Take your pick: Incorrect memory value; Unable to flash bios

[pablo]

Hi,

I just got my hand on an old Pentium board and have set it up in a system. I'm able to boot up into DOS without problems. Well almost... the amount of RAM reported at startup (memory test) is incorrect. The BIOS seems to always report 8MB regardless of what I put in there. At the moment, I have 2 x 16 MB EDO memory installed. I am certain that the memory is correct as I pulled out of another working system. Also tried with other memory pairs with same results.

I figured that a BIOS update might be in order. Now the fun really starts. The ID reported on the boot screen is
02/18/98-i430TX-W877-2A59IG0EC-00
Ah, a Gigabyte mobo I hear you say... but no; it is actually an Asus P/I-P55TVP4 (revision 2.30). From docs, the mobo appears to use the 430VX chipset. I am assuming that FAQ #30 shouldn't be a factor here given the small amount of RAM correct?!

Wanting to put things right, I got hold of the newest bios I could find off the Asus site: tv5i0204.awd. I also downloaded aflash (version 2.21) and pflash (don't know version). Now when I boot into DOS 3.30 and run either utility I immediately get the error message "ERROR! Can't Find System BIOS' Hook." The progs don't give my any menu options, just run spit out this message and exit straight away.

In a nutshell, help! Is it likely that the incorrect BIOS is causing this memory problem? How can I get a proper BIOS in there at all? Any chance I can back things up to minimise risk? Oh, one last thing; I tried running the utils with and without the "Flash ROM Boot Block" jumper enabled. No effect.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Paul

[soupy]

IIRC, the Asus flasher will not flash over a non-Asus BIOS.

You might try Uniflash, and be sure to flash boot block as well.

And send whoever put the wrong BIOS in there a kick in the pants from me.

[pablo]

Never having flashed a BIOS before, I was a bit nervous to use the non-Asus flasher. However, uniflash worked like a charm.

Flashed the chip without issue and memory size is now correctly detected. Excellent!

Thanks for your help on this soupy! BTW, I bought the board off E-Bay so I don't really know who did this foolishness or why. I suspect the seller canabalises old systems and sells off the bits. Him? Previous owner? I suppose it is also possible the ROM chip itself was replaced from some other system. Anyway, just happy it is sorted.

Oh and just in case someone else runs across this one, here are the details in my case:
Mobo: Asus P/I P55TVP4 (revision 2.30)
Chip Set: Intel Triton II 430VX
Flash ROM: SST 29EE010
DOS Ver.: 4.01
UF Ver.: 1.30

And I used the file tv5i0204.awd which I got off Asus' site from here: http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download ... 5i0204.zip

Cheers,
Paul