BIOS problems

[muppet]

hey.. i was directed to this site by a freind of mine, who has had problems in the past.

I drive an AOpen AX4SPE-UN (i know, its crap)

basically, when i bootup my computer i receive the usual

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Nvidia GeForce4ti (blah blah blah)
64MB RAM

but directly after that, but before it enters the proper bios (1024MB OK page) she says:

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Award BootBlock BIOS v1.0
Copyright (c) 2000, Award Software. Inc.

BIOS ROM checksum error

Detecting floppy drive A media...
INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

i tried unpluggin the disk drive, and it said:

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BIOS ROM checksum error

Detetcting floppy drive A media...
Drive A error.  System Halt.

naturally, i try putting a boot disk in, whilst the drive was plugged in, however acheived the same result as the 1st example, only +

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Drive Media is : 1.44MB

i also tried resetting the cmos, by removing the battery ,changing the jumper, reinserting battery, and changing jumper back.

[PeteV]

Hi!

All that is just normal, "she" is giving you the chance to flash the probably corrupted BIOS by the boot-block flash procedure.

So, what contents did you have in the boot diskette?

You should have, of course depending on which diskette OS to boot with it, e.g. the command.com io.sys msdos.sys files, and the flash executables and the right! flash file.

There is several posts on these pages describing which these should be, in some case the triplet autoexec.bat uniflash.exe and xxxxxxxx.bin will do it, in some case maybe some others, and sometimes the awdflash.exe will be asked and then it is the only one accepted, and so on ...

Happy trials!

Best regards,

Pete V.
Helsinki, Finland

[muppet]

umm.. i used XP Pro to make the disk.. which contains:

KEYB.COM
MODE.COM
DISPLAY.SYS
EGA2.CPI
EGA3.CPI
EGA.CPI
KEYBOARD.SYS
KEYBRD2.SYS
KEYBRD3.SYS
KEYBRD4.SYS

it may be my boot disk that is stuffed :\

[soupy]

Nope. Make a bare DOS boot disk. See FAQ # 9.

[muppet]

okay, considering im quite the noob here..
by plain old MSDOS boot disk, you mean, what? just an AutoExec.bat and a command.com or something?

also, i know very little about making a .bat file, so i cant really follow FAQ#9 very wll

[soupy]

Ok, have a look at this:

http://www.amptron.com/documents/Recover.pdf

[muppet]

alright, i followed that guide, and when it finised writing, my computer just reset, then i got the same messages again :s

[PeteV]

Hi!

Sorry, hard to say too much about the problem so far with so few details.

Please, tell e.g.

- which files did you have on the booting diskette now?
- did you have the video screens visible during the boot?
- did you try to flash to R1.11 or maybe R1.05 BIOS?
- did you try to use a BIOS .exe or a flash program, which one?
- which BIOS file did you use, pin111.bin or .exe, or wpin111.exe?
- what exactly steps there were processed successfully?
- what was the final state/message?
etc. etc.

Please, check also the FAQ's on the AOpen page -> http://club.aopen.com.tw/faq/default.as ... ge=English -> Top 10 FAQ's -> Motherboards, and you may come for example to the page -> http://club.aopen.com.tw/faq/FAQ_showAn ... ge=English

Best regards,

Pete V.

[edwin]

http://www.bootdisk.com

get the drdos for bios flashing, put floppy in drive, execute file, it will create a clean boot disk.

you need to use the plain old DOS version of the flash utility and the plain old DOS version of the .bin file, copy both to the disk

use notepad to edit an autoexec.bat together with only

<flashutility-name>.exe <bios-filename>.bin

in it. you may have to rename it from autoexec.bat.txt to autoexec.bat after saving. copy that to the disk too. cross your fingers, put it in the machine and power on.

[muppet]

i used the DrDos flash disk off www.bootdisk.com

in response to PeteV

-files on floppy = COMMAND.COM, AUTOEXEC.BAT
-Screen visible
-tried revisions 1.00, 1.05, and 1.11
-flash program was "PENxxx.EXE ('xxx' corrosponding to revision)
-flash file was "PENxxx.BIN" ('xxx' corrosponding to revision)
-umm.. started the flash program, it found out some stuff, then pressed Y to go onto flashing, it wrote all the little blocky things, but as soon as it hit the last one, Reset... there was no message saying "completed." or anything, even when i told it not to auto reset.

also, i have an AGP video card (Nvidia GeForce 4ti 4200 64MB) and i still see crap on the screen, which is contradictory to stuff i've read.

[PeteV]

Hi!

Things seem quite OK, but if it doesn't work, there must still be some deficit on the procedure/data, or maybe some bad block on the BIOS chip, which will cause an abnormal ending ...

Maybe best still to try to get some advice for the penxxx usage from the AOpen support.

As for my understanding, when booting with the bootable floppy, the boot will begin with executing the procedure given in the autoexec.bat, which should be activating the penxxx.exe flashing the penxxx.bin into the BIOS, that simple it should be. But if there is some special trick involved ... I'm just wondering e.g. how the penxxx.exe recognizes the penxxx.bin, maybe the reference is included in the .exe code, or maybe it should be given as a parameter just after the .exe, but how to give it, just plain or with some preceeding mark/character? So, just to check, which lines did you have in the autoexec.bat and how did you give the .exe command there?

Regards,

Pete V.

[ruelnov]

As you have gone this far, there are 6 things I suspect that's causing the problem:
1. Incorrect version of flash utility
2. Incorrect command switches used with the flash utility
3. Corrupt bios image file used in flashing
4. Bad RAM
5. Defective floppy drive
6. Bad bios rom blocks/Defective motherboard

Let's try to correct the problem by addressing the issues above in the order that they are written.

1. If your bios image file is Award V6 or V6PG, use the latest version of award flash utility (8.22 recommended). This version works equally well with award bios v4.5xx. You don't have to use your motherboard's manufacturer flash utility, as the flash utility for award bioses is standard. It's just the filename that' is changed by the mainboard manufacturer.

2. I have no problems using the following command switches for award flash utility: awdflash yourbios.bin /py/sn/sb/cc/cp/cd/cks/LD/QI

It is important to use the /sb switch so that your bios bootblock area is not included in the flashing process, and so you could still see the boot block screen afterwards when things go wrong during flashing.

You should see a completion message at the end of the process because we omitted the /R switch.

3. If you are unsure that your downloaded bios image file is not corrupt, try downloading another copy. Or you may try running BIOS PATCHER to correct the errors before you flash it into your bios. I have used it several times and it worked well. Version 4.1 can be downloaded at www.ROM.by

4. Try replacing your RAM Module with a known good one. 32Mb is already adequate for the flashing process.

5. To eliminate a defective floppy drive as the cause, try replacing your existing floppy drive with a known good one (from your friend. maybe).

6. If your problem persists after correcting the issues as above, then I would be inclined to believe that it's your bios chip/mainboard that's messed up.