120GB: 05/07/98-i440BX-W83977-P6BX-A+

[edwin]

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

[edwin]

..and mention it is the 1Mbit (128kbyte) version!

[Rainbow]

Interesting - v1.5b is newer than v2.4:

Code: Select all

C:\111>awdinfo BXA_14~1.BIN
BXA_14~1.BIN: 05/06/1998-i440BX-W83977-P6BX-A+
 128K ACPI    P6BX-A+ Ver 1.4 05/06/1998
C:\111>awdinfo BXA_15~1.BIN
BXA_15~1.BIN: 01/27/1999-i440BX-W977TF-P6BX-AP
 128K         P6BX-A+ Ver 1.5b 01/27/1999
C:\111>awdinfo BXA_24~1.BIN
BXA_24~1.BIN: 08/12/1998-i440BX-W83977-P6BX-Ap
 128K ACPI    P6BX-Ap Ver 2.4eM 08/12/1998
C:\111>awdinfo BXAP56.BIN
BXAP56.BIN  : 07/26/2000-i440BX-W977TF-P6BX-AP
 256K ACPI    P6BX-A+ Ver 5.6 07/26/2000

I suspect what could be happening here is that Award flash 6.6 may have dodgy support to cover both 1MB and 2MB chips. In that it identifies which size you have but when you backup it assumes the 2MB size. Some recent BIOSs come with instructions to use more recent flash programs such as Award flash v7 or later which may resolve bugs or issues to work with both BIOS sizes correctly. Perhaps v6.6 has primitive support for this capability.

I understand Uniflash to be a more recent and reliable flash programmer, which may explain this giving different results. I would be interested to see what one of the latest Award flash programmers report on this board. I understand they are up to at least v7 or v8 now.

Just thought that I'd add that basically I think it's possible that ECS have included AWD 66 in each of the BIOSs for this board for consistency, without taking into account that it may not be the suitable or preferable programmer for all BIOSs.

In response to Rainbow's request for the BIOS chip information, the info on the chip reads:

WINBOND
W29C011A-15
819AN28118301UG

Thanks to Nicks for posting the patched file. I'll give it a go.

[Rainbow]

W29C011A is 128KB (1Mbit)

[NickS]

Rainbow wrote:

Interesting - v1.5b is newer than v2.4:

Code: Select all

C:\111>awdinfo BXA_15~1.BIN
BXA_15~1.BIN: 01/27/1999-i440BX-W977TF-P6BX-AP
 128K         P6BX-A+ Ver 1.5b 01/27/1999
C:\111>awdinfo BXA_24~1.BIN
BXA_24~1.BIN: 08/12/1998-i440BX-W83977-P6BX-Ap
 128K ACPI    P6BX-Ap Ver 2.4eM 08/12/1998


Very interesting. 1.5b = 1.5 beta ? and the ACPI part of the message - where is that from ?

[Rainbow]

The "128K ACPI" is not part of the ID string - it's displayed by the awdinfo program.

[NickS]

So the choice is the older 2.4 with ACPI or the 1.5 without ACPI. Hmm.

I've flashed with the patched BIOS file. Everything went OK, and system is running fine.

Thanks to Nicks for the patch, and to the rest of you who have offered advice.

One last thing. Before I posted my initial request for help I tried to use the BIOS patcher available at www.rom.by. I booted into DOS (WinXP boot disk) and ran the program, it read from the floppy for a few seconds and then hung. Can anyone give advice on using this software?

[NickS]

Thanks for the feedback.
Using bp: There is a list of files which have to be in the same directory as bp and the BIOS .bin file. From the DOS prompt you run bp to patch the BIOS file. You then flash the patched BIOS image into the ROM using Uniflash or Awdflash in the usual fashion.

In the same folder as the BIOS file I want to patch is:

bp.exe
cbrom.exe
lha.exe
reall.cod

If I run:

bp /h or bp romname.bin /h or romname.bin /e

Nothing seems to happen.

If I run:

cbrom

The system hangs.

Do I have to boot from DOS or should will the program run from a DOS prompt window OK?

BP runs fine from the Command Prompt window (tested with W2K and XP Pro).

Thanks from me also.
Had same issue, and this thread solved it.