Bios flash failure

[floppybootstomp]

It just happened to me on the system shown in my sig, an Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard.

I was experiencing an unusual fault so thought I'd make sure everything was up to date including the Bios. The Bios I had was three years old and there was a much newer one available so I downloaded it.

The Asus flash utility software for use within Windows on the motherboard CD wasn't compatible with Win 7 so I downloaded the newer facility from Asus and installed it.

Erasure went ok but part way through the new flash it threw up a failure warning. I tried to reflash it several times but it wasn't having it. When I rebooted, that was it - no POST. Bugger.

So after cursing, crying and considering options I decided to look for a Bios Flash repair company and found this fella in South Wales: http://bios-repair.co.uk/index.htm

I have just posted the motherboard to him and total cost including two way postage and a large jiffy bag was £22.74. The actual cost for him to flash it is £12.49.

The Bios chip on the P5B Deluxe is soldered in place and it's flashed externally through a 7 pin header on the board so that's why I had to send the whole board and not just order a new flashed chip.

I phoned the fella up prior to sending the board and he was very friendly and helpful so it may be worth making a note of his site. And no, that's not spam, just me letting you know of a service that seems quite rare.

As to why the flash failed, I have no idea, I've used that software successfully dozens of times before. Most likely suspect is a corrupted Bios ROM download but I do wonder about the Asus software's compatibility with Win 7. Has anybody else successfully flashed an Asus Bios within Win 7?

Thinking about it, while I was still within Windows, instead of rebooting I should have downloaded my old Bios from the Asus site and tried to flash the chip with that. Hindsight can leave a sour taste sometimes.

The fault I had, incidentally, was that Windows Media Centre would only play one DVD movie properly, each time I went to play a second DVD it had visual but no sound. A reboot restored sound. Puzzling. All other audio functions were fine.

I have latest drivers for everything although in Device Manager I'm seeing an unknown device which is the motherboard's Intel chipset but I have installed latest drivers for that so it's a bit of a puzzle.

Anyhoo, I doubt whether I'll have the use of my main machine until the New Year now because of the Christmas post but I'll post back here when this episode has concluded.

 

[Ian]

Eek, that's not much fun having a failed BIOS update. I haven't tried to flash in Windows 7 as I've got the latest BIOS for my Asus P5K... but I will be a little cautious next time.

I'm not sure if you have already tried this, but it is sometimes possible to recover your BIOS even in an event like this. Asus boards have something called "CrashFree BIOS", which means you can re-flash using a Floppy/USB Drive/CD by pressing a few key combos (even if your computer seems knackered). I think there should be some more info on this in your mobo manual, I guess it will be similar to the P5K's.

£12.99 seems very reasonable for that service, as I bet it get's a few people out of a mess!

 

[Abarbarian]

Tough luck flops. Still it is a cheap repair

though the postage is a bit high, them snow shoes and reindeer are expensive that the GPO use but at least your post gets through.

 

[TriplexDread]

I just love Dual boot board's

Always a backup when ya need it

 

[floppybootstomp]

I'm not sure if you have already tried this, but it is sometimes possible to recover your BIOS even in an event like this. Asus boards have something called "CrashFree BIOS", which means you can re-flash using a Floppy/USB Drive/CD by pressing a few key combos (even if your computer seems knackered). I think there should be some more info on this in your mobo manual, I guess it will be similar to the P5K's.

I forgot to mention I did try that, put the Bios on a floppy and a USB stick. It's supposed to just boot from the CD by you putting it in there then it will seek the floppy and re-flash the Bios. Well that's what it's supposed to do anyway, but it didn't. Same with the USB stick as well.

When I spoke to the guy at the Bios repair place he told me that rarely worked for a failed flash but would often work if the Bios was more or less intact but corrupt. He spoke of some analyser he had where he could see the Bios as hex code and chunks of it were usually missing.

I just love Dual boot board's

Always a backup when ya need it

Yes, that's a really good idea, should be standard, really. My old DFI Lan Party Socket A board has dual Bios.

And Abarb, the breakdown was £4.45 postage for 1st class UK postage each way and £1.35 for the jiffy bag. Scan supplied the bubble wrap

It's not so much the cost that cheeses me off it's the fact I won't have my main games machine over the holiday period That, and the hassle of having to put the thing all back together again.

 

[Abarbarian]

Cheer up. If your short of gaming adrenalin you can always go snowball fighting or speed skating on the frozen Thames or freestyle sledging.

 

[Ian]

I forgot to mention I did try that, put the Bios on a floppy and a USB stick. It's supposed to just boot from the CD by you putting it in there then it will seek the floppy and re-flash the Bios. Well that's what it's supposed to do anyway, but it didn't. Same with the USB stick as well.

When I spoke to the guy at the Bios repair place he told me that rarely worked for a failed flash but would often work if the Bios was more or less intact but corrupt. He spoke of some analyser he had where he could see the Bios as hex code and chunks of it were usually missing.

Shame about that Did it give any errors or just fail to do anything? Sounds like a good value repair if this guy has to do quite a bit of troubleshooting to fix it.

Hope you get your system up and running soon

 

[floppybootstomp]

It failed to do anything.

He e-mailed me later in the day yesterday telling me it doesn't take very long to flash the P5B Deluxe and should be able to post it back the same day it arrives. Which is pretty good of him as my cheque won't have cleared.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Here's the conclusion to this tale, some good, some bad.

The postperson left a card on December 30th saying they'd tried to deliver a parcel which is a lie as I'd been up since 7.30am and I noticed the card at 10.30am, the doorbell had not sounded. This annoys the hell out of me, lazy, lazy, post people, they may as well just have a central collection point and not bother delivering to a person's home.

Hardly makes one sympathetic to their strike cause.

So on New Year's Eve I collect my motherboard from Charlton. This costs me time and money thanks to Royal Mail.

As I have to do a disco that evening I don't have much time to spend on it but put the motherboard back and switch on - zilch. Even the motherboard led isn't lighting up. I fear the worst.

Take everything out of the case including PSU and fire up motherboard/graphics card/monitor/mouse/keyboard and it goes through POST sequence. Phew. I note with interest BIOS only showing 3Gb of 4Gb installed RAM, I think it used to show 4Gb but I could be wrong, can't really remember.

New Years day about 3pm, hangover receeding so decide to rebuild. Add one thing at a time, switch on and check all is good until all components installed. It all works. Wonder why the hell it didn't POST in the first place? Obviously some kind of short somehwere. Oh well.

Attempt to boot to Windows 7 from RAID 0 array and nothing happens. Enter RAID setup and note that it says RAID setup failed and I have only one member disk. This should have set alarm bells ringing but it didn't. So I accept I've lost my OS and decide to create a new RAID setup and reinstall Win 7.

But when I delete RAID setup there's only one disk showing as available. WTF? Then I start to thinking, check connections and notice that one power connector to one RAID disk is not fully inserted.

Ever seen a grown man cry? I've just deleted my Win 7 setup and all I had to do to save it was push a power cable home.

Fek, fek and double fek.

So I create a new RAID 0 setup array and start installing Win 7 again. Win 7 fails giving me an error message of 'corrupted files'. I have to re-create RAID 0 setup again as Win 7 has made apartition on just one disk, which seems odd. On a whim I disconnect third storage hard disk and attempt Win 7 install again. It works.

When I go to activate the copy of Win 7 I bought from Dixons online it tells me it's illegal.

MICROSOFT I REALLY REALLY HATE YOU!

I go through the long and protracted telephone activation sequence feeling something like a criminal and wishing Linux would get better but the bloody thing activates ok in the end.

And that's it really, the one thing that saddens me a great deal is I've lost most of my Fallout 3 saves and all my CoD profiles. I always preach backup but I hadn't recently. Laziness.

At this time I have all the serious stuff installed except for FTP and e-mail setup and am about to start reinstalling my games, which will include a big chunk of bandwidth used up when Steam installs my games purchased online and updates all the others.

During this saga I have made two really stupid blunders, the first not trying to reflash my BIOS while the computer was still active after the original BIOS messed up, the second was not checking cables when RAID 0 setup not detected and thus losing Win 7.

So there you go folks, if I ever, for just one little moment, thought I was clever, I have been firmly put in my place through my own actions.

 

[TriplexDread]

Mate i'm so sorry I really did laugh out loud when you mentiopned pushing the power cable home

OMG how many times have i been there....

Sorry you lost all your saves I would be gutted too!
Well at least your all up and running safe now.....

You can actually buy BIOS chips on ebay mate as for flashing them with the software - Well thats a different matter. I remember you mentioning they are hard solder to board? Thats easily rectified by buying a socket to put onto board aswell. Al a bit time consuming I know but worth it in the end

 

[floppybootstomp]

You can actually buy BIOS chips on ebay mate as for flashing them with the software - Well thats a different matter. I remember you mentioning they are hard solder to board? Thats easily rectified by buying a socket to put onto board aswell. Al a bit time consuming I know but worth it in the end

I'm not sure you could do this. Have you actually sen how small the bios chip is? It's probably about 5mm x 7mm and surface-mount soldered into the board. In my opinion impossible to remove and remount a socket with 'traditional' soldering tools.

Bios chips in older mother motherboards were huge by comparison.

Imo for BIOS setups such as this you need dedicated hardware to flash through pin headers.

 

[TriplexDread]

I can be done mate trust me

Today I removed using a soldering iron two chips. Two 10pin DIL SMDevices approx 3.5mm square not including legs

They were both out of a TOMTOM Go satnav

A bit of know how and some patience with right tools and practice it can be done.
The issue is finding a Socket that small.

Which one of these is it?


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Replacement-A...iewItemQQptZAU_Components?hash=item3ca5cde845

 

[floppybootstomp]

The smallest one.

The firm I used to work for service the London Ambulance radios and they had hot air solder baths for removing and replacing surface mount ic's.

Fair play to you messing with them but it's not something I'd attempt. Well, not unless I had nothing to lose, anyway