A-Trend Motherboards??

Discusses BIOS flashers and utilities from Award, AMI and Uniflash
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mavsman
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First off forgive me if I put this in the wrong section I really have no idea where to put this question. Right now Whenever I try to boot my computer it detects all my IDE Drives and then Detects my ATA controller and my harddrive on there a 250gb WD Special Edition (the drive I boot up on). Then it detects all my PCI stuff then it goes to I belief it is called updating DMI Pool or something with DMI. Then after the DMI thing it does this ........ then skips a line and makes a flashing cursor and never gets off that. Another thing I noticed is that when it the cursor comes up a few blocks go blank through the previous screen that moved up one row. Such as some blocks in the designs disapear and such. I figured this has something to do with my bios, so now ive spent the last day or so searching for the bios for my A-Trend ATA-N235-SX1 Intel 845, Socket 478, ATX motherboard, but I can not find A-Trend's website i've been to everything atrend.com, a-trend.com, atrend.com.tw, and even the website on my manual riascorp.com. Another problem is i cant find my motherboards CD that has the awdflash.exe and a bios i think. So I guess my question is does anyone now of the A-Trend website or a place Where i can find the bios and a flash program (and preferably a guide of how to do it so i dont screw up my computer) for my motherboard. Or if anyone has any ideas of how to fix it too would be great.

And thank you in advance....

heres my bios info

BIOS v6.00PG Award Modular
BIOS-I-2M (2k010903)
09/03/2001-i845-ITE8712-6A69VPRBC-00
soupy
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Flash your BIOS at your own risk.
mavsman
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trying these now
mavsman
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Okay I tried all of those and the first one even got it to say Updated DMI pool success.
after this I realized something, the last time I could boot into Windows I believe I brought my Harddrive over 137gb. Is it possible that now because it is over that the motherboard cant read it to boot up? This makes me lean towards flashing a new bios but i still cant find atrend's website, and Im waiting on hearing back from the AwardBios people
soupy
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That's probably the reason. Is there a jumper on there to limit the size?

Also, how do you know it's Atrend? Their manufacturer code is A2, not PR.

According to your BIOS id, you have a VTech/PcPartner or Aristo board...which is oem Supergrace.

http://www.plasma-online.de/index.html? ... risto.html
http://www.elhvb.com/mboards/vtech/i845bios.html
http://www.elhvb.com/mboards/vtech/aristo.html
Flash your BIOS at your own risk.
mavsman
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The only reason I think it is a Atrend is that the box it came in was a A-trend box and also that the manual says atrend and the pictures inside it looks identical to the motherboard, but it is possible it is something else since I bought it on Ebay. I was looking on the internet today and I found a upgrade to which i believe is my bios. I believe it had the same ID string and it had SDRAM which mine had and ATX which mine us and the original date of that bios is 9/01 which is what my bios says it is so i think that is right, but im not sure and since this is pretty major mistake if i screw it up im not sure if I should risk it. Are bios based on the motherboard or the chipset? My friend believes it is the chipset which the bios I found is for the i845 and they all seem pretty identical. Are our ideas correct? Any reassurance or suggestions would be great, thanks a lot for the help allready.
mavsman
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im pretty sure there is no jumper on the motherboard limiting the gb but i could be wrong, I know when i had the hard drive on the ide channel it only read 137gb but on the controller it is 250gb but i know that is normal...
NickS
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Nevertheless, it *IS* a PC-Partner board. Riascorp OEMed A-Trend mobos under ATC- and Aristo/Vtech/PC-Partner mobos under ATA-. Check at archive.org for Riascorp archived pages and you'll find all the BIOSes listed for ATA series motherboards match to Aristo models. There's a picture of your board there as well. I guess they all went out under the A-Trend America label. ATA-N235-SX1 = Aristo A235 = PC-Partner 845AS4-235
Just to confirm, your motherboard should have an ID on it somewhere, 200Y532A. Download the 29-May-2002 BIOS from http://210.245.162.138/bios/i845.htm#845, under 845AS4-235.
mavsman
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ive never even heard of archive.org...
this is my motherboard http://web.archive.org/web/200203281413 ... x1_250.jpg

I dont have my computer here at my house at the moment so i cant check on the board for the ID but i think your right. But i found this website with the bios you mentioned but then another updated one, and suggestions?

http://www.aska-hk.com/driver/bios_in_detial.htm
mavsman
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anyone know where i can get that progam for flashing the Award bios?

AWDFLASH.EXE, any trusted sites? thanks
NickS
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mavsman wrote:But i found this website with the bios you mentioned but then another updated one, and suggestions?

http://www.aska-hk.com/driver/bios_in_detial.htm
Good grief, Silver Star Technology, yet another SuperGrace OEM ? Model SST-6830AC is PCB 200Y532A, for anyone else listening in. Details:

Code: Select all

BIOS Version : Phoenix-Award BIOS v6.00PG
   BIOS Info : 01/02/2003-i845-ITE8712-6A69VPRDC-00
BIOS Message : BIOS-I-2M (2K030102B)
I would try it. Pick your awdflash from the archive at http://smokeping.planetmirror.com/pub/a ... ard_flash/
@edwin - worth mentioning on your Vtech/PC-Partner site ?
mavsman
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Like always the more you change the more it stays the same. After waiting for i replay i decided to take the iniative friday to go ahead and try to flash the newest bios i mentioned. I set it up just like my motherboard's manual described. I downloaded the bios from the website and moved that bin file to the dos boot disk with awdflash.exe. When i ran awdflash i tried to save my original bios and i typed in the bios i downloaded. It said it was saving it but i never saw anything that made it seem like it was working so after two hours of it i restarted my computer.
I then tried to just flash the bios and not save. But for some reason it couldnt read the bin file. So then I went back to my other computer and opened winrar and winrared that file and came out with another .bin file. I proceeded to put that file on the disk and booted up my broken computer again. I then ran awdflash.exe and typed in the file name and skipped saving my bios. This time it finally read the bin file and it said checksum with some numbers under the blank for the file name. I then hit yes to flash or whatever and it said that the bios i was using did not match my motherboard.
After being tired of this bios thing and since i was hogging my friends computer i tried to speed things up so i could get my computer to work and then try to fix the bios at my house. So i plugged my harddrive into his computer and booted up on his harddrive. Then, i deleted files until i got way under 137gb. Then i plugged my harddrive back into my computer and tried to boot that up.
When I booted up my computer It first read my cd drives, each on separate IDE channels. Then it brought up my ATA controller program stuff and that read my 250gb harddrive. Then it went to the next then where it mentions all the slave and master drives, which read all my hardware. Then it brought up the PCI slot stuff and the IRQ stuff. No problems.
Then old faithful happened...

"Updating DMI DATA POOL ..............
_ (flashing) "

Then Two blocks went black one was one of the numbers of the PCI ports and the other was a block of one of the border designs. Whenever this had happened before it could never boot up.

And finally two things, what BIOS should i use since this one does not work, and secondly what is wrong with my computer? :) Any ideas or suggestions or even sympathy would be greatly appreciated after this ordeal hits day 5. Could this be cruel virus or has anyone else witnessed something like this before? and last sorry for this long post my hands are tired from typing on this crap laptop.

edit: Now I am leaning towards my hard drive boot up files are currupted. I have now successfully upgraded my bios to the bios you mention in NickS first post. After this i think it is probably not the bios but i realized something that furthered my hunch of my boot up files being screwed up. When ever i try to boot up with my harddrive after the verifying DMi Pool Data and the cursor drops down a few block go missing but i realized that this never happens when i boot from a disk or a cd, could this mean it is the hard drive's fault or is it that the motherboard screws up when it cant read the harddrive even though now it is below 137gb
edwin
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Hmm, could be the new bios uses a slightly different LBA translation from the old one, essentially meaning you can kick off the partitions that are present and start from scratch. There are roughly 25-30 OEMs of Vtech/PcPartner/SuperGrace boards. Some to the present day, other have been in the past.
edwin/evasive

Do not assume anything

System error, strike any user to continue...
mavsman
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Now my video doesnt work. Nothing comes up. But i think something might be messed up. When I turn on my computer from the back the power light stays on all the time before i even start the computer up. Then when i start it up I think it just keeps flashing. If the power light comes on the power must be going through the motherboard so i dont think the motherboard is messed up but it is possible. Anyone know what this could mean? thanks.
NickS
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Try clearing CMOS ?
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