Mike said:
Help, My wife's computer died.....
So I bought a P4B266-C M/B (No onboard crap).. Installed a Celeron 2.4
GHz, and 1 stick of Samsung 256MB DRR333 Ram.
Installed an old Matrox G400 (AGP 4x compatible 1.5v) Video Card, and
NEC CD-ROM, a Quantum Fireball 30.0GB hard disk and NIC.
BIOS 1006
I get POST and Boot to DOS, BIOS Error CPU Id 29F (Intel Celeron 2.4GHz
Processor). Memory test indicates that the memory is OK. (I've used
DDR333 ram in ASUS M/B's before as DDR266 without problems).
The machine will NOT load Win98SE. Goes for 15-30 seconds and halts.
(Power Recycle required)
Thoughts are to buy a Celeron 2.0 GHz processor and take the loss. ASUS
Website states that it Will work, rather than get confused if its
2.2/2.4/2.6 that will work. (FAQ/KB/TechRef)
Anybody have any idea's what's going on and how to fix it.
Then to add insult to injury... I tried to reflash the BIOS, and the
machine stopped in mid process. Now, No machine, No post, no nothing.
How do I get the machine to reset the BIOS to be able to reflash.
Lost/Confused/Poor/P****d and Still no PC.
Mike G.
First off, using a real email address on USENET is a bad idea,
unless the account is a throwaway. Spam harvesters will find it
and use it to their advantage. That is why my email is bogus.
If, on the other hand, you welcome all communications, no
matter how spammy, your choice... (Just so you know where
the deluge of email came from. I made that mistake years ago,
and learned the hard way.)
Someone here recently, tried a faster Celeron and got an
error about the multiplier. The supported processors are
listed here, and the list is seldom complete (at least for
AMD processors). In your case, it says up to 2.2GHz is
supported, but as you were able to boot DOS, I'd say
it should work anyway.
http://www.asus.it/support/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx
The error message was probably something about "No microcode for
processor 0F29" or the like. Your response, to upgrade the flash,
was the correct thing to do (there are usually microcode updates
in the latest versions of the BIOS). Problem is, now you've really
stuck your foot in it.
If you want, you could try the "clear CMOS" procedure. That should
be described in the manual, and I recommend pulling the plug from
the wall, before proceeding. (That is to make absolutely sure that
+5VSB is dead, as shorting the CMOS plug with power applied, blows
this little dual diode on the motherboard.) I don't expect clearing
the CMOS will help, because as a general rule, the flash chip is
erased before programming begins, so there will be chunks of the
flash image missing.
The most critical thing to get erased, is the "boot block". This is
a small bootstrap loader, that contains enough functionality to
boot up from a floppy (or maybe a CD, not sure about that). Using
a DOS boot disk, and your favorite flashing utility, you can
design a one line autoexec.bat file, with the necessary command
line switches to flash the BIOS without any interaction, and
then wait until the flash is done. Some of the Asus flash programs
aren't designed to use only command line switches, so I don't
know how you would handle that case, without practicing on a
working computer first (to figure out what to type and when - but
people have done it that way successfully).
There is a freeware flashing utility called "uniflash", that is
designed with command line switches, so if it supports your
chipset, then that is an alternative to the Asus flash utility.
To test whether there is any reason to get excited, shove a
DOS boot floppy into the floppy drive, and reset the computer.
If you hear attempts to access the floppy drive, then further
research into "uniflash" or an Asus flasher is warranted - I'm
pretty sure though, that your boot block is long gone.
Next step, is to see if someone you know, has a motherboard with
the same kind of EEPROM on it as you've got. There is a procedure
call "hot flashing", where after the donor computer is booted to
DOS, the BIOS chip is pulled out of the socket with the power on,
and the dead BIOS chip inserted in its place. Then, using the
flash program, the chip is flashed with the P4B266-C BIOS image
and the donor computer shut down. Dual inline (DIP) packages
are pretty easy to "hot flash", while the square PLCC package is
a bit harder (but someone here did it within the last week or
so, and I was surprised they did it without damaging anything).
Also, phone a few shops in your area, to see if they have an
"EPROM burner" or if they have a BIOS Savior on the premises.
You can also buy your own BIOS Savior (ioss.com.tw). This is a
series of four or more different models of product, and each
one contains a duplicate BIOS chip. There is a socket on the
top of the thing, and the old BIOS chip is inserted in there.
A second BIOS chip comes with the product and is soldered
underneath the socket. This device gives you two BIOS chips,
so if one gets fried, you get a second chance. Unfortunately,
unless the vendor who sells you one, programs the BIOS chip
on the Savior before sending it to you, that isn't enough to
get you running again. (The product is an insurance policy
against a future failed flash. Cost is approx $25 US for the
Savior.)
The last, and most likely solution to your problem, is a
company like
www.badflash.com . They will sell you a
replacement EEPROM with the BIOS code in it, and as long as
your BIOS chip isn't soldered directly to the board, you
can pull the old one out, and stuff a new one in. There are
a number of companies that do this, and I think even Asus
offers the service, but I don't know who you contact or
how long an Asus chip would take to get to you.
None of the solutions are really that speedy, so I hope you
have a backup computer to use until this one is repaired.
In terms of "what did you do wrong ?", probably nothing.
Flashing is best done from DOS, as there is less possibility
of some other task executing on the machine, interrupting
the flash process. If you used the wrong file, that would
be enough to do it.
HTH,
Paul
