BIOS Updates forum

Hello, i was an happy owner of an asus p2b-f with bios v1004 B003 running at 133Mhz, with a celeron tualatin 1200@1600Mhz installed on a slot-t adapter......

......Until the p2b-f (plus other things) DIED due to a short-circuit caused by a defective multiple alimentation plug.

From that moment i live in an odissey, running here and there searching for another BX-based motherboard who supports my celeron tualatin.

I've found some stuff but it was or a via chipset or was only with the 133Mhz-cpu/44Mhz-pci/88Mhz-agp option, and at 44pci/88agp the system was totally unstable.

Finally i found (for few money ) an intresting SHUTTLE AB61 v1.4 , it has hip6004bcb voltage regulator that is ok for tualtin + an ICS9248DF-39 clock generator, thatsupports clocks until 150Mhz, and a CPU/4 divider for pci clock. The bios it's the classic AWARD MODULAR BIOS V4.51PG

That's an ideal situation but.... also with the last available bios (v2.3, file AB61S023.BIN), the board does not post.

So i planned to upadate the bios with some methods learned here around, but i had some problems, here they are:

1) first i tried to process the original bios with bios patcher v4rc_F running in pure dos mode without nothing loaded in the memory, but the program always returned me this error message:"0012: NO MORE MATCHING FILES!"
What this means? i typed the right filename with the correct syntax... for example i typed:"BP AB61S023.BIN /E", an the program returns me the error.

Can someone tells me how to workaround?

2) I've extracted form an ausus TUSI-M and isolated in a .BIN file the 06B4 tualatin microcode, then i have extracted the CPUCODE.BIN from the original motherboard bios (AB61S023.BIN)

but now i don't know exactly how to merge the 06B4 microcode with the original mainboard's CPUCODE.BIN, ad also i don't know how to re-assemble the whole bios.
I readed a documentation abaut modifyng the cpucode with an hex editor, bit it's a little bit out of my capabilities.

And also that procedures is referred to an *asus specific* award bios structure (that i learned to be different from the others award bioses).

So can somebody help me?

THANKS !

patched with BP4.23 and email sent. waiting for a report.

edwin wrote:patched with BP4.23 and email sent. waiting for a report.

Thanks edwin, i tried the patched bios but unlucky it does not work.

Later i understood why i was not able to run bp: some necessary files were missing (a litte confusion with the info, bp author? )

The problem with my shuttle ab61 is:

-it works ok (power on, peripherals, etc)
-it supports clock from 66 to 150mhz, with cpu/pci divider also /4
-it supports manual voltage selection
-it supports almost everything
-BUT it seems not to support my P3 tualatin processor.

And i don't know exactly why: i tried to set all parameters both manually and automatically: fsb, voltage, etc. and the processor warms up, sign that the current arrives. I tried 1.5~1.6 volt (i tried also higher voltages), but the bios, patched or original, does not post.

This is irritating because 99% of the boards i tried (with the correct voltage regulator chips, by the way) support tualatin, also with unpatched bioses.

What can i try?

Thanks

sounds more like a hardware issue than a BIOS thing. are you sure that you slot1-adapter and the tualatin are still okay?

It is possible the cpu micorocode patches are not in the bios. If that is the case we can't help you.

if you just want new microcodes (but i doubt that it will fix your problem):

get cbrom, reall.cod (this came with BP or any other intel cpu microcode patches) and the bios ofcourse :)

fire up a shell and do the following:

cbrom bios.bin /cpucode release
cbrom bios.bin /cpucode reall.cod

that's it.

intel-ia32microcode-<date code>.txt will do as well then?

edwin:
this site features the latest intel microcode patches. the file in the award bios (cpucode module) consists just of the single microcodes pasted to one after another. no unique separator need.
they are stored little endian, while the text files in the above link stores them in big endian. so the text files would not work as such but a simple program could easily be written to strip off all text and convert the data back to little endian and binary :)