Need help with my "unkown bios type" ASUS P2L97

[John B]

Hello all,
I just threw together a little frankenstien out of some of my old hardware including an ASUS P2L97 rev 1.05 MoBo and a PentiumII slot 1 CPU @ 266Mhz.

I tried to update tp the lates bios to support modern HDDs and CPUs (although this is unneccissary with my CPU) but I am getting the cannot program ROM due to unkown bios type deal. I thought maybe a bios protect jumper but I cant see one in the manual available from ASUS web site or on the board. The manual says that it means the ROM is not programmable but I am not giving up that easy! Why would there be a Bios revision if the bios was not programmable?!

Anyway after doing some GOOGLE group searching I see that in this boards hayday ASUS used a different flashing programm, actually two, called "PFLASH.EXE" and IIRC "FPFLASH.EXE". Some of the posts mentioned that my Bios is a 2M (two mega bit) type ROM and my board having the early revision does not contaian the thermal sensor add on chip.

Anyway since I am not at home now I cannot give the specific chip number from the bios but I was thinking maybe someone could tell me if the older PFLASH.EXE may allow me to write the bios where as the newer AFLASH.EXE doesn't recognize my chip. Failing that maybe someone has an additional suggestion. Thanks for any input in advance.

[Rainbow]

Check if you have the hardware monitoring chip on your board - go into BIOS SETUP -> Power Management and see if there are voltages and temperatures displayed.
Then download the latest BIOS here:
ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIOS/S ... 10__04.zip
or here (without hardware monitor):
ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIOS/S ... 10m_04.zip.

First try flashing using AFLASH ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIOS/B ... ash221.zip. If it fails, try PFLASH ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIOS/B ... ash_16.zip or UniFlash http://www.uniflash.org

[John B]

OK thanks, I do not have the hardware moniter as that was added to the 2.XX revision and mine is the 1.05. I already did try the AFLASH but with the 1009 not the beta you suggested. Any idea what improvements the beta 1010.XX offers? I see no information. Anyway AFLASH did not work so I was trying to find PFLASH thanks for that. I will try it when I get home and let you know.

[Rainbow]

There might be the 64GB bug in the 1009 version, limiting maximum HDD size to 64GB. The 1010 BETA 4 should work with HDDs up to 128GB.

[John B]

Thanks for the help, PFLASH worked perfectly and easily recognized the intel flash ROM which AFLASH could not identify. I am now successfully running the 1010.04 beta bios and as it turns out I do in fact have the LM75 or whatever chip per a physical inspection of the board so I have used the relevent driver. I appreciate the help.