bios blowup

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briapro

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Dec 22, 2001
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I am using the ASUS k7m motherboard and I updated the bios and now my computer won't boot. I followed all the instructions and the update was successful but now I am stuck at the bios screen and can go nowhere. I cannot boot to my harddisk or a floppy to restore my old bios. Is there anything I can do or would I have to get service? If I have to get service than I might as well upgrade my whole system because it is far out of warranty.

Brian
 
you could call them and order a new flashed bios, or take the bios out and take it to a pc shop that has a eeprom writer.

wpdclan.com cs game server - 69.12.5.119:27015
 
I don't know. I used the flash utility for my motherboard and it seems the the new bios malfunctioned. Could you expain clearing the CMOS
 
<A HREF="http://pages.sbcglobal.net/jefn/bootblock.html" target="_new">This</A> website may help you!

<b>Qui habet aures audiendi audiat</b>
 
OT

LMAO! I was looking at the page to which you linked. It has green, really GREEN background. When I returned here my screen looked reddish. I thought one of the color guns in the CRT went out then I realized my eyes had just become acustomed to the earlier green.

In a few seconds the "image" returned to normal. LOL!

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>
 
Surfing in the dark again? It happens to me when I don't have the room lights on but I can't stand the room lights on IMO.





Dazzle them with Brilliance, or Baffle them with BS! :wink:
 
It's not exactly the best color to torment an already frustrated person with a corrupt BIOS chip!

<b>Qui habet aures audiendi audiat</b>
 
It sounds like good advice. Actually I've seen similar links for years but I wonder if the advice has ever worked. Has anyone been able to recover their BIOS by using the boot block recovery?

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>
 
you see it too...OMG i thought i was going crazy...

BTW almost all of those methods work for non abit boards with award bioses. To repair an AMI bios rename the bios amiboot.rom and save it to a flopy, on startup press and hold ctrl + home. After 4 bios beeps the flash is complete.


If it isn't a P6 then it isn't a procesor
110% BX fanboy
 
Frustration. Thank you everyone who has posted. It seems that the CMOS may be the problem. I have been working w/ ASUS tech support and was told how to clear the CMOS and this seemed to work because when I first did it I was able to boot all the way into windows! The problem is when I rebooted I had the same problem again and clearing the CMOS is not helping. When I was able to boot I got a different bios screen and a message about and "invalid checksum." They will reflash the bios for free if necessary.
 
Good information.

Hmmm, non Abit boards? That might explain why I couldn't make it work on my KT7.

My own fault. To make a long story short, I learned about this boot block recovery so I thought, "Great. I'll make up an emergency recovery disc". Now here's the stupid part. Before I even knew if I had the flash command options correct I decided to test the recovery under "battle conditions". I pulled my video card from KT7 and attempted to boot the recovery disc. In the middle of the flash I hear beep...beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Without a video card I had no way to see the actual error (to avoid the problem in the future).

I started from scratch making sure I had the flash switches correct. However, my now dead KT7 never actually performed the boot block boot.

I ended up sending $12 to Abit USA who replaced the BIOS chip.

If you would like I will tell you about the second stupid thing I did, with the replacement BIOS.

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>
 
I am going to try this but one of my problems seems to be that it is not recognizing my keyboard. I see no flashes of the kb lights when I try to boot and it does not respond to the del key when it says "press del to enter setup."
 
I'm used to it. I worked in a design house with 600 tubes on 3 floors. We had the lights out everywhere. I got used to it. I always surf & work in the dark. I only notice color shifts with my eyes, like you said. 14 years of it & I'm not blind either.



Dazzle them with Brilliance, or Baffle them with BS! :wink:
 
What do you do after the four beeps? The process just keeps repeating itself. It will not boot and it will not accept another floppy, it demands the one with amiboot.rom and just repeats the process over and over.
 
supposidly after you hear the 4 beeps you remove the floppy and restart the computer. I however have no experience with ami bios recovery.


If it isn't a P6 then it isn't a procesor
110% BX fanboy
 
let me guess u installed it backwards and POOOOF!
Click to expand...
OK, that did happen to me but that in itself wasn't the disaster. I guess, it was the whole slew of blunders together which made the whole ordeal a thing of stupidity.

I know better than to mess with something that is already working but...

First I pull that blunder I mentioned. While trying to come up with a disaster recovery plan I in fact destroy the very BIOS I was trying to guard.

Fine, I order the new BIOS chip from Abit USA. In the meantime I take the old BIOS chip and try Uniflash using another motherboard. This is hotflashing but with a generic flash utility. I run into the problem that BIOS ROMs are different sizes. I try several command line switches for Uniflash. Nothing seemed to work. Uniflash wanted the exact manufacturer and EEPROM model. I didn't have the latter. There were numerous combinations to try. I probably missed some. Anyway, frustrated at some point I find an EEPROM switch on the FIC 503+ motherboard (the doner mobo). Big mistake!!! This turns out to be a +5 volt/+12 volt switch. That BIOS goes up in smoke. (Smoke literally came out of the EEPROM!!!!) End of fiasco number two.

Fiasco number 3. Abit comes through and delivers the replacement on time. (I'm trying to package up the KT7 as an Xmas gift for my nephew and only have days to get everything back in order). Now I decide that Abit installed a BIOS version other than the one I requested or maybe it was the one I requested but it wasn't the latest. So I decide my first failed flash was just a fluke and choose to try again.

After what has already happened I'm a little paranoid but I've been flashing BIOSes for years with only the one incident. So I go ahead...

I then learned that all this time I had a corrupt copy of Awardflash. I get the same beeps I got the first time but this time I should have been able to see the error if there was one. There wasn't, just a program crash, in the middle of the flash!!! Bam...I have another corrupt BIOS!

I order another chip from Abit...

Running out of time, I attempt to contact Abit USA. They are closed, two-week plant shutdown! My nephew's computer isn't going to be ready for Xmas!

Finally the 2nd replacement arrives. It's now two weeks after Xmas. I still don't have the BIOS version I wanted but now I have a spare BIOS EEPROM. So I hotflash it. Not much problem except I dropped one the chip inside the computer while it was running. Fortunately, nothing happened!

Now I have two BIOS chips with the old BIOS on it.

I put a loop of tape lengthwise around the EEPROMs. This is so I could lift them out of the socket easily during the hotflashing. In the final step I remove the tape but, of course, I mounted one of the EEPROMs backwards!!! Poof (no smoke this time) but another EEPROMs is now dead!

I still had the wrong BIOS version on the other chip &%$%$&!!!

I gave up!

I put my nephew's system together. It worked. My nephew got it two weeks late but he was happy. I never attempted to flash the BIOS on that system again!!!

Funny thing is I used to be one of those people who would only flash the BIOS if, and only if, the update had a fix for a particular problem, which I was actually experiencing. Otherwise, I would leave it alone.

Somewhere along the way I got into the "BIOS of the month" club for the KT7. I would change the BIOS for no reason at all except that it was new.

I've gone back to my old ways. I Don't change the BIOS unless it is necessary!

I've always been someone who had to learn things the hard way but this time it took 3 or 4 mistakes for me to learn!

I hope someone can learn something (and have a good laugh) from just reading this and not experience anything that I experienced.

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 01/29/04 07:02 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
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