BIOS Updates forum

I was adding a new 80GB drive so downloaded most recent bios from gigabyte vF3a. Flash was successful but now bios hags at PCI device listings. I have removed all cards but whatever cards I leave in or remove it hangs when listing the PCI devices e.g serail bus controller, under the IRQ column. I have cleared CMOS and still cannot get to the floppy to boot & reflash the bios.

Anyone have ideas to help??

Load Setup Defaults in Bios and lower FSB to 60 or 66MHz
Maybe some RAM-timings too fast - test only with one stick of RAM

Still no success using 1 stick, even tried different sticks, and bios setup defaults. Could not find bios or board jumper to drop FSB to 60/66.

The GA6BXE has DIP-switches or a jumper block to use FSB66 and maybe some settings for 60MHz .
Are you sure with the identification of your board ?

OK I thought the dip was for chip settings only but it does adjust the FSB also. I will try tomorrow and advise results. Thanks

No luck it still hangs when listing the PCI devices.

[mode=despair]Any USB devices attached ?[/mode]

No usb's attached before or after flash.

I really don't know why this has happened. The flash reported "The program file's part number does not with your system !" but Gigabyte's site said to proceed after ths message so I did and it finished ok. See extract below from Gigabyte's FAQ.

I had earlier flashed to level 6bxe_34 and everything worked ok just didn't recognise my 80gb hard disk. I am suspicious the Gigabyte FAQ is wrong and this has screwed my system. But I have seen other posts on this site to use 6bxe_f3a for my board.

Can anyone offer any other advice???

Q4. I use Award bios flash utility "AF771.exe" or "Awdflash.exe" to update beta BIOS ver. F4b or later version, the flash memory writer show an error message: " The program file's part number does not with your system !" ?
A4. Please ignore this error message, and press "Y" key to continue.

Can you flash back to the older BIOS to confirm it's the BIOS version ?

I kept the original bios but can't boot to floppy - bios hangs before floppy is accessed. It hangs during PCI listings. Current bios reports version f3a during startup. It was successfuly working with bios version 6bxe-34.

Is there a way to force the Award bios into boot block mode? The bios is a Winbond W29G020-12 socketed 32 pin dip. If I can get it to access the floppy I can reflash to earlier bios version. I do not have access to any other mb's with a Award bios to hotflash.

I was researching for further help on this site and discovered "manufacturer altered" boards. My 6bxe was part of a Toshiba M500 server. Could this problem be due to Toshiba modifying the GB 6bxe? Also could powering on the system with the cmos jumper set to clear, damage the board? You can see I am desperate to find a solution as to what this board hangs during boot when listing the pci components. Bios reports correctly, CPU detects ok, RAM detects ok but then hangs before it gets to floppy.

Try disabling the floppy controller in SETUP and 2nd IDE channel (and everything that you don't need to boot) to see if it can boot from HDD.

Disabled controllers but no luck in booting to HDD . Bios still hangs when detecting PCI listings. I have borrowed an old computer with a 32 pin DIP Award bios. It is on an AOpen AP5T board. I don't know how that compares but could I use the hot swap method to reprogram my bios back to original version on the AP5T?

There is a good chance - they are both 2Mbit, but check the programming voltage. 29xxxx=5V, 28xxxx=12V.

Hot flash was a disaster. Award.exe would not work so used uniflash and now computer will not even enter post. I allowed uniflash to write to boot block but write was unsuccessful. Does my original bios saved from awardflash 256k have the complete bios information including the bootblock data? Anyone help where I could go from here?