Ah the joys of flashing Flash ROM

HMS White Star · Post by **HMS White Star** » Sun May 21, 2000 12:49 am

Well my guess is I scr*wed but here goes, two days ago I planning to upgrade my bios, well because my new motherboard was reading my nice new 40 Gig hard drive as a 32 Gig, hey I know that hard drive manufactures to don't do the numbering system quite right, but not on level of 8 Gigs, but I digress, also it was reading the same drive as UDMA 33 instead of a UDMA 66. So to make a long story short I flashed the bios, and then when I reboot the computer didn't come up.

So does any one have any ideas I how I can fix this, thanks in advance.

Fixxer · Post by **Fixxer** » Sun May 21, 2000 1:06 am

You'll prolly have to send in for a replacement bios chip.. that is if yours isn't permanently attached.

HMS White Star · Post by **HMS White Star** » Sun May 21, 2000 1:50 pm

Oh joy if it was just that easy first thing is know exactly what kind of motherboard it is, it's a MS-6178 from a company named MIS, I actually downloaded the lastest bios from them, hell it was the Award and not the AMI version and it still screwed up, *&^%$#$. Oh yes there where also 8 version I could have chosen from, so I don't think I didn the wrong one

.

Nah I didn't get any beeps, it more like the light on my monitor didn't go solid (which is bad sign which means the video card didn't start up).

Battleship · Post by **Battleship** » Mon May 22, 2000 12:09 am

So what kind of motherboard it? I'm betting you flashed with a bios update not designed for your mobo. Happened to me a couple months ago, I screwed up a friends motherboard. I feel bad about it actually. But I had no choice, he bought a 13 gig hard drive and his bios wouldnt see it. His motherboard site was all in Taiwanese and I had the hardest time finding the right bios upgrade.
This really isnt a huge deal if it is a common motherboard. Just go to a local pc shop and get them to order a new bios chip. Could cost you twenty or so bucks and itll be a few days to a week to get it in. Maybe they would be nice and just give you one off a board they have in stock if you pay them to replace it with one from the manufacturer.

monty · Post by **monty** » Mon May 22, 2000 12:17 am

What type of motherboard do you have? I was surprized the first time I flashed my Asus K7M. I restarted, and all that happened was a bunch of beeps. Never had that happen before. Took me a while to figure out, but visible for a fraction of a second was "DEL to run setup." I restarted again, but held down DEL. BIOS came up, so I hit "Load failsafe settings." Everything worked fine from then on. All my previous BIOS flashes (with other motherboards) didn't require the above.

Athlon500@750 · Post by **Athlon500@750** » Mon May 22, 2000 12:33 am

it sounds to me that your flashing the BIOS only went half-heartedly, meaning the programing of the bios didn't finish, so your comp is stuck with less than 100% of the instructions to boot your PC, so what I sugest to you, if you where planing on upgrading, get a new mobo, if you want to stick with the one you have, say it locked up one day and send it back to the maker for a replacement, or have the FFPROM(BIOS chip) removed and reprogramed, any way you go its a hassle, I would choose the easiest, get a new mobo.

HMS White Star · Post by **HMS White Star** » Mon May 22, 2000 4:16 am

Ah the true joy of my problem is there is part on that computer I have had more than 3 months, yes my life sucks (however I now relise that I do know a lot about installing motherboards, I lot easier than I remembered) If I get a new mobo it would the 3 one for this processor.

LoachDuke · Post by **LoachDuke** » Tue May 23, 2000 7:58 am

Hey HMS White Star,

Oops. Your motherboard was made by a company called "Microstar", aka "MSI". They are good boards, and are generally liked by the overclocking crowd.
It seems that either you flashed the wrong firmware, the burn wasn't complete, or the EEPROM is defective.
Either way, you are basically screwed. The computer can't work without the BIOS, hence no starup beeps and such. You should get a new BIOS chip from your computer store, with the level of firmware you need. It won't cost more than 20 bucks.