Hi!
Well, I have had mixed feelings with the update and the whole "BIOS story".
First, the good part: The patched BIOS booted, the HDD auto detection reported zero size for my old 2,1GB HDD, but the startup screen reported the correct 2112MB.
Now to the bad part: The installed LINUX booted much slower than usual, the syslog reporting
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Feb 14 18:02:44 minieis kernel: hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
Feb 14 18:02:44 minieis kernel: hda: error waiting for DMA
Feb 14 18:02:44 minieis kernel: hda: dma timeout retry: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
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Sometimes the system even halted, the HDD LED lightened (it continued afterwards reporting the error above again, but I never had these problems with my old BIOS).
Well, I've done some research, tried all available BIOS and watched the bootup process and syslog closely: The error stated above occurs with BIOS 1.4, 1.5, 1.6b1 and 1.6b1 patched. So it's *no* problem of the patch itself!
BIOS 1.1 (which I had initially installed) and 1.2 are fine, but the syslog reports
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Feb 13 18:22:59 eis kernel: hda: task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
Feb 13 18:22:59 eis kernel: hda: task_no_data_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
Feb 13 18:22:59 eis kernel: hda: 4124736 sectors (2112 MB), CHS=1023/64/63, DMA
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even with these BIOS. With the others, too.
I'm getting the feeling that my old HDD is somewhat broken, though I'm confused about the slowed boot process and DMA error with BIOS 1.4 and above. Currently I'm testing the PC with BIOS 1.2 to be sure this one works.
Perhaps you can patch 1.1 and / or 1.2 which I have sent to you. To be honest: There's nothing of real importance to me in BIOS 1.4 and above.
I will try to get another HDD to test the 1.6b1 patched, though, and will report as soon as possible.
Oh, and before I forget: All BIOS from 1.6b1 and "above" report in the Flash utility, that they were not written for the computer at hand. I think this is because of the beta stadium of 1.6, but kind of irritating (but no problem at all).
Thank you again for your help. Please excuse me bad english.
René