How to Update BIOS on Mitac 8050

Discusses BIOS flashers and utilities from Award, AMI and Uniflash
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alecbowman
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I have an old Evesham X5 (badge engineered Mitac 8050D). There have been a number of occassions when it has crashed and teh Windowsfault report response indicates that the BIOS is incompatable with the CPU/Chipset.

I have located the latest BIOS, both System and KBC (what is this?), on the Mitac support site. A Flashit Utility is included with the System BIOS but I can find no info on how to use this. I assume that I will need to create a bootable CD, Autexec.bat, Flashit utility and ROM file but would like some details of this and how to do it.

Many thanks

Alec
cp
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a link to the file you downloaded would be helpful, so someone else could take a look, too.

KBC is the keyboard bios btw. because they can't use a standard ps/2 keyboard obviously.
If you email me include [WIMSBIOS] in the subject.
alecbowman
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widestload
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I'm sat here thinking exactly the same thing! (pretty strange that when I put it into google its come up with a current post and not one 3 years old! :D
Only difference is that I have an Advent 7009 (Mitac 8575). And I have downloaded my bios's from the smae mitac service site. And again all the rar/zip file contains is the bios and flashit1.exe
I have been scouring the net to find out how to use it but havent found anything specific other than the general idea that you make a boot floppy (good job i have a usb floppy drive as my laptop doesnt have a floppy drive.... guessing it will work from a usb one??) then put the flashit utility and the rom file on to it then use dos to load it....is this right?
Ive also found that the version ive doanloaded is newer than my current one, but mitac dont seem to supply any info on what changes are made between the versions :( .

So yeah, any info on how to use this would be much appreciated :D
widestload
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Ive been searching for ages now, and not managed to find anything on how to use Flashit. I found this page which provides a good guide to the overall process http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/biosflash1.html .
Its example uses an award flash utility and mentions various codes to complete different stages of the boot process, ie backups and clearing cmos etc. but guessing the codes could be different for flashit?
cp
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Code: Select all

FLASHIT filename [options]
no need to mess with the options. a nice menu should pop up. put them on a plain DOS boot cd/floppy together with the rom(s). don't try to flash from within windows. there seems to be an Insyde WinFlash, but i don't know where to get it (maybe a query on some search engine should return some useful sites).
If you email me include [WIMSBIOS] in the subject.
widestload
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so for example my system bios is called v112.rom and flashit is called flashit1.exe

would i therefore type

Code: Select all

flashit1 v112.rom [options]
and this would then bring up an options menu where i could select clearing cmos, auto restarting etc?

other references to flashit that ive now found (I'll post the links) seem to suggest just typing

Code: Select all

flashit1 v112.rom
and the whole process will be automated and turn itself off when complete. I would then turn it back on and the bios should be updated

Also I have used the drdos utility to make a boot disk however there appears to be nothing on the disk (even when i select show hidden files) however under properties 121kb of space is used which is about that listed as the combined files sizes for a drdos boot disk. When I have the booted with the disk in (with nothing on it other than the drdos files) the computer still boots normally rather than entering dos, is this normal? Are there any other boot disk creators which i could try?
cp
BIOS Guru
Posts: 1914
Joined: Mon Oct 21, 2002 9:07 pm
Location: Germany

would i therefore type

Code:
flashit1 v112.rom [options]


and this would then bring up an options menu where i could select clearing cmos, auto restarting etc?
aahhhm..NO. just type

Code: Select all

 flashit1
to see the useage information with all the options. you should really learn how to use console commands before messing around with bios flashing tools as you could easily render your system completely useless.

why not using one of their premade bootdisks?

http://bootdisk.com/
If you email me include [WIMSBIOS] in the subject.
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