Reflash using universal programmer?

Hot-swapping and Boot-Block flash & Boot block flash and floppy support
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shortCircuit
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Hi, I killed my Abit SA6R motherboard after messing with the content in the bios. I just get a long periodic beeps now, with no attempt to boot from the floppy. I popped off the Award bios thinking it's just a flash prom, but found Intel 82802AB Firmware Hub underneath the Award bios sticker.

I also found another Atmel flash. So I'm confused.

1) Where is the bios image kept? The firmware hub has enough storage space for the image, but I'm not sure if the bios is stored there.

2) Can I reflash the Firmware Hub, if the bios is stored there? I'm thinking of just programming it with the bios image file as one giant binary file.

Thanks for any insight.
cp
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Location: Germany

please post what is written on the atmel flash eeprom. if it's socketed it's the bios chip for sure.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/sa6r/images/3.jpg

remove the chip from its socket and flash it in your stand-alone eeprom programmer. use the .bin file that ABit supplies.

but maybe your problem can be solved by clearing the cmos which stores the user's bios settings. there's a jumper right next to the socketed chip that will do the trick.
shortCircuit
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cp wrote:please post what is written on the atmel flash eeprom. if it's socketed it's the bios chip for sure.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/sa6r/images/3.jpg
Atmel's "flash" is ATF16V8C soldered on to the board. From description, it seems to be a PLD with flash based memory.
cp wrote:remove the chip from its socket and flash it in your stand-alone eeprom programmer. use the .bin file that ABit supplies.
Thanks. Will do that. I wasn't sure if the bios provided by Abit requires special offset start address or something. I was planning to program the device from address 0 until the end of the file is reached.
cp wrote:but maybe your problem can be solved by clearing the cmos which stores the user's bios settings. there's a jumper right next to the socketed chip that will do the trick.
No, I actually corrupted the bios including the boot block. I've already tried clearing the CMOS configuration.
cp
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Posts: 1914
Joined: Mon Oct 21, 2002 9:07 pm
Location: Germany

You're right: the Atmel chip is an EEPLD. My guess: the mainboard manufacturer uses it as a glue logic to control some things on the board via the bios (bios->multi i/o's GPI/Os->PLD->function).
So we're back at the Intel chip. The N82802 has a build-in compatibility mode that lets it act like a Flash EEPROM (thank you, Intel :)). So you might even hot-flash it in any other board (also via plcc->dip adapter). General rule: no offset for bios files. good luck!
shortCircuit
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Thanks for your help. Will try it on Monday.
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