AMI upgrade failure. Won't recover from floppy.

Hot-swapping and Boot-Block flash & Boot block flash and floppy support
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ALJ
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Hope the subject was describing enough... Tired of seeing all the "HEEELP!!!!!!!!!"-topics everywhere... If you start a topic in "My motherboard is dead" I guess everyone can figure out that you need help... But whatever.

OK, first I tried to upgrade my Gigabyte GA-7ZM to the newest BIOS (AMI). When I loaded up the flash program from their website on a floppy it wouldn't let me update. I HAD removed flash protection in BIOS. It said something like "can't find chipset" and after that "make sure flash protection is disabled".

Then I found a tool @BIOS (Gigabyte's own program) and tried updating through that. It found the right driver (there was only one to choose from) and started updating. But. It stopped at 16% and stopped responding. Shortly after my PC crashed forcing me to restart. OK. Not good. I restarted the system but of course it didn't boot. I saw then that it was scanning the floppy-drive over and over and was pretty happy that I would probably be able to recover.

I have now tried with both my backup and the new driver. Format a floppy, put on a AMIBOOT.ROM and booting the machine from it. It starts up and starts reading from the floppy for about 10-20 seconds. I don't think I have the speaker on my motherboard connected. So I let it work for 10 minutes instead of 4. I shut it down, took out the floppy and turned on the computer again. But. It just starts up EXACTLY like when I had just restarted my system. Just scanning the floppy-drive over and over.

What should I do? It sounds like a new mobo to me... :(
ALJ
NickS
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It's a bit worrying when their own flash utility doesn't recognise the chipset. Are you 100% sure it was the right BIOS for the board - it's not a Time/Tiny/Whatever Computers OEMed version with on-board graphics, etc ?

This may sound stupid, but it has been known for people to find out that the floppy was faulty, or even the drive. Can you verify those elsewhere ?

In the last resort - is the BIOS chip soldered to the board, or is it in a socket ?

I know what you mean about the subject - thanks.
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
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ALJ
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I'm sure it's a GA-7ZM - I'm sitting here with the box right now! :) And I HAVE checked it on the mobo too... I downloaded a ned BIOS from here:
(The one in the top)
http://uk.giga-byte.com/support/viakt133.htm#link7zm

And I tried with both the program on the driver CD and a newer version I downloaded. Before I tried the Windows-based version. *!#% Windows.

I'll try a new floppy-disc.

ALJ
ALJ
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*UPDATE*

I've connected my speaker to the motherboard. When I boot up it beeps one time. Then, it reads my boot-floppy for around 10 sec. After that it beeps 7 times and loops it (around 3 seconds between each 7-beep interval)

Anyone know what it means? Probably an error, beause it doesn't wait for the 4 minutes and then play 4 beeps. It just starts beeping a little sympony right away.
Kim
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Hi.

I have the same board, and i'm in excactly same situation as you. @bios crashed at 16%, no reboot posible, and no floppy recovery. My motherboard beeps 10 times in cycles, and i don't know what to do.....

Maybe i'll buy a new bios-chip, but i'll try to find anyone who has an eprom programmer, so that i can get my bios flashed outside the computer.

:roll: - Giga-byte online-support sucks.......
Rainbow
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Powering up with Ctrl+Home pressed does not read from floppy?
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
Kim
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Ctrl+home or not.... it loads from floppy (amibios.rom), but somehow it can't flash the bios.
Denniss
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Please use a copy of the previous installed Bios - you may need to doenload from Gigabyte if not saved before flashing .
Seems the newer Bios has a different Emergency/Bootblock Bios not working with the Bootblock still alive in your chip .
I had the same with a FIC SD-11 - I had to test 5 different Bios with Amiboot.rom until I found a working one .
Kim
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Now i've tried 6 different bios files, all possible downloads for my motherboard..... none worked :evil:
NickS
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I know that it wasn't you to whom I said this earlier in the thread, but
NickS wrote:In the last resort - is the BIOS chip soldered to the board, or is it in a socket ?
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
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Kim
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it's in a socket, i think the chip is called PLCC (I'm not sure)
NickS
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As the final option, you could try removing the BIOS chip and either having it programmed by someone who has an EEPROM programmer, or "hot swap" flashing in another mobo - with a PLCC this is not easy. (Wim's BIOS main site FAQ #9). See Rainbow's guide at http://rainbow.host.sk/www/hardware/hotflash.html.
(A PLCC has contacts on all 4 sides)
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giordi
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I had the same problem as you have: several beeps after reading from floppy (five beeps), but after reading a lot here and there I solved it. It seems to be that when the system tryes to read from the floppy drive there is hope. But if the disk has other archives than the right ROM renamed to amiboot.rom, it won't work. So check for hidden system files in the disk and try again. I have a topgun M575 Motherboard, and it worked for me.

Good luck
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