Please help me compare TWO Bioses...

[DrewCU]

Hi,

First time poster here. Here is a bit about my issue: I have an Epox 9npa Ultra board with an X2 processor, and sadly it has serious freezing issues related to high-speed USB 2.0 devices used in conjunction with the X2 processor. The only options are to disable a core of the X2 or use USB 1.1, or try and solve the mystery myself. The company Shuttle had this same exact issue with the SN25P and they solved it in their Y Bios back in August of '05.

Sadly, Epox hasn't a clue what to do, and doesn't seem to care, and that's why I am trying to solve it myself if I can. I downloaded the Y Bios and its predecessor the O Bios and also got myself CBROM 6.06, Modbin6, BIOSView 2.0, and AWDEditor. Through using CBROM, I could see some size differences in some of the BIN files, while things like the CPU microcode and dualcore abilities stayed the same. With Modbin6, I saw that nothing major was changed in the SETUPS of either BIOS, so the change must have occurred at the level of the code.

After looking at the code with a hex editor, I realized I wouldn't know what to look for, so my idea was to cut out the parts of the Y bios and put them in my Epox Bios to see whether that would work. I obviously wouldn't want to screw up my machine, so I thought I might be able to do this in Virtual PC 2004, but it wouldn't let me, nor would BIOSVIEW work as it kept telling me it couldn't open 2MBIOS.bin. I tried running BIOSVIEW in a virtual machine thinking that it had something to do with it not running in DOS mode, but got the same issue.

Basically my question is: based on the description of my problem, is there a way to view the BIOS files in an emulated environment, and if not, is there a way to figure out what Shuttle fixed in their Y Bios so I may then tell Epox what to fix?

Thanks so much,

Andrew

[KURIAKI]

They are updating his BIOS too fast.
I don't know if this can be a fix for you:
** Added Special I/O and USB park mode item.
http://www.epox.com.tw/eng/support.php?ps=394&type=1

[DrewCU]

Sadly that wasn't the solution. I have been trying everything I can think of with the current BIOS, but park mode enabled or disabled did nothing for me. I really would like to figure out what was changed between the O and Y Shuttle BIOSes if I could.

Thanks.

[apple_rom]

Some minor changes at stage POST_25h, POST_26h.
And some new CPU-support subs.
Nothing changes in USB detect/initialize.

[DrewCU]

How'd you find that out!!?? I'd really be curious... I know they did something to fix the problem, but it may not have been "USB" related...

[KURIAKI]

Some minor changes at stage POST_25h, POST_26h.
And some new CPU-support subs.
Nothing changes in USB detect/initialize.

Some modules have different sizes, isn't it?

[DrewCU]

The awardeyt.rom and awardext.rom are different sizes, but it looked like the cpumicro code, ACPI table, and dualcore support file look like they haven't been changed (I used a hex editor to compare each from each both BIOS). I'd love to be able to find out how you found out what changed!

[KURIAKI]

Awardeco and a hex editor, Hex Workshop.

[apple_rom]

>How'd you find that out!!??
Try to compare "o" and "y" versions. Unpack and check files 'original.tmp' and 'awardext.rom'.
>Some modules have different sizes, isn't it?
Yes. I was compare by _code_, not by _data_.

[DrewCU]

apple_rom

Thanks for the info. Sadly, I don't quite understand the hex code, but I am guessing you do. Is there some webpage or program out there that can help me make sense of what the hex code means?

[maman]

apple_rom

Thanks for the info. Sadly, I don't quite understand the hex code, but I am guessing you do. Is there some webpage or program out there that can help me make sense of what the hex code means?

For starter, try these two articles:
Pinczakko's Guide to Award BIOS Reverse Engineering
Pinczakko's Guide to Award BIOS Patching

goodluck,

a.k.a Pinczakko

[DrewCU]

Thanks for the tips, but it looks like I may not need them! I finally got Epox TW to ask Shuttle TW for their solution and am using a BETA Bios right now that has been stable for 31 hours. Turns out it was a chipset BIOS issue and it looks like the ACPI table and awardext.rom were changed...

[apple_rom]

>I finally got Epox TW to ask Shuttle TW for their solution and am using a BETA Bios right now that has been stable for 31 hours.
...link to this pls, if you can.

[DrewCU]

Do you have the SLI or non-SLI version? Or do you want to just see what they fixed?

[apple_rom]

only fix.