Keystrokes for A7A266 Bios needed

[Randy]

My housemate's A7A266 (which I built 2 years ago) is having trouble
booting into Windows XP Pro. I seems to cold boot to the bios with some
sort of "corrupted file" message. All I see on the screen is a bunch of
random letters and color blobs, but it seems to resemble the bios screen
that we all know and love. Using contol-alt-delete, it will eventually
boot into windows and work fine for days until reboot
So...I need to reflash: at the minimum, the original 1004 bios, or
upgrade to 1009 or 1012, which is the latest bios for the A7A266. BUT I
cannot get the machine to boot to a dos disk for flashing because the
bios is not set to boot to a floppy. It completely skips over the floppy
drive.
Since I cannot read the bios setup screen, and assuming the bios is set
to the defaults for booting (hdd0) I need someone to send me the EXACT
keystrokes to reset the boot sequence for booting to floppy or even CD.
Can anyone help?

Thanks

Randy
ranny9 at cox dot net

 

[Hulttio]

My housemate's A7A266 (which I built 2 years ago) is having trouble
booting into Windows XP Pro. I seems to cold boot to the bios with some
sort of "corrupted file" message. All I see on the screen is a bunch of
random letters and color blobs, but it seems to resemble the bios screen
that we all know and love. Using contol-alt-delete, it will eventually
boot into windows and work fine for days until reboot
So...I need to reflash: at the minimum, the original 1004 bios, or
upgrade to 1009 or 1012, which is the latest bios for the A7A266. BUT I
cannot get the machine to boot to a dos disk for flashing because the
bios is not set to boot to a floppy. It completely skips over the floppy
drive.
Since I cannot read the bios setup screen, and assuming the bios is set
to the defaults for booting (hdd0) I need someone to send me the EXACT
keystrokes to reset the boot sequence for booting to floppy or even CD.

press esc button when booting to select boot device.

 

[Randy]

press esc button when booting to select boot device.

Tried it...didn't work...just booted into Windows XP as usual after the
garbled screen. And yes, I have made sure I have the latest video
drivers.

Randy

 

[Hulttio]

Tried it...didn't work...just booted into Windows XP as usual after the
garbled screen. And yes, I have made sure I have the latest video
drivers.

use then liveupdate utility and flash in windows
http://www.asuscom.de/support/bios/liveupdate.htm

 

[Randy]

use then liveupdate utility and flash in windows
http://www.asuscom.de/support/bios/liveupdate.htm

I don't read German...

Randy

 

[Randy]

use then liveupdate utility and flash in windows
http://www.asuscom.de/support/bios/liveupdate.htm

I don't read German. Would EZ flash do the same thing?
http://www.asus.com/support/english/techref/mbfeatures/ezflash.aspx

Randy

 

[Randy]

I don't read German. Would EZ flash do the same thing?
http://www.asus.com/support/english/techref/mbfeatures/ezflash.aspx

I guess not (answering my own question). EZ flash is for boards with
533 FSB which is beyond the A7A266.
Randy

 

[Hulttio]

I guess not (answering my own question). EZ flash is for boards with
533 FSB which is beyond the A7A266.
Randy

just download asus update you found it from www.asus.com too
direct link
ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIOS/BIOS_FLASH_UTILS/asusupd52801.zip
the program is to english. ez flash is totally different thing

 

[Paul]

My housemate's A7A266 (which I built 2 years ago) is having trouble
booting into Windows XP Pro. I seems to cold boot to the bios with some
sort of "corrupted file" message. All I see on the screen is a bunch of
random letters and color blobs, but it seems to resemble the bios screen
that we all know and love. Using contol-alt-delete, it will eventually
boot into windows and work fine for days until reboot
So...I need to reflash: at the minimum, the original 1004 bios, or
upgrade to 1009 or 1012, which is the latest bios for the A7A266. BUT I
cannot get the machine to boot to a dos disk for flashing because the
bios is not set to boot to a floppy. It completely skips over the floppy
drive.
Since I cannot read the bios setup screen, and assuming the bios is set
to the defaults for booting (hdd0) I need someone to send me the EXACT
keystrokes to reset the boot sequence for booting to floppy or even CD.
Can anyone help?

Thanks

Randy
ranny9 at cox dot net

Looking in the manual, section 4.6 Boot Menu, shows the default
settings for booting. The first device is "Removable Device" and
it is set to [Legacy Floppy] by default. So, perhaps doing the
"clear the CMOS" procedure, will set the Boot Menu the way it is
shown in the manual. (See the "Forget your Password?" section
of the manual, for the correct sequence for shorting the two
CLRTC contacts with a screwdriver tip. The computer should be
unplugged while doing the procedure, to prevent +5VSB from
damaging the hardware.)

Then, you can use Aflash on a DOS boot disk, to do the update.

Another possibility, is the problem is actually with the video
card and not the motherboard. Have you tried another video
card, on the off chance there won't be any blocks on the screen ?
Perhaps flashing the BIOS is an unnecessary risk.

The least risky way to update the flash, is to find a service
like badflash.com and buy another flash chip. Asus will apparently
also sell you a flash chip (phone tech support to get a phone
number of who to talk to). Finding someone with an EEPROM programmer
is another, more obscure option. Not too many computer repair
places will have one of those.

Flashing from Windows is more risky. If you line up a replacement
flash chip in advance, that might reduce downtime, no matter what
flashing method you think you can get working.

Paul