A7V600 bios flash gone bad

  • Thread starter Thread starter Howard
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Howard

Anyone tried using EZ-flash and had the update just die after the
first of the 2-part update? And how long should I have waited before
shutting down the system, I waited about 5 minutes before I gave in.
The bios chip is on its way to ASUS for reprogramming. Crash-free
bios huh?

xp2200+
512MB
1-120GB seagate SATA
Sony DVD/CD-RW
Antec Sonata Case

Howard
 
Anyone tried using EZ-flash and had the update just die after the
first of the 2-part update? And how long should I have waited before
shutting down the system, I waited about 5 minutes before I gave in.
The bios chip is on its way to ASUS for reprogramming. Crash-free
bios huh?

xp2200+
512MB
1-120GB seagate SATA
Sony DVD/CD-RW
Antec Sonata Case

Howard
Click to expand...

There are two parts to the flash. The boot block is a small bootstrap
loader, that is supposed to have enough code in it to enable recovering
from a bad flash of the main body of code. If you answered "Y" to
the question to update the boot block, then if that step fails,
crashfree cannot work, as crashfree relies on the boot block for
recovery. So, unless told otherwise, say "N" when asked to flash
the boot block.

The only things that come close to a crashfree feature set, are
the use of a BIOS Savior (ioss.com.tw) or I think some Gigabyte?
boards have duplicate flash chips. The idea with these, is you
boot the machine with the good chip, then flip a switch to select
the bad chip and try to flash it again. As long as you don't put
the selector switch in the wrong position, it is pretty hard to
damage both chips. A BIOS Savior costs $25 or so.

Paul
 
There are a couple of ways that you could attempt to flash a bios but there
is only one way that is relatively safe.
The system is basically crash free, however, it is not "idiot proof".
 
There are two parts to the flash. The boot block is a small bootstrap
loader, that is supposed to have enough code in it to enable recovering
from a bad flash of the main body of code. If you answered "Y" to
the question to update the boot block, then if that step fails,
crashfree cannot work, as crashfree relies on the boot block for
recovery. So, unless told otherwise, say "N" when asked to flash
the boot block.

The only things that come close to a crashfree feature set, are
the use of a BIOS Savior (ioss.com.tw) or I think some Gigabyte?
boards have duplicate flash chips. The idea with these, is you
boot the machine with the good chip, then flip a switch to select
the bad chip and try to flash it again. As long as you don't put
the selector switch in the wrong position, it is pretty hard to
damage both chips. A BIOS Savior costs $25 or so.

Paul
Click to expand...

The Boot Block area is part2. I typed Y to the 'Update Main BIOS
area' and it never went past that point.
 
(e-mail address removed) (Paul) wrote in message

The Boot Block area is part2. I typed Y to the 'Update Main BIOS
area' and it never went past that point.
Click to expand...

Then there is hope.

Have a look at the manual section 2.1.3 "Recovering the BIOS with
Crashfree BIOS 2". When you turn on the machine, do you see the
"Bad BIOS checksum" message ? If so, then all you need is a
floppy with the file A7V600.rom on it. This file is a copy of
the BIOS, renamed to that particular file name, as that is
what Crashfree is programmed to look for.

It is also possible your motherboard CD has a copy of A7V600.rom
at the root level, and shoving the CD in the CD drive will work
in the same way.

You can also try using <alt> <F2> at POST, and flash using the
built-in EZflash. This is basically the same flashing capability.

If none of this is working, try clearing the CMOS, remembering
to unplug the macnine before doing the procedure. Unplugging the
computer helps ensure that there is no +5VSB present when the CMOS
jumper is shorted.

If you succeed in flashing, enter the BIOS and do "Load Setup
Defaults", as a way to align the data structures in the CMOS
with what the BIOS expects.

HTH,
Paul
 
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