AFUDOS and hot flashing

[Nexus]

I did a bios upgrade on a PC and it failed now the PC will not boot.

I'm trying to do a hot flash bios upgrade by taking the BIOS chip out of the
PC affected (A8V Deluxe) and putting in a A7NBX-E board. They both have
similare BIOS sockets.

However when I run AFUDOS it complains that there is no ASF Signature and no
BIOS inforamtion.

Is there any way around this to allow the chip to be flashed.

Cheers

 

[Paul]

I did a bios upgrade on a PC and it failed now the PC will not boot.

I'm trying to do a hot flash bios upgrade by taking the BIOS chip out of the
PC affected (A8V Deluxe) and putting in a A7NBX-E board. They both have
similare BIOS sockets.

However when I run AFUDOS it complains that there is no ASF Signature and no
BIOS inforamtion.

Is there any way around this to allow the chip to be flashed.

Cheers

There is mention in this posting, of an AFUDOS version 2.07.
If you can find that version, it may enable you to bypass the
ID check.

http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.c..._frm/thread/552614f731374a27/a6a43b9520e32ae7

But your next problem is, the A8V Deluxe uses an AMI BIOS
and AFUDOS flasher. The A7N8X-E uses an Award BIOS and
AWDFLASH. It is possible the "BIOS hook" is needed to
do the flash, meaning the flasher program has to match
the BIOS family. AFUDOS may fall on its face, if it
doesn't see an AMI BIOS - I cannot tell you for sure
what will happen. So, while version 2.07 may be magic in
terms of getting past any identity check inside the flash
chip, it might still not work right. Also, the flasher
program has to be able to tell the difference between
the main BIOS code and the boot block, so an Award
flasher won't be able to read an AMI file and vice
versa.

So, try the experiment with AFUDOS 2.07, but don't expect
a miracle.

I would find a "donor" motherboard that uses an AMI BIOS
like your A8V Deluxe. At least the flasher program may
feel more "at home".

An alternative is here. Nforce2 is not on the supported
hardware list, but the author claims to have a "-Asus"
option. http://www.uniflash.org/history.htm

Post back how it works out,
Paul

 

[Bob Knowlden]

Just out of curiosity, did you try the BIOS recovery feature described in
the manual?

That begins on p. 4-5 of manual version e1878, which is available for
download from Asus.

Basic method: rename a BIOS file to A8V.ROM, and copy it to a floppy. Insert
the floppy in the drive, and restart the machine. The crashfree feature is
supposed to find the floppy and install the BIOS file, without fully booting
the machine.

Good luck.

Address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

 

[David Travers]

Didn't work

I have never got a PC to work via the Crash Free Bios recovery method
although I have in the past with the "hot flash" method

Thing is one PC uses Award BIOS and the other uses AMI Bios, which is adding
to the problem.

 

[milleron]

Didn't work

I have never got a PC to work via the Crash Free Bios recovery method
although I have in the past with the "hot flash" method

.. . . yet another failure of the so-called Crash Free BIOS. I don't
think I can recall ever seeing a single post about success with this
feature. I'm starting to wonder if it even exists at all. Perhaps it
was invented by Asus Marketing rather than by Asus R&D.

If there's anyone out there who's gotten Crash Free to work, please
chime in here and let us know. I'd love to see if it's possible to
deduce the circumstances under which it will work and will not work.

Thing is one PC uses Award BIOS and the other uses AMI Bios, which is adding
to the problem.

Ron