ASUS PC-DL bios disaster

  • Thread starter Thread starter biomorphic
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biomorphic

Hi
I recently purchased an ASUS PC-DL and have constucted my new PC with
it.

Specs on my machine are:
MoBo: ASUS PC-DL
CPU: 2 Xeon (Socket 604, 533FSB, 512K) 3.06GHz OEM
RAM: DDRAM TRANSCEND|PC2700 1GB RTL
Graphics card: ATi Radeon 9700 PRO 128MB 8X AGP W/TV DVI
HD: Maxtor 200GB UIDE 3LP 1in 7200RPM MX6Y200P0
PSU: Vantec 520A (520 Watts) - has the 24pin SSI and the 8-pin ATX
power

I have been through the Ram and Power Supply trials (had to swap Ram
and the PS) and it seemed I was well on my way to OS installation,
but nooo......
I flashed the bios to ver6 (PCDL1006.bin) and now it will not boot. It
starts the boot, I get a video signal, which displays
"ASUS..Dual XEON.. Capability , Stability, Reliabiltiy Press [Alt f2]
to enter setup"
but nothing happens. just freezes there. does not respond to any
keystrokes, not even Ctrl-alt-del.

It seems I had a bad BIOS flash. so I thought I should try flashing
the bios again.
I Cleared the RTC ram using the CLRTC jumper, and then rebooted and
pressing del.
I get the same ASUS screen, but at the bottom it says

"Entering Setup....."
but it never enters setup. again no response from any key
combinations, including ctrl-alt-del.

I am wondering if I did indeed get a bad bios flash. If I had a bad
bios flash, would I even get a video signal? Do my symptoms indicate
a faulty bios?

I am assuming that I did experience a bad BIOS flash, and I'm not sure
what to do next. Is it possible to recover from a bad BIOS flash
using the CLRTC1 jumper reset method? (I have tried this a couple
times with no luck) Or must I replace the BIOS ROM chip? I suppose I
should send it back to the manufacturer for an RMA swap.
Does anyone know which version of the BIOS is best? is v004 more
stavle than v006?

thanks

Thomas
 
Hi
I recently purchased an ASUS PC-DL and have constucted my new PC with
it.

Specs on my machine are:
MoBo: ASUS PC-DL
CPU: 2 Xeon (Socket 604, 533FSB, 512K) 3.06GHz OEM
RAM: DDRAM TRANSCEND|PC2700 1GB RTL
Graphics card: ATi Radeon 9700 PRO 128MB 8X AGP W/TV DVI
HD: Maxtor 200GB UIDE 3LP 1in 7200RPM MX6Y200P0
PSU: Vantec 520A (520 Watts) - has the 24pin SSI and the 8-pin ATX
power

I have been through the Ram and Power Supply trials (had to swap Ram
and the PS) and it seemed I was well on my way to OS installation,
but nooo......
I flashed the bios to ver6 (PCDL1006.bin) and now it will not boot. It
starts the boot, I get a video signal, which displays
"ASUS..Dual XEON.. Capability , Stability, Reliabiltiy Press [Alt f2]
to enter setup"
but nothing happens. just freezes there. does not respond to any
keystrokes, not even Ctrl-alt-del.

It seems I had a bad BIOS flash. so I thought I should try flashing
the bios again.
I Cleared the RTC ram using the CLRTC jumper, and then rebooted and
pressing del.
I get the same ASUS screen, but at the bottom it says

"Entering Setup....."
but it never enters setup. again no response from any key
combinations, including ctrl-alt-del.

I am wondering if I did indeed get a bad bios flash. If I had a bad
bios flash, would I even get a video signal? Do my symptoms indicate
a faulty bios?

I am assuming that I did experience a bad BIOS flash, and I'm not sure
what to do next. Is it possible to recover from a bad BIOS flash
using the CLRTC1 jumper reset method? (I have tried this a couple
times with no luck) Or must I replace the BIOS ROM chip? I suppose I
should send it back to the manufacturer for an RMA swap.
Does anyone know which version of the BIOS is best? is v004 more
stavle than v006?

thanks

Thomas
Click to expand...

The algorithm for flashing a BIOS goes like this:

1) Consult Google, using your motherboard model, for any flash
issues with your motherboard. For example, K8V and K8N owners
may find something about the built-in flash utility in the
ROM by doing that. A7V owners might consult a7vtroubleshooting.com
for advice.

More experienced users will tell you that using a floppy based
method is the most reliable way of flashing. In any case...

2) Go to the download page. There, you will find the BIOS files
listed. There are warnings usually printed right on the first
download page, or on the page that offers the four servers
to download from. In this case, the warning says, for every
version of BIOS:

"please don't use ASUS update to flash BIOS"

I hope that isn't what you did - AsusUpdate is the Windows flasher.

3) Pick a BIOS flashing method. The options are to use a MSDOS
boot disk (bootdisk.com if you have to) and a flash utility,
use the flash utility in the BIOS (see the manual), or use
AsusUpdate from Windows. For AsusUpdate, you can reduce the
risk by downloading the file to the computer first, which
takes a network failure out of the loop.

4) Back up the original flash image to disk. With the MSDOS
method, sometimes you will need a second floppy containing
just the flash program, to get enough room to do this.

5) On the first flash, you could select the option to NOT update
the boot block. Doing this is a double edged sword - in
theory, an intact boot block allows recovery from a bad flash.
If the motherboard has CrashFree or CrashFree2, the boot block
contains the method for recovery, and you could restore the
machine, using the file from (4). I recommend the file from (4),
because you know that one works.

6) Enter BIOS and do "Load Setup Defaults". Reboot again. If the
machine survives (5), you could flash again, this time selecting
update boot block.

What to do on a flash failure:

1) Use CrashFree, if you haven't blown the boot block.
See manual for a method. If you selected "update boot block"
while flashing, CrashFree could be destroyed as well.
2) On older motherboard models, the boot block provides minimal
support for booting. Some people prepare a MSDOS boot disk with
the provided Asus flasher utility, and an autoexec file that
does a command line flash. Usually there won't be any video
while doing this, which really sucks. I believe the flashing
method makes enough noise, that you'll have some idea if it
is working. If the BIOS will not access the floppy, generally
you are screwed.
3) Do a "hot flash" on another similar board. With PLCC flash
chips (pins on four sides), this is pretty tricky. It endangers
the donor motherboard, so the person doing you a favor is
taking a risk. If you own the donor board, you could wedge
that one too.
4) Go to badflash.com and get a new BIOS chip, programmed with
whatever version of BIOS you want. Asus also sells BIOS chips.
Generally the difference between services, is the delivery
time.

Looking in the PC-DL manual, I don't see CrashFree mentioned.
There is the <Alt> <F2> built in flash utility, if you can get
there. If that doesn't work, find a recipe in Google for
updating via a MSDOS boot disk and an autoexec file. The
flash program must support command line switches for that to
work. (Using a hex editor, these are the command line switches
I see in the awdflash.exe program - each is separated by a $)

py$pn$sy$sn$?$cc$cp$cd$sb$wb$r$qi$e$f$ns$ld$ncksm$tiny$cks
$smi$bb$count$nbl$device$m256$hide

Here is an example of what some of the command line switches do:
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

and another one:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3C51E475.5020505@REMOVE_THISyahoo.com

"Voila les parametres acceptables pour AWDFLASH:


Awdflash 7.97D (C)Award Software 2001 All Rights Reserved

Usage: AWDFLASH [FileName1] [FileName2] [/<sw>[/<sw>...]]
FileName1 : New BIOS Name For Flash Programming
FileName2 : BIOS File For Backing-up the Original BIOS
<Swtches> ?: Show Help Messages
py: Program Flash Memory pn: No Flash Programming
sy: Backup Original BIOS To Disk File sn: No Original BIOS Backup
Sb: Skip BootBlock programming Wb: Always Programming BootBlock
cd: Clear DMI Data After Programming sd: Save DMI data to file
cp: Clear PnP(ESCD) Data After Programming
cc: Clear CMOS Data After Programming
LD: Destroy CMOS Checksum And No System Halt For First Reboot
After Programming Tiny: Occupy lesser memory
QI: Qualify flash part number with source file
E: Return to DOS When Programming is done
R: RESET System After Programming
F: Use Flash Routines in Original BIOS For Flash Programming
cks: Show update Binfile checksum cksXXXX: Compare Binfile CheckSum
with XXXX

Example: AWDFLASH 6A69R000.bin /py/sn/cd/cp/cks1A26 "

Good luck,
Paul
 
Paul

thanks for your lengthy detailed response!
a lot of GREAT info in there.

actually I managed to get out of my tar pit by doing the old reliable
method of resetting the bios by removing the CMOS battery. It worked
like a charm! After I pulled it out, waited a few minutes, and put it
back in, it allowed me to reflash the bios (from a floppy of course).
I used v1004 (to be safe, as many postings have stated this one to be
stable). And I was able to proceed with installing windows!!!!

My only remaining problem is that on the boot I get the warning:
"Warning. CPU FAN FAIL!"
but the fans are spinning just fine. This doesn't seem consequential,
as the boot happens anyway. Any ideas how to clear that last lil
bugger would be appreciated.

Thomas
 
[email protected] said:
Paul

thanks for your lengthy detailed response!
a lot of GREAT info in there.

actually I managed to get out of my tar pit by doing the old reliable
method of resetting the bios by removing the CMOS battery. It worked
like a charm! After I pulled it out, waited a few minutes, and put it
back in, it allowed me to reflash the bios (from a floppy of course).
I used v1004 (to be safe, as many postings have stated this one to be
stable). And I was able to proceed with installing windows!!!!

My only remaining problem is that on the boot I get the warning:
"Warning. CPU FAN FAIL!"
but the fans are spinning just fine. This doesn't seem consequential,
as the boot happens anyway. Any ideas how to clear that last lil
bugger would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

Reflash - also make sure that your fans have 3 wires (2 wire ones will
not show RPM and appear to have failed).

I would reflash 1004 at least one more time just to make sure. Also,
after you reflash, make sure that you reset the BIOS - meaning, remove
the battery, short the two pins for a couple seconds (the ones they
mention in the manual for resetting the BIOS, and then bring it back up.
Once you get past the post, then open the BIOS and start making changes.
 
I have the same problem, although I didn't flash any BIOS, and I have a
different motherboard (P4C800E-DLX). The fan is spinning fine though. It's
not the stock fan, it's the Zalman 7000, and it comes with a potentiometer
with which you can set the maximum speed of the fan. I set it myself to low
speed which is well sufficient to cool the CPU. When I set it to max, the
message "CPU fan error!" disappear at boot time.
 
I have the same problem, although I didn't flash any BIOS, and I have a
different motherboard (P4C800E-DLX). The fan is spinning fine though. It's
not the stock fan, it's the Zalman 7000, and it comes with a potentiometer
with which you can set the maximum speed of the fan. I set it myself to low
speed which is well sufficient to cool the CPU. When I set it to max, the
message "CPU fan error!" disappear at boot time.
Click to expand...

My guess would be that at the lowest level your fan is spinning below
the acceptable limit of the BIOS monitor for fan speed. Is there a BIOS
setting for your FAN speed where you can set limits?
 
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