Updating VBIOS

by **edwin** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 11:04 pm

How much time would it take to patch all their other boards with this same VGA bios and send them the files telling them: "this is how to do it properly?"

Right....

Equinox: send this patched bios to Gigabyte and tell them what it is. Maybe they start thinking...

by cp » Wed Jan 17, 2007 2:52 am

edwin: they just need the video bios which they apparently already have, use cbrom to remove the old video bios and inject the new one. done. but i really have to say that it's not worth doing the patch for a mainboard manufacturer unless a countable number of customers ask for it. and those mainboards with a sis chipset and integrated vga went into some office PCs or some of those very cheap coffeeshop systems. hardly any customers would bother asking the mainboard manufacturer's support for help (if any would encounter those problems anyway ;))...i suppose they would rather buy a new system.

all in all it wouldn't be that hard to include the latest bios as there are just a few integrated vga cores by SIS (300,315,330,340) IF (yes, IF) SIS would release their latest video bios.

by **admin** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 2:32 pm

I guess it would be interesting to keep a downloadable collection of those vga bios'es so it makes finding the latest version easier + creating a patched bios if needed.

Wim

by **edwin** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 11:33 pm

and some general instructions to go with that. Indeed, that would be a nice addition. Do you want to host the files or do I need to setup some sort of mirror?

by **admin** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 12:04 pm

No problem for me to host the files

cheers,
Wim

by **jbell** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:16 am

I am trying to accomplish the exact same thing, on a HP thin client T5720. I've got the 1.09 award bios downloaded from hp, but never used cbrom to 'overlay' a new videobios with a different version.

also, the zip file I downloaded that you 'ripped' out of the asrock bios, I'm not sure if it's valid or not.

I've done this in the ami world, but not award. please help, I have the exact same 'scrolling' issue described above, vbios only allows 'standard' resolutions, even though the driver allows wide screen resolutions to be selected.

by cp » Wed Mar 14, 2007 8:27 am

scrolling? are you sure your display is able to handle the resolutions you're setting?

by **jbell** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 3:29 pm

yes, I'm sure. Monitor is an olevia 342i. If I use an nvidia card, I can display 1360x768, etc... The monitor that I'm connecting to will display the actual timing it's receiving. It never receives anything other than 640x480,800x600, or 1024x768, regardless of what resolution I pick in the video driver. For example, If I pick 1280x768, I have a 'desktop' of 1280x768, but the resolution sent to the monitor is 1024x768, and I can 'scroll' left and right. If I pick 1280x720. I can 'scroll' left right, and the front/back porch is increased, so I only see 720 pixels tall, even though the monitor is reporting 1024x768..

Here's what I've done. took amibcp75, loaded the asrock bios suggested, and looked for modules. There were 2 add on pci modules with a sis 1039 designation. (0900 and 6330) So, after extracting the 6330 32k bios, I removed and replaced using the /vga switches as documented in the mini-howto. All good so far, right? I can /D and see my modules. HOWEVER, when I go do flash this new bios, the HP flash utility doesn't see, bios mfg, bios serial#, etc... the only thing that comes up is checksum. Obviously it won't flash.

where did I go wrong?

BTW -- I've opened a support ticket with HP, and have requested that they get the latest sis video bios directly from sis. IF I get it... I'll share.

by cp » Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:23 pm

checksum? sounds like the modified bios hasn't the right checksum. i guess hp fiddled around with the award bios structure..

by **jbell** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:37 pm

checksum is just one of the items that hp's flash loader 'reads' from the bios before flashing. It's infact the only option that it reads correctly. The others, even bios mfg, it doesn't read on my modded bios.

can you repost the 2.49 video bios? I only get less than 2k on the earlier link, not 32k.

I will play around with other bios editors, maybe they will be better.....

BTW - my bios says Phoenix Award... does that make a difference?

by cp » Thu Mar 15, 2007 8:38 am

use a more recent version of cbrom or cbrom32. to fix the checksum issue just open the modded bios with modbin and save it. the checksum will be fixed automatically :)

by **jbell** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 5:05 pm

I'm sure you're right on version of cbrom. I've seen references to 2.20, but can't find a link. Do you know of one?

by **NickS** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:59 pm

jbell wrote:I'm sure you're right on version of cbrom. I've seen references to 2.20, but can't find a link. Do you know of one?

At apple_rom's site, http://www.rom.by/biosedit.htm

by **jbell** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:29 pm

All I see on that site is 2.07 and 2.15... However, I finally found another link and tried 2.20 - same results.

My new bios that I create doesn't recognize bios version, bios serial number, or release date. The wflash.exe utility that hp provides won't flash unless the new bios serial number matches the existing bios serial number. (Their way of making sure you don't flash one machines bios incorrectly to a different machine.)

Still haven't heard back from hp -- go figure. any ideas?????

by **edwin** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 10:19 pm

jbell, where's that bios download page at?

Updating VBIOS

need help

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