bios crashed, reprogmed and crashed again

[jak] · Thu Apr 24, 2003 1:27 am

Hi, I´ve a DFI CB50 V3 revA that two months ago went dead, even the boot block was corrupted, don´t know why. I just reprogrammed it with the bios update from dfi and the mobo worked fine, the tech that reprogrammed the flash for me told me he had tested it and the chip was ok.
The chip number is F29C51002T-90PA.

Now, one month later, the bios corrupted again, but this time the boot block seems to work, I haven´t used the bootdisk yet because I want to know what to do. Is the chip damaged? could be a mobo problem?

How about using the bootdisk to reprogram the chip, and then, hot-flash the chip with another (I have a ASD AF29C2008-12 flash chip)?

thanks, and sorry for my english.

Thu Apr 24, 2003 2:09 pm

Did the Tech re-flash the chip in a programmer, or Hot-Flash it?

If he used a real programmer, he could have verfied that the chip is OK. If that is the case, you could have a motherboard problem which is somehow enabling the /WR line to the chip and causing your failure.

See if he used a programmer or not, and if so, see if he can check your chip again. Maybe he can do some more extensive testing on it, as it may go corrupt when it gets hot or cold, and not at ambient. He should also be able to do a verify on what is loaded in it, and match it to what he put in there the first time.

Thu Apr 24, 2003 2:12 pm

- Sure you haven't got a virus ? There were one or two which could damage the BIOS on certain chipsets.
- Have you turned it off while it was updating ESCD/DPMI information ?

As for using a different type of 2Mb flash, it will depend on the chps and the flash routines in the BIOS which are used to store the ESCD/DPMI info. If the chips use the same protocol, there should be no problem. If they're different, the BIOS needs to support both.

[jak] · Fri Apr 25, 2003 2:39 pm

Hi, thanks for your answers.

Did the Tech re-flash the chip in a programmer, or Hot-Flash it?

yes, he did use a programmer, but don´t know wich one, if there is diferent ones. He told me he tested it comparing what he had written in the chip with the original bin file. I will talk to him asking to retest it, thanks.

- Sure you haven't got a virus ? There were one or two which could damage the BIOS on certain chipsets.

I erased all the partitions on the hdd the first time the bios get corrupted and reinstalled, so I dont think is a virus problem. Also, the pc is not connected to a network and I´ve scanned every floppy I could have used.
perhaps I should scan my burned cdroms, thanks.

-Have you turned it off while it was updating ESCD/DPMI information ?

No.

The ASD flash chip I could use to hotflash is equivalent to the winbond w29C020, for what I been told. I´ve found the manufacturer of the posibly dead one, is Mosel Vitelic, but this model is not on their list of products, so I couldn´t find a datasheet.

Do you know if this moselVitelic chip is equivalent to the ASD chip or winbond w29c020?

is hotflash a good option? Do I have to use uniflash or I could use the award utility?

Thanks a LOT, and sorry for my english

[/quote]

[jak] · Fri Apr 25, 2003 2:44 pm

I´ve found that the V29C51002T, wich is in the product list of mosel with its datasheet, is similar to my dead F29C51002T.

How could I know if it has similar writing/reading protocols with the ASD or the Winbond?

Fri Apr 25, 2003 2:44 pm

No need to apologise for your English - it is very good.

Do you know if this moselVitelic chip is equivalent to the ASD chip or winbond w29c020?

I recommend you "private message" Rainbow, who maintains Uniflash.

is hotflash a good option? Do I have to use uniflash or I could use the award utility?

I have used hotflash a couple of times successfully. It should work with either Uniflash or AWDflash. I can't remember which I used.

Fri Apr 25, 2003 7:43 pm

I think that the W29C020C should work - it's used on many boards. ASD chips are 99.9% Winbond compatible (ASD AE29F1008 = W29EE011, AE29F2008 = W29C020C).

[jak] · Fri Apr 25, 2003 8:40 pm

thanks for answering me.

Next monday I will take the bad one (mosel vitelic) and the ASD to the tech, who will test the bad one again and in case any errors arrise he will flash the ASD, if it is compatible with the mosel vitelic.

One more question, the tech said the programmer is not as fast as the pc reading the module, so he may get no errors while testing. If this true?

thanks in advance.

PD: thanks NickS, if those english teachers that I had in high school could hear that now!

Fri Apr 25, 2003 10:09 pm

Better have flashed both chips. We already had some dead SyncMOS chips here...

Sat Apr 26, 2003 4:42 pm

The Tech should be able to read and write test patterns to the chip to verify its integrity. He should also be able to erase it completely. I don't think speed has anything to do with it.

Sun Apr 27, 2003 12:08 pm

[jak] wrote:One more question, the tech said the programmer is not as fast as the pc reading the module, so he may get no errors while testing. If this true?

Potentially, yes. Some programmers have a facility to verify the device at different speeds (e.g. Stag PP40 used to) whereas some did not and would verify all devices at the lowest speed (e.g Data I/O 6B, IIRC).