BIOS Updates forum

Please help!
I'd been having an intermittent hang on the IBM Aptiva splash screen and sent IBM an email about it. They suggested support methods and one of the suggestions was to download BIOS and other driver info. I thought "aha - I can see what's new for my model Aptiva".

I went out to their website and saw that there was a new BIOS. I decided to give it a try. I downloaded the file to my desktop then extracted the necessary files to my diskette. I closed all my open apps then left the diskette in the floppy drive - shutdown the computer then restarted it to start the BIOS flash program. I saw "This program will now update the BIOS of your Aptiva. Please refer to the readme.txt file included with this diskette for further instructions." They prompted me to press "any key" to continue which I did. It looked like it was moving along and then I saw "Program Flash ROM Error - press any key to continue". Herein lies the problem.

At that point, I could NOT press any key to get out of it. I had to shutdown the PC. When it came up, it started looking for Windows files. It prompted me for three files - ati.vxd (I believe this is for my monitor) and es1688.drv as well as es1688.vxd (for the audio). I had to skip those files as I could not get it to point to where the files are. I don't know if the BIOS corrupted my pointers to the drives or what.

Here are the devices that have question marks next to them:

1) ATI VGA Wonder
2) EOS D30 (my digital camera)
3) ES1688 AudioDrive
4) Printer Port

In addition, I can't get to the internet so I'm using my company laptop to get to virtualdr.com.

I noticed that ati.vxd and one of the es1688 files are under two cab folders - Driver20.cab and Driver21.cab BOTH of which I have on my hard drive now so why isn't it finding those files?

I'm so confused and frustrated. Someone told me to start from scratch but I don't think I need to yet.

Please, please, please - if you have a solution, I'd love to see it. I'm sure I'll be up all night.

1) See if you can get into bios and reset the bios to the defaults.
2) Cab files are the compressed versions of the installed file. Most will like this abcdef.ex_ indicating that it is compressed.
3) You can try to uncompress the files inquestions and install them manually into the correct directories. You might to search for .vxd and see where most are and try that. Same with the .drv. Look for ati*.* and EOS*.*
4) You can try to reinstall the drivers for the missing ones.

Thanks for your advice. I called the IBM folks twice yesterday (my phone bill will be enormous at $2.99 per minute!). As we were trying to get the system working, we encountered an Explorer error and they said that wasn't good. They recommended I start from scratch so I put in the Aptiva Recovery/Diagnostics CD and started all over.

Once the recovery finished, Windows came up but had a problem with the display. It wasn't loading properly. The IBM tech rep had me put in the CD again and we typed in a path for the driver but it still had a problem. He finally said that I'd need to go to IBM Aptiva's website to get the driver for my system (one for AGP and one for IDE). I went out there and downloaded the AGP driver and it did nothing. After wasting half a day on this (and on a work day no less), I gave up and have brought the PC into my office for another tech person to look at.

The problem I'm seeing in the Device Manager is that the following devices are missing:

- the correct display
- my ethernet card adapter
- my modem
- usb stuff
- printer port

It's a mess now. I sure don't know what that incomplete BIOS flash did, but I'm concerned that this will cost me a new PC.

Thanks for your help though.

Try reinstalling windows from regular CD, not the IBM recovery CD. I tried once to use the recovery CD on IBM ThinkPad 770X notebook, but it failed after a while - simply crashed. Then I installed Windows 98 from original Microsoft CD and everything went fine...
If this does not help, try updating the BIOS again - maybe it will be successful, maybe it will kill the machine completely. Double check that you downloaded the correct BIOS upgrade.

Thanks for your reply.

My coworker looked at my PC this morning and tried flashing the BIOS (like I did). He encountered the same problem I did (stall then hang). After that, he tried using the Aptiva Diagnostics CD to run tests. It stalled at the CMOS section and then hung. He had to power it off then it wouldn't power on. Lastly, he set the BIOS to the defaults and it was still "dead in the water". His recommendation was for a new motherboard. I spoke with IBM and they want about $270 for their motherboard but they recommended another vendor so I'm waiting for their price quote.

Thanks again.

That does not surpise me.... Off warranty therefore no need to just send a bios chip. But, maybe it is soldered in...

I think that the final solution is to buy new computer, this time non-IBM (and also non-Compaq).

Rainbow wrote:I think that the final solution is to buy new computer, this time non-IBM (and also non-Compaq).

Dude, you're getting a Dell!