Dell hell OE bios suggestions

Discusses BIOS flashers and utilities from Award, AMI and Uniflash
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chasmo
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Joined: Sat Aug 02, 2003 9:40 am

I have a Dell Dimension XPS T600 running Win2K Pro using a PIII at 600mhz. I am happy with the system except for limitations with the BIOS.
Because the BIOS seems to be proprietary I am limited to what Dell occasionally releases. Because of this my system is rapidly becoming obsolete.

Based on the reluctance, and warnings from Dell I fully realize the tech staff doesn't want to encourage newbies to tinker with risky scenarios like bios and registry. At the same time the company is really souring their reputation among power users. I would appreciate the following questions answered

1. Is the latest BIOS update from Dell really 3 years old? Is there a compatible bios from a similar model which is more current? How current is A12 & A13, and what are the differences or problems?

2. If Dell doesn't want to encourage customer upgrades or deal with flashing BIOS drivers then PLEASE provide the Phoenix BIOS chip set numbers so customers are free to move on. Similarly Dell should release the Intel board number's. A similar issue arose just after purchasing my system along with a 3Com Hawk modem from Dell. It took many calls and many months of tech time just to find drivers for the modem because Dell couldn't seem to supply the drivers and 3Com was helpless to assist with an OEM re-numbered card.
The closest possible match to the my Dell proprietary mainboard components listed below would allow me to download top quality and current bios drivers directly from Intel.
MOTHERBOARD: INTEL Model SE440BX-3 Version AA722396-112
BIOS: Phoenix 4S4EB2X0.10A.0026.P08
CHIP STAMPING: SMSC FOC37M707B9946-D751102SMU39257-5

3. If the BIOS is not EXACTLY the same how bad could it possibly be?....no on board Creative sound drivers? Whatever the issues I doubt it could possibly be worse than some of the Windows or drive crashes I've suffered.

5. Any third party BIOS flash programs?

6. Recommendations for tossing the chip entirely and replacing with a good name brand BIOS chip where future upgrades are kept current and not so time consuming.

At this stage I'm willing to do a fresh OS install on a new hard drive perhaps using Linux.

Thanks

Charlie
Denniss
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Maybe Unicore or other companies hav a better Bios for you but for these prices you should better get a new Board - if your Dell has a standard ATX case and PSU replace you board with a well known i440BX based board from Asus or Gigabyte - if non-standard get a new cheap Duron/small AthlonXP based computer
edwin
The Hardware Archivist
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Already answered at motherboards.org what the options are.
edwin/evasive

Do not assume anything

System error, strike any user to continue...
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