BIOS Updates forum

Before my message starts, I would like to thank everybody who helped me with getting signed in here. It seems that the bug is fixed.
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Hello everybody,
first I would like to thank you for the great work that you are doing. I apreciate it very much. A couple years ago I bought a Gigabyte GA 686 SLX I always was happy with this bord untill I bought a 40gb harddisk. The board wasn´t able to find it. Thats why I called the Gigabyte Support hotline (already 2 years ago). For every minute that I talked with this guys I had to spend a lot of money but that was okay for me because I thought they could help me. But after I switched to the 7th person I was told "We know this problem very well but we are not going to fix this bug. Its not a big deal to fix it but we won´t do it" When I asked for the reason they told me that I should buy a new Gigabyte mainboard. I answered "Maybe I will buy a new mainboard but it won´t be a Gigabyte. Instead I´ll buy an Asus. They ofered me imediatly support and they did call me back instead of letting me waiting" Well, as I said, that already has been 2 years ago and today, by chance, I found your webside. I couldn´t believe it ! There are guys who are able to fix my problem. I was using the search option and also I was following every link but unfortunatelly nobody did already fix the bug in my mainboard bios. Somewere somebody said "If your bios is not listed here then please post it in the forum" and thats what I am going to do right now hopefully somebody of you can help me.

My Board : Gigabyte GA-686SLX
Flash Signature: 02/23/1999-i440LX-W977-2A69JG0CC-00

As you can see the flash is already updated to the latest bios 2.0
(Feb.23, 1998) as found on the gigabyte support page http://ftp.gigabyte.com.tw/support/temp/686slx_20.zip

I would like to connect a 40gb hd to it and maybe later a 60bd and above.

Taking a look now...

...patched and emailed.

Hi Nicks,
thank you very much for your quick help. Unfortunately it doesn´t work. I flashed the bios and restarted the pc. When I went into the bios I selected the basic menu for the harddrives. All I saw was Primary Drive: and nothing behind it. The system hangs. I rebooted, went to the bios again and started automatic detect. The system showed a 2 at the drive and freezed immediatly. I flashed the bios again but same errors apeared.

I checked the drivetable with modin but everything seems to be correct. Also I tried to get some extra infos to my system. I really hope that you do not give up and try something else. I apreciate your help so very much, you can´t image. There is only one problem. You do all the work and I only sit here and flash the stuff. Is there anything what I can do for you ? If you need help at whatever, please call me and I will do what ever you want. (Almost everything) By the way, I will flash almost everything. I like to try things. But now I beter close this. I always do write down a little book.

BIOS CAPABILITIES TEST REPORT
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Generated by: BIOS Wizard 2.10
Date: May 09, 2003
Time: 15:01

PnP Version : BIOS currently supports latest version 1.0
PCI Version : BIOS currently supports latest version 2.1
PCI IRQ Routing Table : BIOS currently supports this feature
Enhanced Disk Drive
Specification : BIOS doesn't support this feature
DMI Version : BIOS supports minimum version 2.1. Latest is
version 2.3
ACPI Version : BIOS currently supports latest version 1.0
APM Version : BIOS currently supports latest version 1.2
Booting From CD-ROM : BIOS currently supports this feature
Supports ESCD : BIOS currently supports this feature
Can be Updated (flashed) : BIOS currently supports this feature
Can be Shadowed : BIOS currently supports this feature
BIOS Chip in Socket : BIOS currently supports this feature
Supports Selective Booting : BIOS currently supports this feature
Supports LS-120 Booting : BIOS doesn't support this feature
Supports ZIP Booting : BIOS doesn't support this feature
Supports Network Booting : The testing of this feature is not supported by
the current DMI version
BIOS Manufacturer : Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG
BIOS ID : 02/23/1999-i440LX-W977-2A69JG0CC-00
BIOS Date : 02/23/99
BIOS OEM Signon : Intel 440LX AGPSet BIOS V.2.0 patched for 128GB
HDD
BIOS ROM Size : 256K
Chipset : Intel 440EX/LX rev 3
Super I/O Chip : Winbond 83977TF found at port 3F0h

Hey, we're enthusiasts who like to keep old kit working. Don't worry about doing anything for us except giving us feedback. If it works you can say "you're wonderful" and we'll feel happy.

OK, so that patch didn't seem to work. Did you use the /cc /cd /ce switches with the Award flasher ? Some BIOSes have more bugs than Rainbow's patcher can fix at the moment

I'll send you another version to try, patched with apple_rom's patcher.

I havent used the switches but I´ll do it now. I never heard about it. I should use the /? switch even more often. I can´t wait to receive to 2nd bios but 1st Im going to try the switches. Will be back in couple minutes...

Thank you sooo very much !!! It is working now !!! The second file worked perfectly ! (Its the file called 6SLX20BP.BIN) Hopefully you do have some space left for uploading it. Two years I always was angry because I wasn´t able to connect a bigger harddisk to this pc. You solved this problem in a few minutes ! You guys are just great !!

I can´t do your job but if you need help in any way, I would apreciate it if you could give me a call. I would be happy if I could help you too.

Unfortunately, you disabled the HTML on this board so I had to upload a little page to my webspace. I created it in less then 10 minutes however it is just my way to say thank you. If you follow the link then it could happen that you see this lycos advertisement for 10 seconds. (Its just free webspace.) But after that you can see the page. I hope you like it.

http://mitglied.lycos.de/amgfelgen/flash.htm

If I had one wish for free then I would like to know 10% of your wisedom.

Thank you for the tribute (and the dancing rodents), but the credit for that patch goes to apple_rom.
I'm glad we could help.