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Azza PT-5VMD; Need BIOS Advice

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2003 10:39 pm
by AzzaUser
There are three BIOS Upgrade choices for my mobo on the Azza site (http://www.azza.com.tw/). Sorry I can't give you the direct link to the download, site won't load for me right now.

The newest BIOS says it's for IO chip: W83877AF. I took the lid off of my machine and I've got IO chip: W83877TF.

The .bin's match exactly in size (my old and the newest). I know how to run an autoexec.bat that will flash the BIOS, restart, then reload the old BIOS if needed. I just haven't flashed the BIOS before and don't want to kill my machine.

Should I attempt using this newer BIOS (for W83877AF) or keep what I've got?

Thanks for any help.

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2003 10:58 pm
by NickS
I get slapped (in the nicest possible way) by the other moderators if I fail to spot the difference between an AF and TF. That suggests to me that there is a signifcant difference. Is there a particular reason why you want to update ?

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2003 11:16 pm
by AzzaUser
I'm running into problems installing XP Pro. It was suggested on another board as per thisarticle that similar install problems occurred with Win2000. A solution was to update the BIOS.

I figured it couldn't hurt to flash my BIOS if I got the right version and I did it right. And hopefully this would help my XP install. :D

Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2003 12:28 am
by NickS
Do you have a fallback route if the other BIOS fails to boot the floppy ? e.g hotflash ?

Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2003 1:32 am
by AzzaUser
No backup plan.

I just read about hotflashing, and that's not an option, so I think I'll troubleshoot my XP install from a different angle. Can't really afford to burn my system at this point, since I haven't exhausted other install-failure scenarios.

Thanks so much for the help, Nick S. I'm learning to be less impulsive after frying a mobo by trying to solder on a keyboard connector (AT form, of course).