hotswap different mvp3 bios

Hot-swapping and Boot-Block flash & Boot block flash and floppy support
Post Reply
ngox
New visitors - please read the rules.
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2003 11:34 pm

Hi..,

I have some question.

recently I misflash my mvp3 (super 7 PcPartner with Award bios) mobo due to confusing 2 .bin file in 1 bios update. Can I just use another bios (I believe it's mvp3 too but slightly different mobo layout) to boot up my pc and then flash it using my original backup bin? Since I don't think I had enough courage to do hotswaping.

Pcpartner posting in their website that my mobo use 2 Mbit bios. How can I tell that the other bios can be compatible with my original bios? Is it the serial number?

Can I just hotswap bios ( viarena technique ) using totally different kind of mobo / bios but had the same kind of socket?

I really hope this will work. Thank you for your kind concern


ngox
ajzchips
El cheapo dude
Posts: 3048
Joined: Sat Mar 23, 2002 12:41 pm
Location: Madrid, Spain

The mobos have to be of the very same chipset and super I/O chip, and even in this case there's no guarantee it'll power-on.
Denniss
BIOS Guru
Posts: 3153
Joined: Thu Mar 21, 2002 8:16 pm
Location: Near Hannover (CEBIT) Germany
Contact:

It's possible to boot your working mainboard and exchange Bios Flashrom to reflash the dead chip .
But your working Board has to support the flash voltage and Flashrom size of the dead chip - voltage might be no problem but size might be a problem
ngox
New visitors - please read the rules.
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2003 11:34 pm

I see.

So the main thing are, identical or less mobo with the same chipset and and same bios size.

I found some not so identical bios with very little difference pci/pnp number - 586 xxxxxxxxx - (I guess it is mvp3 mobo same as mine maybe Gigabyte or tyan..) but since PcPartner specially state that my bios is 2 mbit (256k .bin file), how do I chek the size?

also I read that my SynCMOS (especially PcPartner mvp3) bios tend to corrupt or create garbage when flashing. How do I resolve this?

How about inserting the not so identical bios to my mobo, boot and flash them with my backup .bin?

What does super IO mean and how to chek them?

Thank You..
Denniss
BIOS Guru
Posts: 3153
Joined: Thu Mar 21, 2002 8:16 pm
Location: Near Hannover (CEBIT) Germany
Contact:

You only need a mainboard with the same Bios Flashrom socket for a Hot-Swap but i must support the flashrom size - not all boards with 128KByte Flashrom support flashing a 256KByte flashrom but vice versa usually no problem
I used an Asus P2B Slot-1 mainboard and swapped/flashen from 486 to Athlon Bios without problems as this board supports 5V/12V flash and 128/256KByte Flashroms
Post Reply