I decided to install the 1015 bios on the ASUS website in my A8N-SLI Delux.
I should have listened to my old daddy when he told me that if it aint broke
dont fix it, but I'm a stubborn mule sometimes, and boy did I pay for it
today. First time around, I used the built in EZ flash utility. The actual
update process went well, but upon boot up, the screen froze at the POST
stage and became filled with colorful blocks of strange symbols, and then
froze. Being the brain that I am (sorry mom) I neglected to save the
perfectly good version 1012 bios that was originally programed into the bios
chip. I figured I wouldn't need it, or if I did, I could use the bios on the
CD that came with my system. When I loaded up the bios contained of the ASUS
CD - which I had use my old secondary PC to read the CD- I learned the bios
they include is version 1001 and though my machine booted up it couldn't
recognize what kind of AMD CPU I had - it said my 3200 dual cpu was a
'hammer'. Well I guess I should at least be thankful the machine still
worked at all. Sigh. I have since learned, by downloading all the BIOS
versions from the ASUS FTP site that I could lay my hands on, that the
update process crashes for every bios version above 1006. I don't have a
clue as to what's going on... I know I am doing everything correctly, and am
using the correct bios for my board, but it crashes at different points in
the process every time I use it. After maybe a dozen attempts, I finally got
windows to boot, but only when on-board sound is enabled (without drivers).
Since I use a soundblaster sound card, this isn't too great a limitation,
but everything worked right before I began this nightmarish journey into the
dark side of personal computing, and I sure would like it to all work well
once again. It may be asking for too much, but if anyone has a clue as to
what I could do, I'd be grateful.

"Greysky" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:S3zhf.24956$(E-Mail Removed)...
>I decided to install the 1015 bios on the ASUS website in my A8N-SLI
>Delux. I should have listened to my old daddy when he told me that if it
>aint broke dont fix it, but I'm a stubborn mule sometimes, and boy did I
>pay for it today. First time around, I used the built in EZ flash
>utility. The actual update process went well, but upon boot up, the
>screen froze at the POST stage and became filled with colorful blocks of
>strange symbols, and then froze. Being the brain that I am (sorry mom) I
>neglected to save the perfectly good version 1012 bios that was
>originally programed into the bios chip. I figured I wouldn't need it, or
>if I did, I could use the bios on the CD that came with my system. When I
>loaded up the bios contained of the ASUS CD - which I had use my old
>secondary PC to read the CD- I learned the bios they include is version
>1001 and though my machine booted up it couldn't recognize what kind of
>AMD CPU I had - it said my 3200 dual cpu was a 'hammer'. Well I guess I
>should at least be thankful the machine still worked at all. Sigh. I
>have since learned, by downloading all the BIOS versions from the ASUS
>FTP site that I could lay my hands on, that the update process crashes
>for every bios version above 1006. I don't have a clue as to what's going
>on... I know I am doing everything correctly, and am using the correct
>bios for my board, but it crashes at different points in the process
>every time I use it. After maybe a dozen attempts, I finally got windows
>to boot, but only when on-board sound is enabled (without drivers). Since
>I use a soundblaster sound card, this isn't too great a limitation, but
>everything worked right before I began this nightmarish journey into the
>dark side of personal computing, and I sure would like it to all work
>well once again. It may be asking for too much, but if anyone has a clue
>as to what I could do, I'd be grateful.
One key thing. Did you do a hardware 'clear CMOS', after flashing the new
BIOS's?. This is essential for some of the versions (they re-use bits in
the CMOS, to hold configuration data not used in some of the other
versions, and unless the CMOS is 'clear', will assume it contains
legitimate data, and try to use this, resulting in some thhings being
programmed to really 'odd' values...).

Best Wishes