Problems flashing ASUS A78NX-E Deluxe BIOS (Award)

[aurorum]

Hello...

I've been having some serious trouble with my ASUS A78NX-E Deluxe mb (rev 1.01)... few days ago I turned it on and had some message about checksum error in the BIOS, after few resets the PC went back on and I decided to flash the BIOS in case it was corrupted... that was a real mistake...

Since that moment I haven't been able to get my PC up & running again. I've been reading different articles all over the net, specially some good posts here at wimsbios.com... I've been taking the battery off for hours, resetting many times, checking floppy disk, creating boot disks and so on...

I finally got to workarround the annoying BootBlock with dos-freak "awdblock" great utility... I couln't get uniflash to work so I'd have to work with the regular AWDFLASH 8.24B downloaded from ASUS website...

Now I'm stucked because the flash process fails every time (it shows some red blocks while trying to flash the BIOS chip) and I got this this message:

Flash ROM is Write-Protected

and this one:

Please make sure whether lockout jumper is set correct or not

Here's an screenshot where you can see both messages:



I've also downloaded different BIOS revisions to try, but nothing different...

The great thing is that this mb doesn't have any lockout jumpers (at least not that I'm aware of) and I don't know for sure if I should give up on this and get the RMA for the mb or buy the BIOS on badflash.com... I would rather fix it myself since I live outside US and I'd be a real problem to have a RMA from ASUS...

Well, I'll be happy to hear from any of you guys because I'm kinda lost now...

Thanks!!!

[Ritchie]

I think your original problem could have been that you may have just had had a dying battery.

You managed to perform the original flash which upset things, so if you haven't modified any jumper settings you shouldn't have any flash protection enabled. And with bootblock BIOS you probably cannot get into BIOS setup to check flash protection in there either.

Probably try bootblock with Uniflash and definitely the correct BIOS, and see if this will let you flash. If that is sucessful I would probably replace the battery next, and if you are then back to where you started you can start looking at the original problem if it still exists.

[aurorum]

Thanks for your post Ritchie...


I also think the original problem was a dying battery... I think I rushed things a little bit with the first flash I tried to make...

As for Uniflash, I've tried to use it and the PC won't load it right... when I load it via autoexec.bat or manually the computer hangs up and I have to reset... besided I'm not sure if could manage Uniflash not to erase bootblock because I think that part of the BIOS is working OK (so far...) and I don't know how to disable the bootblock overwrite function on Uniflash...

I think the only flasher I could use is awdflash.exe and that's the one giving me the weird screens I posted earlier...

What do you think? Is there any other flasher I could use???


Thanks again for your help, take care

[Ritchie]

Use your Uniflash boot disk withe the BIOS flashing bootdisk from www.bootdisk.com and this will clear up any memory issues, etc., that may prevent your from sucessfully running Uniflash.

Also, if I were you, I would overwrite the bootblock when reflashing if the bootblock was overwritten when you flashed the current BIOS image.

[aurorum]

Hello...

I've used the Dr.DOS boot disks without success... I finally booted the PC with a W98 startup disk with just the basic files (no autoexec.bar nor config.sys, etc.)... I'll check my floppies thought because I'm not sure they're ok. I'll get some brand new ones and I'll let you know how it turns out...

The first time I failed flashing the BIOS it didn't overwrote the bootblock sector of the BIOS, I remember the flash software giving me some warning because it wasn't able to write to that sector... that's why I think my bootblock it's ok... I wouldn't like to take a chance with that yet... not until I'm almost certain that the BIOS chip is useless... I would then try that or call badflash.com...

I'll let you know if I manage to run Uniflash... would you know how to make it not overwrite the bootblock?

take care, thanks.

[Ritchie]

If you read the Uniflash options carefully and take care when using them the method to flash without the bootblock should become apparent by itself. I cannot remember the options without looking at it myself.

If your previously flash failed to update the bootblock I suspect your problem may be due to a mismatch between the bootblock code and the rest of the BIOS.

[Rainbow]

Uniflash does not work on boards with nForce2 chipset - no documentation available...

[aurorum]

Hello Rainbow...


If I can't use Uniflash then... do you have any idea how could I solve this problem???... I've tried today with a couple of brand new floppies and a brand new floppy drive and nothing... I've got the errors flashing with AWDFLASH...

On the other hand I could manage today to load Uniflash and it recognices the nVidia nForce2 chipset but I didn't want to try if I could flash since the only option I have is to flash it overwriting the bootblock and I don't want to overwrite it... (not yet at least)...

What options do I have?

Thanks for all the help...


Bye,
aurorum