Hot Flash Problems - Im running out of options..

Only for programmers and BIOS gurus with technical questions.
Post Reply
profounded
New visitors - please read the rules.
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2005 4:28 am

I just bought a pcchips board ( P21G rev V1.0), accidently flashed it with a rev 3.1 bios, and killed my system.. I have been trying a ton of things to get this back together without having to go through badflash or some other company (i cant afford it right now :-p thats why i have a pcchips).

- I tried using the bootblock method, but when I turn on my computer, it does not access the floppy drive.

- My bios chip is a AT49LH004 Atmel chip. its a 4mbit chip with 3.3 volts.

I've been trying to hot flash this thing with no luck.. and I do not understand why.

- I live in a dorm and found a friend with a asus A8V Deluxe motherboard with a Pm49FL004 bios which is 512kb (which I believe is a 4mbit chip too). I hot flashed the bios using uniflash and a cdrom boot disk with calerda dos on it, but the flash was unsuccessful.. this is what i noticed. When writing to the chip, the progress bar is all red (should it be green?) when it verifys what was written, it fails. I am using a read only drive while doing this, so keep that in mind (im not sure if thats the issue).

- I have tried all the different tags (-asus and -amiflash, and even tried sticking it into my SMC EZ card with a plcc socket and then trying to flash that... All with no luck.. I tried unlocking the chip, Ive tried flashing without the boot block and more... I have also tried asus's latest dos flash utitly with no luck and both windows and dos versions of ami flash utility.

- I do not understand what the problem is. Is it because I'm using two different motherboard types? Or is it because my bios is corrupt (there is a slight chance that I mat have damaged it somehow maybe)?

- I did not try flashing the Pm49FL004 bios with my motherboard's bios version in fear of messing up two computers; if I try this should it work? Maybe the asus motherboard cannot write to my bios chip correctly?

Im lost and need some more options... I will be trying to hot flash the bios on a shuttle mobo later tonight.. Ill let you know how that goes.

Thanks for any help!
profounded
New visitors - please read the rules.
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2005 4:28 am

Well that was what it was... I guess you cant flash an AMI bios in an asus board for whatever reason.. It flashed successfully with the shuttle system. But for some reason the computer isnt posting... I dont know.. Maybe ill try downgrading the bios to an earlier version
profounded
New visitors - please read the rules.
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2005 4:28 am

I cant seem to figure this one out... Can a bad flash destroy your system? I flashed it with the wrong rev of the P21G at first, but now when I go back to the right rev, I have no luck.. ANyone have any ideas? Im desperate!
ajzchips
El cheapo dude
Posts: 3048
Joined: Sat Mar 23, 2002 12:41 pm
Location: Madrid, Spain

Tried clearing CMOS? Don't you have access to an EEPROM programmer?
profounded
New visitors - please read the rules.
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2005 4:28 am

Yeah, I tried clearing cmos.. Im not sure why, but Uniflasher didnt seem to handle that bios too well..

I flashed later on with AMI Flash 342 and it worked no problem in the shuttle system.

So things I learned:

1- You cant flash a pcchips ami (atmel) chip with an asus mobo
2- Uniflash didnt seem to work with my P21g bios.. Not sure if its just a bad luck flash or so on, but i thought id mention it just in case it helps someone.

Thanks guys!
Arne.F
New visitors - please read the rules.
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2005 4:11 pm

The Pm49FL004 and the AT49LH004 should be compatible (Firmware HUB LPC Flash) but i had a time ago some problems with such asus board. I have tryed to read the chip with an old version of AWDflash.

AWDflash has printed an error "unknown flashchip" while reading and after this the bios was corrupted.

Only newer AWDflash can handle this Firmware Hub flashchips.
organic_matter
New visitors - please read the rules.
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:41 am

having a similar problem with a asus oem board very frustrating
Post Reply