Uniflash

  • Thread starter Thread starter Regular McWacko
  • Start date Start date
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Regular McWacko

Hi, I have a HP Pavilion 4533. This box has Asus P5S-VM mobo. HP is using
modified Phoenix BIOS. I do not like it at all, it's misbehaving. Aflash
is refusing to flash it, says something about missing BIOS hook.
Here's the question (before I it goes up in smoke):
Is there any hope I could succeed using Uniflash and dedicated bios file
from Asus? Has any of you used this Uniflash before?
 
Hi, I have a HP Pavilion 4533. This box has Asus P5S-VM mobo. HP is using
modified Phoenix BIOS. I do not like it at all, it's misbehaving. Aflash
is refusing to flash it, says something about missing BIOS hook.
Here's the question (before I it goes up in smoke):
Is there any hope I could succeed using Uniflash and dedicated bios file
from Asus? Has any of you used this Uniflash before?
Click to expand...

Yes I've used uniflash several times and have successfully
flashed a different HP board to the retail Asus board's
bios... but have no idea if that translates into it being
easy or possible for your particular board.

Keep in mind that if you have the HP restoration image, it
may not work after flashing the bios, and you might need
reactivate windows XP too.

If the EEPROM is soldered onto the board then it becomes
significantly more problematic if the bios swap fails, and
if the HP bios isn't in a generic/universal format then you
might not be able to flash back to HP bios again with
uniflash... the details, issues of HP bios config I can't
remember at the moment.

Perhaps most significant is the "misbehaving", what do you
hope to gain with different bios?
 
Yes I've used uniflash several times and have successfully
flashed a different HP board to the retail Asus board's
bios... but have no idea if that translates into it being
easy or possible for your particular board.

Keep in mind that if you have the HP restoration image, it
may not work after flashing the bios, and you might need
reactivate windows XP too.

If the EEPROM is soldered onto the board then it becomes
significantly more problematic if the bios swap fails, and
if the HP bios isn't in a generic/universal format then you
might not be able to flash back to HP bios again with
uniflash... the details, issues of HP bios config I can't
remember at the moment.

Perhaps most significant is the "misbehaving", what do you
hope to gain with different bios?
Click to expand...

Well, this is a cute little PC, currently performing following tasks:
internet gateway
audio and video file server for my tiny home network
photo album - serving albums over internet so my friends too can see them
print server
This is why it has 2 NIC's. It doesn't have monitor or keyboard or mouse,
just a gray box under desk. Now I decided to add an audio card to listen
shoutcast. And this Phoenix did nothing. There is hardware conflict and
BIOS is not giving even error messages. Also there is no way to allocate
resources manually with this BIOS. There is plenty of free resources.
I even don't have floppy drive there. The BIOS is just pathetic.
 
Well, this is a cute little PC, currently performing following tasks:
internet gateway
audio and video file server for my tiny home network
photo album - serving albums over internet so my friends too can see them
print server
This is why it has 2 NIC's. It doesn't have monitor or keyboard or mouse,
just a gray box under desk. Now I decided to add an audio card to listen
shoutcast. And this Phoenix did nothing. There is hardware conflict and
BIOS is not giving even error messages. Also there is no way to allocate
resources manually with this BIOS. There is plenty of free resources.
I even don't have floppy drive there. The BIOS is just pathetic.
Click to expand...


I guess all you can do is try it.

Please post back whether it worked, the bios change I mean,
including the details of HP motherboard and Asus
retail-model name and bios revision, so that others might
try to replicate (or avoid) your result.
 
I guess all you can do is try it.

Please post back whether it worked, the bios change I mean,
including the details of HP motherboard and Asus
retail-model name and bios revision, so that others might
try to replicate (or avoid) your result.
Click to expand...

The first attempt failed, chip is partially non-writable. Had to restore
from backup. There is no VPP voltage, this is the probable reason.
However, I got rid of my problems in the process. All this board needed
was to clear CMOS... how stupid of me, ignoring basics. Why didn't I try
it in first place? Some day if I have more spare time I will try to apply
VPP and flash it again. Just out of curiosity. I'll let you know then.
Thanks for now.
 
The first attempt failed, chip is partially non-writable. Had to restore
from backup. There is no VPP voltage, this is the probable reason.
However, I got rid of my problems in the process. All this board needed
was to clear CMOS... how stupid of me, ignoring basics. Why didn't I try
it in first place? Some day if I have more spare time I will try to apply
VPP and flash it again. Just out of curiosity. I'll let you know then.
Thanks for now.
Click to expand...

It would seem something has been overlooked, since HP does
provide bios for it, right? Chip must be flashable as board
shipped, or with bios or jumper change.... or has HP
recently implemented non-flashable ERPOMS? First I've heard
of it.

You probably didn't try clearing CMOS because it shouldn't
have been necessary. Part of the problem with OEM boxes is
that, more often than not, they end up with the earlier,
more buggy bios revisions then aren't updated per regular
manufacturer's scheduled releases.
 
It would seem something has been overlooked, since HP does
provide bios for it, right? Chip must be flashable as board
shipped, or with bios or jumper change.... or has HP
recently implemented non-flashable ERPOMS? First I've heard
of it.
Click to expand...

Well... these chips can be written only with VPP pin on 'high' - this
means 12 V applied. What HP has done is they programmed initially this
chip to be partially writable even if VPP is 'low' - grounded. Now it is
solded to mobo with VPP pin grounded, leaving only some blocks writable -
in case there is an HP upgrade everything is OK. Their specific
information - boot block, logo, etc. remains untouched. New updated code
is written into predefined blocks. If you really want to flash such a chip
you have to cut the VPP pin and connect it to 12 V, then there will be no
read-only blocks. Read the uniflash.doc file for more about this issue
(it's in current uniflash package).
You probably didn't try clearing CMOS because it shouldn't
have been necessary. Part of the problem with OEM boxes is
that, more often than not, they end up with the earlier,
more buggy bios revisions then aren't updated per regular
manufacturer's scheduled releases.
Click to expand...

Yes, thats right. However, I have encountered corrupted CMOS data before.
If you try out too much h/w on a single board BIOS-CMOS just get
confused...
 
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