Flashing a corrupted BIOS using a different computer?

sleepwalkerfx

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Mar 14, 2009
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I think I've corrupted my motherboard's bios. PC won't boot anymore. It starts, then after about 2-3 seconds it restarts (instead of giving the 'beep' sound). And it keeps doing the same thing over and over again.

I tried clearing CMOS, cleared CMOS using the jumper, tried removing battery, tried removing RAMs and Graphics card, and I still get the same restarting loop without any beeps (even after removing almost all devices).

Finally I removed CPU as well, now motherboard powers ON and it does NOT restart. This is the only case I got my motherboard in ON state without restarting.

I checked all power cables , PSU is working properly.

However my questions are,

1. Is this behaviour due to a corrupted BIOS or malfunctioning CPU?

2. If it's due to a corrupted BIOS is it possible to fix it by replacing the current CMOS flash chip? My motherboard has a socketed CMOS chip ( MX25L8005PC-15G ) which can be easily replaced. If I purchase a brand new chip and replaced with my old one will the board power up? Since a new chip may not contain any content related to my motherboard, does it work that way?

3. I know someone who has the exact same motherboard and CPU, can I use his PC to flash my BIOS using that CMOS chip with these instructions here ? (http://www.wikihow.com/Repair-Corrupted-BIOS-Firmware) Are they talking about this removable CMOS chip? or other BIOS chip which is not possible to remove ( but shown in pictures)?

4. When you flash BIOS, which chip gets written? that removable CMOS flash chip or BIOS chip (which can't be removed) ?







 
Solution
It will come with BIOS information flashed to it already, it wouldn't do you much good to replace a corrupt or bad chip with a blank one, you would still be right where you are at now. If your CMOS is in fact corrupted, and you can order a new chip, you just replace it, making certain is has the most recent and correct BIOS information for your motherboard, and the machine will then boot just at before. The CMOS is the chip that stores the information that your BIOS needs to start the machine.
What were you doing to corrupt the BIOS? Did you try to flash and it failed somehow? If this is the case, and your chip is removable, you can contact the motherboard vendor and get a new one. (depending on how old this board is, if its way out of date, likely not) No, there is no way to connect you board to another system and fix this.
 


My motherboard is a Foxconn Mars , its old so I can not get a replacement.

http://www.wikihow.com/Repair-Corrupted-BIOS-Firmware this article shows how to connect your removable chip to another system and fix a corrupted bios. Has anyone tried this? Is it too risky?
 


They're talking about the BIOS chip. If you cannot remove that, the referenced article is of no use.
 



That's what I was wondering too. But I've never seen a removable BIOS chip. Usually BIOS chips are soldered to motherboards. Only removable BIOS related chip is that CMOS flash chip (maybe I'm wrong). This guy says he could fix a corrupted bios by simply replacing the CMOS chip purchased from ebay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V67YRlsBEoY

I can find my exact same chip from ebay, but will it work that way without loading any BIOS images first?
 
It will come with BIOS information flashed to it already, it wouldn't do you much good to replace a corrupt or bad chip with a blank one, you would still be right where you are at now. If your CMOS is in fact corrupted, and you can order a new chip, you just replace it, making certain is has the most recent and correct BIOS information for your motherboard, and the machine will then boot just at before. The CMOS is the chip that stores the information that your BIOS needs to start the machine.
 
Solution


Look at the date on that BIOS chip in your how-to article.
1994.

Is your chip actually removable?
 


I think you were correct. They were probably talking about removable BIOS chips, which are actually available in some motherboards. (however images seems not correct though)
 


thanks for your answer. This is pretty much everything I needed to know. I'll order a CMOS chip which is preloaded with my correct BIOS info.
 



For the record, I managed to solve my issue by following those instructions in that article. They were not talking about BIOS chips , it was CMOS chip which is removable. The images on that article are wrong since they show BIOS chips but they are really talking about CMOS chips.
I flashed my chip using a different PC using a bootable FreeDOS usb stick. :)