Viewing Bios Files

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

I have been looking at flahing a bios from a different, but similar motherboard to my own (see the "Flash Bios from a Similar Motherboard" thread). It was pointed out that a jumper controlled the bus speed in my bios - jumper set one way, only bus speeds from 100-130 show up, set another way, bus speeds >=133 show up). I used both "Biosview" and "Modbin6" to view my current bios file (my motherboard is currently hardwired at the 100 MHz bus setting), and both programs show options for bus speeds from 100-160 MHz.

Anyway, what is curious, I tried to view the bios file from the similar motherboard - the one that I am proposing to use to flash to my own motherboard. In both Modbin6 and Biosview, absolutely nothing comes up! Is this unusual? Could there be a problem with the bios file? (I tried downloading a new copy - same result). I tried a previous version from the same motherboard, and it shows up in both programs ok. Now I am even more nervous about trying to flash that other bios, because I can't see what is in the file!

I was experimenting with WinFlash, and when loading the most recent bios from the other motherboard I get the "Bios Lock-String does not match" error message. When I load the previous version for that other motherboard, it loads ok. I downloaded both bioses again from a different source, and now I CAN view both bioses in both programs, although the most recent bios, which I couldn't view before, now seems scrambled - a lot of junk characters, but some bios sub-categories are there complete and normal.