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sarge311

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Apr 1, 2009
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I have a Gateway GT5676. I upgraded to a Phenom II 940. My BIOS knows its an AMD, but the type is unknown. I want to upgrade the BIOS which is currently AMIBIOS ver. 08.00.14, rel. 2/18/08, ID: 7B3G1P04. Gateway claims I have a Foxconn(Bengal)RS780 motherboard. Motherboard label is RS780M03G1-8EKRS2HM. One forum says its the same as a Foxconn A7GM-S. Does anyone know the answer? Or an easy/safe way to update the BIOS?
 


I ran CPUZ and it shows the same info as above. I guess the real problem is finding out what kind of motherboard I have. Gateway says its Foxconn RS780, and I also have the number off the motherboard label. None of these are listed on the Foxconn web page. My new CPU does work fine, but I really would like to have an unlocked bios. If one is available.
 
Does your board look EXACTLY like the ones in these pictures???

http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showthread.php?p=425922

If it looks the same it probably is the same board. The latest A7GM-S BIOS is here.

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/support/downloads.aspx?ProductModel=A7GM-S&TypeID=en-us0000003

You will be taking a risk if it's not exactly the same board. Only you can determine that.... research, research, research. If your happy with the match you can try and flash with the latest Foxconn BIOS.
 
My motherboard doesnt look exactly the same as the above photos. Close, but not good enough for me to make a BIOS change. I called gateway, and they had the same info as their website. So Im back to square one. Im also waiting for a call back from Foxconn to determine what exactly they put in my PC. Thank You for your time invested.
 
WOW... here's a link for 10, actually 9 pictures of RS780 boards, BIOSTAR board on list doesn't show. NOTHING comes close to what you have.

http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showthread.php?%20threadid=70401

For someone with BIOS modding know how, your original BIOS or one of the others could be modded to work. Technically I think the BIOS's should prob be similar. Thing is, if your modded flashing "bricks" the MB, your kinda locked out and time for a new MB.

Damn that Gateway.... 🙁
 



Well, I guess the bright side is the Phenom II 940 works at its stock setting. It is a drastic improvement over the Phenom 9600. Im a newbie at this modding stuff. As far as modding the BIOS, I only know enough to be dangerous. I must be the only idiot in the world to buy this darn Gateway! The next PC will be all custom. Lesson learned.
 



Don't feel rained on, I have one of these RS780 mystery boards also...and I should have known better than to buy a Greatlay...er, Gateway as the last one I had (a P60) was a dog too and it cost a lot more back then. This one, a GT5692 is OK as a "users box" but no fun for us tinkerers, ie the BIOS issue, as the MB is supposed to support SATA Raid, but the BIOS won't and Ted & the cow are no help either. Although they did tell me that I could call their Pay per call tech line at $69/20 min for help...right, I am going to pay that to talk to someone in New Delli that knows less about it than I do...NOT. - L
 


You aren't. I also bought that model about a year ago because I wanted to play Team Fortress 2. I was too impatient to troubleshoot the FPS issues I was having with the game, so I bought the 940 as well. :/
 
Foxconn actually make decent boards but just be careful when flashing the BIOS, especially in Windows. The only time I tried a BIOS flash in Windows, it said it was successful, went to restart, and apparently had to load the back up BIOS. Primary BIOS was screwed and couldn't be saved. Strangely that was a Foxconn.

With your gateway, I'm guessing the original CPU was a 9600?? When did you do with that?
 


I've always been told it's generally advisable to upgrade to the most recent stable BIOS as it can help solve any issues you may be having. Just remember to flash the BIOS properly and follow the manufacturer instructions.

If you don't feel confident at doing this and have no issues currently, then maybe you can stick with what you got.
 
Sorry to bring up an old post. But I have the EXACT same motherboard and so does my brother (happened by coincidence) and I was wondering, since it is a black edition cpu, can you overclock it on that board even though it doesn't support it but it has an unlocked multiplier? I'm very relieved to know that the CPU will work, do you know if the Phenom II X3's would work too? (them being 95watts also)
 
Also, I'm not to concerned about overclocking at the moment, but just incase the cpu was to bottleneck my GTX 275 (which is my problem now) I would like to give it a little boost.
 
You should be fine as the system would be decent already. Theoretically you should be able to overclock the processor but the having a decent boards makes things easier.
 
a7x5631
Yes, you should buy another motherboard for overclocking. For me it supports all what I need, so I will not buy a new motherboard in near future.
 
heres an idea that might help you guys or future searchers.

The actual "bios" you are referring to is just a DIP packaged SPI eeprom located to the right of the CMOS battery (the only big, clunky chip that looks like its from the 80's). chip is called a MX25L8005, standard 8Mbit serial flash. i mention this because 1. its a serial eeprom with only 5 wires to connect and 2. it can be removed with your bare hand.

so pull out the device, connect +/-, SI, SO, CLK to your favorite SPI interface and back it up. then you can upgrade, edit and change to your hearts content without fear.

This is how i change the boot splash screen and add overclocking options on a stock gateway board. anyone can do it!



**if you dont have an SPI r/w, check out total phase Aardvark. we have these at work (where i do my mods) and they make it so easy a caveman can do it.**
 
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