P4S8x-x and BIOS 1005.001 beta

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul
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Paul

Hey all, anyone using this mobo with this
beta BIOS?

I was trying to update this BIOS with this
beta, but after I gave aflash the file
name to update/flash, it says it isnt an ASUS file?

wtf!

How can it not be an ASUS file, if I got
it from the ASUS site? And its listed for
this mobo?

It shouldnt matter if I dont rename it from system.rom
to something else should it??

Anyone have any ideas why it would say it isnt an
ASUS file?
 
Hey all, anyone using this mobo with this
beta BIOS?

I was trying to update this BIOS with this
beta, but after I gave aflash the file
name to update/flash, it says it isnt an ASUS file?

wtf!

How can it not be an ASUS file, if I got
it from the ASUS site? And its listed for
this mobo?

It shouldnt matter if I dont rename it from system.rom
to something else should it??

Anyone have any ideas why it would say it isnt an
ASUS file?
Click to expand...

Using a hex editor, I compared a couple of P4S8X-X
BIOS files, and the name strings look the same to me.

Are you sure you've got the right flashing program ?
I would select a version of Aflash from around the
time that your board was released - maybe there is
a version on the motherboard CD, that would at least
tell you what release of Aflash was being used when
the board was new.

The first thing I would tinker with, is try to do a
backup of the existing BIOS file. See if the flasher
program complains about the file while archiving
it. Then, try burning the archived file to the BIOS
chip. Again, see if you get complaints about it
not being an Asus file.

You should be aware, that Asus is constantly improving
the consistency checks it does on BIOS files, to the
point that some people have to use AFUDOS 2.07 under
some circumstances, to flash their board. On the AFUDOS
side of things, that is the last flash program that doesn't
go overboard with the consistency checks.

You may have to examine several different vintages of
the flashing program for your board, and see if any of
them are more willing to do the job or not. The beta
file you are interested in, has been around for a while,
implying that maybe no one reported problems with that
file. Perhaps a recent change to the flashing program
has made the flashing program, and the BIOS file,
incompatible with one another. As I don't know exactly
what the flasher program is looking for, I cannot be
more specific than that.

Paul
 
Ah its got Aflash on the ASUS site
for the P4S8x-x not AFUDOS

I have 2.21 of Aflash here.

Yup, I'm sure I've got the right flashing program
AFUDOS isnt listed on the same page as the BIOS
update for the P4S8x-x.

Umm yup I backed up the 1004 file, no prob
at all without any messages. I didnt reflash the
same BIOS again tho.

I was going to try it, because in the FAQ
for this mobo, it states it can boot from a USB
drive / pen thing. I've got a Jetflash USB here.

I tried booting from it, on the P4S8x-x, BUT
it came to a halt after it listed the devices in the system
(hdd/ram/cd etc). The BIOS shows USB HDD, and Zip.

BUT the ASUS FAQ says it should should show either hhd or Zip, then Jet / or
whatever the USB pen / drive is. after it in the BIOS.

BUT it doesnt on this one here. The USB drive
does work tho, coz it boots from it on the PC
I'm using now (P4P800 - non deluxe) np at all.

I'll see what version is on the mobo CD and see what that
says.

Cheers for the info Paul!
 
Ah its got Aflash on the ASUS site
for the P4S8x-x not AFUDOS

I have 2.21 of Aflash here.

Yup, I'm sure I've got the right flashing program
AFUDOS isnt listed on the same page as the BIOS
update for the P4S8x-x.

Umm yup I backed up the 1004 file, no prob
at all without any messages. I didnt reflash the
same BIOS again tho.

I was going to try it, because in the FAQ
for this mobo, it states it can boot from a USB
drive / pen thing. I've got a Jetflash USB here.

I tried booting from it, on the P4S8x-x, BUT
it came to a halt after it listed the devices in the system
(hdd/ram/cd etc). The BIOS shows USB HDD, and Zip.

BUT the ASUS FAQ says it should should show either hhd or Zip, then Jet / or
whatever the USB pen / drive is. after it in the BIOS.

BUT it doesnt on this one here. The USB drive
does work tho, coz it boots from it on the PC
I'm using now (P4P800 - non deluxe) np at all.

I'll see what version is on the mobo CD and see what that
says.

Cheers for the info Paul!
Click to expand...

Sorry for confusing you there. I was just commenting on
the AFUDOS program used for some other boards. One particular
version of that program is better than some of the later
ones, as less checking is done before the BIOS is flashed.

You have three flashing options (EZflash, Aflash, Asus Update,
in the BIOS, in DOS, and in Windows respectively), and
if the first one doesn't work, try another.

Also, have a look at the archived file with a hex editor,
and see if the right name strings are in there, like
Asus of course, and P4S8X-X. Compare to the beta file,
and see if the structures are roughly aligned. The
separate BIOS modules start at the beginning of the
file and "-lh5-" is at the beginning of each one. The
name of the BIOS module occurs soon after, like "System.ROM".

Eventually, you get to the end of those modules, and you find
stuff like the boot block, DMI, ESCD, and other static stuff.
My BIOS extraction tools take no notice of them, so I have no
way of examining them, and don't know anything about their
format. There are likely multiple checksums involved, as well
as name strings declaring the motherboard name and the like
sprinkled about. I've never seen a single document that
describes it all - Asus seems to mess about, slightly
customizing things, as when I've tried to mod a BIOS, the
modding tool shows some garbage numbers on the screen,
implying the format is not exactly as AMI/Award set it up.

As for booting from USB, there are many recipes afloat on
the web. Some of the recipes mention a utility from HP, and
in fact the HP site has multiple download pages, presumably
with different versions of their formatter program. Based on
the response you are seeing, do you think the BIOS is
trying to read the USB pen drive ? Maybe you just need to
prep the pen drive a little differently.

Paul
 
Dont trust ASUS update.

Seen too many posts on systems dying completely
using the Windows based update.

Using EZ-flash,

On loading the file system.rom, it says
**WARNING* lol

It showed P4S8x-x, BUT not P4S8x-x boot block
like it shows in the mobo manual.

So, I decided to flash it anyway, and it killed
it. So, luckily this mobo has Crashfree BIOS 2.

I had to put the mobo cd in, it booted, it brought
up a message saying the BIOS was corrupted, and
it re-flashed the BIOS back to 1002 beta 1 BIOS.

(default version on the mobo CD).

I have a feeling this 1005.001 file hasnt been
fully coded/written. As 1004 and 1003 are 256k

This 1005.001 file is ONLY 128k.

And both 1003 and 1004 end with AWD.

1005 is just called SYSTEM.ROM.

And if u extract this 1005 file, it creates a folder
with 1005 in it (256k) and when u extract this
1005 file (if u dont extract it within Powerarchiver, which
I use here), - You right mouse on this file/extract.

It says "Please open first volume of this spanned set".

I've never seen this before with BIOS 1003 or 1004.

So, it looks like ASUS created 1005.001, spanned
the zip file for some reason, and left 1/2 the code out,
(since its only 128k the other BIOS'es are 256k),
and forgot to join them together.

Umm yer well the USB drive must have been trying to do something. (As it
looks like it was booting from the USB drive)

Because it didnt boot into XP, it didnt show the XP
logo, it only brought up the screen where it lists the devices and stopped!

So, I think this 1005.001 is screwed, it is for this mobo, but its not all
there, and 1/2 the code for it is missing
 
Dont trust ASUS update.

Seen too many posts on systems dying completely
using the Windows based update.

Using EZ-flash,

On loading the file system.rom, it says
**WARNING* lol

It showed P4S8x-x, BUT not P4S8x-x boot block
like it shows in the mobo manual.

So, I decided to flash it anyway, and it killed
it. So, luckily this mobo has Crashfree BIOS 2.

I had to put the mobo cd in, it booted, it brought
up a message saying the BIOS was corrupted, and
it re-flashed the BIOS back to 1002 beta 1 BIOS.

(default version on the mobo CD).

I have a feeling this 1005.001 file hasnt been
fully coded/written. As 1004 and 1003 are 256k

This 1005.001 file is ONLY 128k.

And both 1003 and 1004 end with AWD.

1005 is just called SYSTEM.ROM.

And if u extract this 1005 file, it creates a folder
with 1005 in it (256k) and when u extract this
1005 file (if u dont extract it within Powerarchiver, which
I use here), - You right mouse on this file/extract.

It says "Please open first volume of this spanned set".

I've never seen this before with BIOS 1003 or 1004.

So, it looks like ASUS created 1005.001, spanned
the zip file for some reason, and left 1/2 the code out,
(since its only 128k the other BIOS'es are 256k),
and forgot to join them together.

Umm yer well the USB drive must have been trying to do something. (As it
looks like it was booting from the USB drive)

Because it didnt boot into XP, it didnt show the XP
logo, it only brought up the screen where it lists the devices and stopped!

So, I think this 1005.001 is screwed, it is for this mobo, but its not all
there, and 1/2 the code for it is missing
Click to expand...

OK. I know what is happening now. You'll get a chuckle out
of this. Thanks for taking the time to post the details -
that is why it "rang a bell'.

The BIOS has a bunch of modules inside it. Each module is
compressed and begins with the identifying string "-lh5-".
There are multiple modules contained inside the BIOS file,
and after the end of those modules, comes the boot block,
DMI, ESCD areas and the like. The first module is named
"SYSTEM.ROM", as you've discovered :-)

Many decompression tools support multiple file formats.
They are also "greedy", and they will hierarchically
decompress everything they find. My decompression tool does
this too. If you feed it blog.zip, out comes 1005.001
(a 256KB file), and then the stupid decompressor starts
decompressing the 1005.001 file (which we don't really
want it to do). It finds the first BIOS module, which
is SYSTEM.ROM and decompresses it. That is the 128KB file
you are seeing. Do not try to burn SYSTEM.ROM, as it is
not a BIOS file - it is only a single BIOS internal module.
And the BIOS modules are never decompressed until the BIOS
decompresses them at POST.

So, grab the more aptly named "1005.001", check the size
is 256KB (as you've already so ably done), and give the
flash update process another try. I hope your decompression
tool is not deleting the 1005.001 file.

I find that decompression feature really annoying, and
fortunately it only happens with Award BIOS. (As an aside,
the internal format of AMI BIOS doesn't seem to be recognized
by decompression tools, so their "greedy" nature won't work.
The only way to decompress the innards of an AMI BIOS
is with "mmtool". So, at least half the Asus customers won't
be getting the surprise you got.)

Post back whether the 256KB 1005.001 file works...

Paul
 
LOL.

Well, I figured out WHAT the prob was.

I use Powerarchiver, and one of its options
under file formats, is, you guessed it:

rar spanned archives (*.001,*.01).

This bloody option was ticked, and it ASSUMED
that the file within the downloaded zip file
(1005.001) was some kind of archived file.

And PART of a spanned rar archive.

It wasn't / isn't.

The file within the main zip file was the actual BIOS update (called
1005.001).

This was 256k

Having 001 in the extracted file, confused
Powerarchiver, since the 001 option was
ticked under its file formats.

I unticked this last night and I finally got the
256 1005.001 file. And finally got it to flash
the BIOS to 1005.001
 
And the USB hdd/zip option with 1005.001
update went a bit further.

On USB HDD, it doesnt stop at the screen, where it listed the devices.

It now says this is no operating system, which
it didnt say before with the 1004 BIOS.

It just stopped.

Thats OK, coz this USB drive, hasnt got an OS
on it, just files for DOS. At least the USB hdd
option MAY work, if I ever have to boot from one.

(BUT the USB hdd option may work, IF I created a MS-DOS disk in 98/ME).

As the format tool that came with the USB drive, only lets u format it as a
USB zip in XP.

BUT the USB zip option still doesnt work.

BUT I got a reply from transcend, saying it isnt
compat (the USB drive), with the mobo.

So, I'll have to buy another USB drive that does.
 
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