upgrading BOIS

[Guest]

Hi I have a real nnoying problem, a server I built about a year ago
has an issue that it wont always power up properly, when its running
it goes sweet, but when I do a soft or hard reset, or power on about
40% of the time it just sits there, powered up but no VGA output at
all. So my first question is anyone aware of what may be causing that.

Second question is I decided I would try and upgrade the flash, its a
gigabyte ga-ma69vm-s2, single Qflash. it was running F2 which is th
efierst release, I have tried every version available on the gigabyte
website but they all say invalid ID.

When I first hit the load bios from drive I get an "invalid master
boot record" error. (its a USB pen drive) it continues fine I point to
the file, then it checks it, then says invalid ID and doesnt give me
an option to continue.

As far as I can see there is only one version of this board (v1.0) and
the model number is definitely right.

Any ideas on why it doesnt work? I downloaded the exe and extracted
the f3 file to the usb drive.

Flamer.

 

[Paul]

Hi I have a real nnoying problem, a server I built about a year ago
has an issue that it wont always power up properly, when its running
it goes sweet, but when I do a soft or hard reset, or power on about
40% of the time it just sits there, powered up but no VGA output at
all. So my first question is anyone aware of what may be causing that.

Second question is I decided I would try and upgrade the flash, its a
gigabyte ga-ma69vm-s2, single Qflash. it was running F2 which is th
efierst release, I have tried every version available on the gigabyte
website but they all say invalid ID.

When I first hit the load bios from drive I get an "invalid master
boot record" error. (its a USB pen drive) it continues fine I point to
the file, then it checks it, then says invalid ID and doesnt give me
an option to continue.

As far as I can see there is only one version of this board (v1.0) and
the model number is definitely right.

Any ideas on why it doesnt work? I downloaded the exe and extracted
the f3 file to the usb drive.

Flamer.

I downloaded one for a look, and it has three files.

ma69vms2.f8 512KB flash file
FLASH895.EXE Some kind of flasher program
autoexec.bat A BAT file with "flash895 ma69vms2.f8" in it

It looks like it is intended to be loaded on a DOS boot floppy
and then the BAT is executed there. Like they're trying to
bypass the built-in flasher or something.

If possible, I like to make a backup copy of the existing
BIOS, just in case. If there is a problem flashing the
new one, and the BIOS gets wiped, you can always try to
flash the original one back into the board. I don't see
any options in the flash895.exe file, but perhaps the
built-in flashing option (if there is one) has an option
to save the original BIOS. That should result in a
524288 byte file, just like the new BIOS.

Paul

 

[Paul]

I'm not altogether sure what a 'soft reset' is, but a hard reset via
the reset button or the press-and-hold start button ALWAYS has me
praying until Windows reboots ok. If not, I'm reaching for my backup
image to undo the damage. 40% does sound like a little more often than
I experience problems with it though. I SURE don't use that emergency
method of shutdown unless it's a HARD hang and nothing else will do.

You guys sure are casual about 'flashing up' your BIOS. A 'bad' flash,
and there's a definite percentage of them that are, results in a crap
motherboard UNLESS your BIOS chip is a plug-in, rather than
soldered-in one. If a plug-in you can buy a programmed chip from
BIOSMAN. It's a hassle, have to locate, get number of your chip, send
model of motherboard, hope they do it right. My present mb is an Abit.
Everyone on their forum says DON'T use their Windows-based flash
utility. ALWAYS flash from DOS diskette. You can boot to a flash-card
memory OR USB drive also, but the diskette is considered more
reliable. Gigabyte should have driections on how to do this somewhere
on their site. I'd also try to find out if your BIOS chip is
replaceable.

Actually, I think I looked at the board, and it has an eight pin
serial flash chip. The chip is soldered to the board. So if
the flash fails, the board will be bricked. Some boards with
serial flash, have a pin header near them, but the flasher
device that connects to it, is $150.00 . So if the flash
operation goes bad, it might be cheaper to get a new board.

Finding the BAT file and the flash895 tool, is a hint not
to use the regular tool flow. Time for the DOS floppy. Too
bad the download hadn't come with a README file, to provide
some help.

The reason this is necessary, is sometimes the manufacturer
changes tool flow for BIOS development, and the new BIOS
is not compatible with the built-in flasher in the old
BIOS. That is when they throw in a DOS flasher, to fix
things so the board can work properly with the latest
BIOS releases. And just to be extra-tricky, they don't
include the flashing tool in every download, just the
release of BIOS after trouble was detected. So sometimes
it would take a downloading of all the BIOS releases,
to determine something special must be done.

Paul

 

[TomT]

I downloaded one for a look, and it has three files.

ma69vms2.f8 512KB flash file
FLASH895.EXE Some kind of flasher program
autoexec.bat A BAT file with "flash895 ma69vms2.f8" in it

It looks like it is intended to be loaded on a DOS boot floppy
and then the BAT is executed there. Like they're trying to
bypass the built-in flasher or something.

Let this thread be an example of why one might like to install a $9
floppy drive. Just something to think about.

TomT

 

[yaugin]

Hi I have a real nnoying problem, a server I built about a year ago
has an issue that it wont always power up properly, when its running
it goes sweet, but when I do a soft or hard reset, or power on about
40% of the time it just sits there, powered up but no VGA output at
all. So my first question is anyone aware of what may be causing that.

Second question is I decided I would try and upgrade the flash, its a
gigabyte ga-ma69vm-s2, single Qflash. it was running F2 which is th
efierst release, I have tried every version available on the gigabyte
website but they all say invalid ID.

When I first hit the load bios from drive I get an "invalid master
boot record" error. (its a USB pen drive) it continues fine I point to
the file, then it checks it, then says invalid ID and doesnt give me
an option to continue.

As far as I can see there is only one version of this board (v1.0) and
the model number is definitely right.

Any ideas on why it doesnt work? I downloaded the exe and extracted
the f3 file to the usb drive.

Flamer.

Dunno about the bios thing, you might want to try checking the pen
drive's filesystem integrity.

The actual problem you describe, with the intermittent failure to
post, is probably a dying power supply.

 

[Kent_Diego]

I like to boot from a CD with NTFS4DOS and run off of the hard drive.
Hiren's Boot CD and many other boot CDs have DOS with NTFS support. A floppy
disk is very unreliable and can corrupt a flash. I had a Windows Vista 64
flash program brick an ASUS motherboard.

1. Copy the flasher and BIOS files to C:\ root or make a short name
directory off C:\ root.
2. Boot off CD to NTFS4DOS.
3. Type C: and maybe CD to other directory.
4. Type flash895 ma69vms2.f8

Report back your sucess.

 

[Guest]

I like to boot from a CD with NTFS4DOS and run off of the hard drive.
Hiren's Boot CD and many other boot CDs have DOS with NTFS support. A floppy
disk is very unreliable and can corrupt a flash. I had a Windows Vista 64
flash program brick an ASUS motherboard.

1. Copy the flasher and BIOS files to C:\ root or make a short name
directory off C:\ root.
2. Boot off CD to NTFS4DOS.
3. Type C: and maybe CD to other directory.
4. Type flash895 ma69vms2.f8

Report back your sucess.

Ok thanks all for your suggestions, I will try and boot from a floppy
(may be able to borrow an external USB floppy drive from work) and see
if that helps. Otherwise I will go for Kent's suggestion.. hopefully
one of the methods will give me some success.

Thanks everyone

Flamer.

 

[Man-wai Chang ToDie (33.6k)]

Ok thanks all for your suggestions, I will try and boot from a floppy

(may be able to borrow an external USB floppy drive from work) and see
if that helps. Otherwise I will go for Kent's suggestion.. hopefully
one of the methods will give me some success.

You could use a USB stick do it if your board supports booting from USB.

Here is an example for an Asus BIOS:

Download this windows 98 image (Windows98_No_Ramdrive.img) below:
http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/98.html

Use 7-zip to extract it into WIN98NORAM.IMG.

Download HP USB Key Utility:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...ion.jsp?lang=en&cc=US&swItem=MTX-UNITY-I23839

Use HP USB Key Utility to set a USB drive to floppy mode using the
WIN98NORAM.IMG above. Delete some files to make room for AWDFLASH.EXE
and BIOS file 1202.BIN.

Reboot your PC, enter BOOT menu, boot the usb drive. Use AWDFLASH.EXE to
flash BIOS.

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