Compaq Evo D310

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

Hi,
I have the above system which Im trying to get working. It has an MS-6541 v1.0 mobo and the BIOS is v.03.13. I cannot find anything about the mobo on MSI's site but there is a BIOS update available at the HP site (v3.16 I cannot post the link).

However, I cannot update the BIOS via Windows as there is no O/S loaded and I cannot load a Win O/S due to errors received during setup.

Is there a way of updating the BIOS via Floppy or CD please?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[edwin]

Why do you think the bios update is going to solve any hardware errors the machine may have? Errors during setup usually are a problem with the install disk, DVD/CD player problem, bad memory sticks, overheating CPU or a problem with the motherboard, check this one for bad capacitors first

http://www.badcaps.net

edwin wrote:

Why do you think the bios update is going to solve any hardware errors the machine may have?

To answer your question, I installed all drives from the system onto another system with an MS-7005 v1.0 mobo and they all work without fault.

I guess the mobo itself could be a problem but wasn't sure how to fault-find for it.

Thanks for your reply, I'll have a look at your link.

Hi.
Well, I took the mobo out and had a really good lookat all of the capacitors and found none of them were either leaning or showing any visible signs of wear/leakage/damage.

So, I rebuilt the system and tested each memory stick (2x 1GB) in turn, first trying both sticks alone in turn, in alternate slots, then both sticks together in alternate slots. The problem remains.

I'm now thinking the problem may be the IDE controller as the stop error I'm getting [0x0000007b (0xF898C524.0xC0000034.0x00000000,0x00000000)] is related to this - amongst other things - however the drive works in another system, the memory all appears fine and there is no O/S on the drive.

The problem I have now is a similar one to my original post, how to get IDE controller software onto the PC when the only file available is a *.exe and I cannot install an O/S in order to run and *.exe.

Thanks again for your help edwin.

Added:
I did manage to get Win98 partially installed but it failed and rebooted at the setup of date/time, etc.
WinXP fails with the above error message straight after the initial system checks are carried out.

Hiren's boot CD has a live mini XP as an alternative. It requires no hard drive at all.

[edwin]

@cyberdyne: if you can run the drives in another system try setting up windows 98 on it on the other system and see if that will work.

that hirens-cd has a memtest onboard as well I think, otherwise get memtest86, it's a bootable ISO so you can run that directly from CD as well to test the memory.