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Identify your Award BIOS based motherboard
Award BIOS motherboards identification
Many users don't know the name of their clone motherboard. This is because the company name is not mentioned anywhere in the manual, or on the motherboard. If you want to upgrade your BIOS you really have to know the motherboard manufacturer, because if you flash the wrong BIOS upgrade your system could stop booting.
Luckily, Award and AMI BIOS have a unique BIOS ID (= BIOS Number) which identifies the manufacturer and chipset of the board. Phoenix BIOSs, in most cases, do NOT.
The AMI or Award BIOS id appears at the bottom of your screen after power on, during memory count up. The PAUSE key should work at that point, allowing you to write down the BIOS number, the BIOS date, and the version. You must copy it exactly.
If you have an AMI BIOS you can also try the AMIBIOS Motherboard ID Utility (written by AMI) (Click here to visit the AMI BIOS number page.)
Let's show you an example of an Award BIOS id: 2A59IZ1DC-00
The first 5 characters identify the chipset. 2A59I stands for the Intel Triton TX chipset. You can find an extensive list of chipsets if you scroll down a bit.
The sixth & seventh character identify the manufacturer: in this case it's Z1. If you look at the Award Hardware Vendors list (see below) you'll find that the manufacturer is Zida/Tomato
The 8th character (most of the times, not always!) identifies the model. I say 'most of the times' because the manufacturer can use the same 8th character for all models based on a particular chipset!.
The C-00 at the end doesn't mean much.
Identifying the chipset
Note that when the BIOS begins with a 2 then the Award BIOS core version is 4.50 or 4.51. If it starts with a 3 this means the BIOS core is version 4.60. BIOS Numbers that start with a 6 have a Award BIOS V6.00 core
Award BIOS Chipset codes list
Identifying the motherboard manufacturer
The two characters following the last character of the chipset identification identify the motherboard manufacturer.The following is a list of all the ids and their corresponding manufacturers. Follow the links to go to the individual company pages on my website. Those individual company pages will list all Award BIOS Numbers for that company.
Award BIOS Motherboard manufacturer vendor codes
Need help? Ask your question here!
(Examples: how to update your BIOS, how to identify your motherboard)
About
My name is Wim Bervoets and I'm the founder of Wim's BIOS Page. The history of this site goes back to 1996 when I was taking my first steps on the internet. Gradually the site grew to what it is now - an authority site about BIOS update information - with an active forum.
Free instant access to BIOS tips!
Fill in your name and email and receive our ebook 'How to update your PC BIOS in 3 easy steps' (15$ value), free BIOS tips and updates about Wim's BIOS!
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