.
> > 
> > 3) Put the BIOS chip from the new machine in the motherboard, noting
> > it's orientation. There will be a small half-circle notch on one of the
> > edges that will match a notch drawn on the motherboard. BE VERY CAREFUL
> > NOT TO STRESS THE MOTHERBOARD OR BEND THE PINS
> > 
> > 4) Select "flash" from the still-running flash application you ran from
> > the floppy
> > 
> > 5) After the application has flashed, exit the application and
> > completely shut down the machine
> > 
> > 6) Put the newly-flashed chip in the new computer and boot
> > 
> > This should boot your computer to the original flash BIOS code. 
> > 
> > Good Luck.
> > 
> > 
> > -Cooper
> > 
> > On Fri, 2003-01-10 at 19:38, Jim Webb wrote:
> > > Help!!!!!!!  I just built a box with an ASUS A7V333MB, AthlonXP 2400+
> > > CPU, 512 MB pc 2700 RAM, Maxtor 40 GB HDD, AGP GeForce 4 video (Jaton). 
> > > After I originally built it several days ago, I noticed that the bios
> > > wasn't listing my cpu speed correctly.  Tech support suggested as well
> > > as Asus that I flash the bios to the latest and greatest.  I just
> > > flashed the bios with aflash and updated the bios from 11 version to 15
> > > version.  After I shut off the power I invoked the default settings, hit
> > > F10 for my award bios and restarted the pc.  I changed the settings for
> > > the bios to the ones that I wanted and saved again.  It wouldn't boot up
> > > after that.  Something about system error and insert a system disc and
> > > hit enter.  I realized that I was in some trouble here and tried to
> > > flash the bios to the original one, but I could not boot up to the
> > > floppy even I placed that at the head of the list for bootup devices.
> > > 
> > > Help somebody!!!
> > > 
> > > TIA,
> > > 
> > > Jim.  
> > > -- 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > PLUG mailing list
> > > PLUG at lists.pdxlinux.org
> > > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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> -- 
> 
> 
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