Dead MS-6168 board

Hot-swapping and Boot-Block flash & Boot block flash and floppy support
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OptimusCrime
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hey people,

yep...got a problem.

I bought a IBM 80GB and wanted to flash my bios to let him recognize my hd. I had bios version 1.1 and went looking on the MSI Site for updates, I found 1.2 and v1.3. I started with 1.2 and it worked kinda well (only the monitor turned off in windows :? ). After that I wanted to upgrade to v1.3 and from that point my board is dead.

Now..I wanted to do the amiboot.rom "routine" to recover my bios but from that point I saw that the upgrades from the MSI Site were for an Award Bios while I got an Ami bios!! :oops: I didn't know that one type of board could have different bios chips.

Ok...because of the fact my comp ain't starting I can't tell exactly the bios ID etc. The only thing I can tell is that it says on the board: MS-6168 Ver 2.0. And I've got a Packard Bell system. I only need the correct AMI upgrades for my board, the site of MSI only has Award upgrades.

Can anybody please help me, I know it's a long and confusing story, but I thought I could as well tell the whole story in detaill, thanks in advance.

OptimusCrime
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OptimusCrime
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By the way, the comp makes a few beeps when turned on. 1 long beep followed by two short beeps. :roll:
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NickS
BIOS Bodhisattva
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Joined: Fri May 03, 2002 10:34 am
Location: Thames Valley, UK

I can't find MS6168 in the German support site (?). DO you have a link I can use ?

Beeps - for Award BIOS, there's only that beep code which is "can't initialise video". You could try an ISA video card. The other question is whether it tries to read from the diskette drive, in which case you may be able to set up an autoexec.bat file to flash an older BIOS back into the board.

Switching from AMI to Award - yes, several manufacturers have done that.
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
Emails *will* be ignored unless the subject line starts "Wim's BIOS forum"
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OptimusCrime
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I also looked on the german site, they don't have it. They have some upgrades on the other sides, but only award upgrades.

Here is a link to my board:
http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/bora.htm

I only don't know if I've got the bora or the bora pro, can't find the differences.
The comp looks for a floppy. I tried the upgrades of the site above (ami upgrades) on a floppy but it reads the floppy a while and then it stops. Even if I rename de rom file in AMIBOOT.ROM .

BTW thanks for looking up the beep thing. Got any other ideas for me?

OptimusCrime
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NickS
BIOS Bodhisattva
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Location: Thames Valley, UK

I believe you've got an Award BIOS flashed in there, so the amiboot business won't work. I think you'll have to set up a diskette with an autoexec.bat that includes a command line to invoke the awdflash utility (or Uniflash, as that won't worry whether the existing BIOS is Award or AMI)
e.g. awdflash biosfile.bin /sn /py /cc /cp/cd /R

Either way, remember you need to wait for two or three minutes after the diskette drive stops for the flash program to actually flash the data into the BIOS chip - it's not as fast as writing to RAM.

Looking at the link you gave, I can't see the difference between the Bora and Bora Pro either, but if they are providing different BIOSes there must be something. I didn't see a 1.3 BIOS, either - where did you find that ?
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
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OptimusCrime
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I found the v1.3 upgrade here:
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/b ... ME=MS-6168

But I don't need those upgrades anymore because they are for an award bios. I got Ami bios for sure, it is confirmed in the Slot 1 motherboards table at this page:
http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/pbmb.htm

and there's a sticker on the chip with amibios written on it.

About the waitingtime...I waited everytime for about 10 minutes...looks enough to me.
And the autoexec.bat thing won't help either because the comp doesn't even start. It only looks in the floppy for a Amiboot.rom it doesn't start the normal way.
And the beep thing isn't fixed...I don't have an ISA video card to try. I am wondering....I never had problems with my videocard..why are there suddenly problems with it??


Don't know what else to do :cry:
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NickS
BIOS Bodhisattva
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Joined: Fri May 03, 2002 10:34 am
Location: Thames Valley, UK

You cannot upgrade the AMI BIOS to another AMI BIOS if they haven't got an upgrade for it. Some manufacturers started using Award instead of AMI, for the same board. The latest BIOS you can get for those boards is Award. If I recall correctly, MSI have a note somewhere about flashing one over the other. Uniflash (see the "utilities" link on the main Wim's board" doesn't care what is already there. Don't worry that your old BIOS used to be AMI if the latest BIOS for your board is Award.

I'll check out your link for the 1.3 BIOS, if I can get it to work today - I could not get through to msi.com.tw yesterday.

The problems with your video make me think that the BIOS you last flashed isn't quite right for your on-board video, so may not be for your version of the board.

As I see it there are two possibilities.
1. Maybe you are now in the situation of having an AMI boot block and an Award main BIOS in the BIOS ROM chip, with the AMI bootblock looking for the AMIboot.rom. If so, I guess you need to find any version of AMI BIOS which will restore the board to some sort of working order so that you can flash it again. Have you tried this already ?
2. Maybe you are in the situation that you have a full Award BIOS in the ROM but it isn't right for your board. In that case you need to go down the autoexec.bat route, probably with Uniflash. Have you tried this already ?
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
Emails *will* be ignored unless the subject line starts "Wim's BIOS forum"
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OptimusCrime
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hey nick,

I first wanted to figure the video card problem out. I threw a pci (I used an on board videocard) in it and the beeps stopped. Then I finally saw something on the screen (which I didn't know anything was standing there before I got that pci videocard) like: non system disk....so I had to make a new boot floppy disk with the flashprog and rom on it. And IT WORKED!!!! My motherboard has resurrected!!

Only one little thing....I'm back where I started. Now I got instead of v1.2 version 3.1 but it still doesn't support 80gb hd's!!! :twisted:

But I'm glad it is working now...thanks for all the help Nick..butta if you know another solution...I'm glad to hear it..
I was thinking about trying the award flash (1.3) but that was were the whole problem started.

don't really know what to do right now....thinkin about putting that d@mn hd in another computer. I'll make a new topic about that one. Otherwise it will look a little bit confusing....

butta thanks :wink:

OptimusCrime
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Rainbow
The UniFlasher
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The v1.3 BIOS is pretty new - supports HDDs up to 128GB.
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
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Roland
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I had exactly the same problem with a friends computer it was also a Packard Bell with the 6168 msi motherboard.

I was able to recover it by using the amibios recovery method here http://www.msi.com.tw/html/support/bios/note/boot.htm

As long as you saved your original bios it will work - I had to do it a number of times while try to update to latest award bios - I gave up trying to update it in the end.

If you don't have a copy of your original bios let me know I should be able to get it from my friend.
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