BIOS Updates forum

--Award Bios--
I have a (as said above) MSI 975x Platinum Powerup Edition Mobo. I accidently flashed the bios for the regular 975x plat mobo, and now I don't get a post screen. I have 2 ways of fixing it but they both failed. I first tried to hot-flash it using another board that uses the same bios chip socket, but unforunately the flashing utility said it was the wrong bios for the board, if I do this I need to know a way to force BIOS update reguardless of the incompatability issues (due to hotflash on a different board). Or I can pray that the recovery sector of the bios is still intact, and has the info to just boot from the floppy drive and no video (unless for some weird reason my mobo has ISA video).

So I need an answer for either or, or both would be great:
A: How do I force a hotflash on a different board?
B: How do I get the old mobo to start from the floppy with its recovery b/s?
(btw, yes I have a floppy that would start the update if it went through the recovery, but it doesn't even check the floppy drive and nothing happens.)

Thanks!

for A: use uniflash

Just tried to use UniFlash, but it couldn't detect my BIOS chip so I couldn't write to it. Does it no support nForce 4 Chipsets or 1Mb BIOS ROMs?

I got a new bios chip from MSI and threw it in my motherboard but it still doesn't work. Could the BIOS I flashed on the board have changed the voltage to something like the chipset and caused it to malfunction in some way shape or form? Or should I try to find someone with an EPROM Programmer and see what they can do?

Its been a while, but I guess I should let you all know what happened:

First: I got the new BIOS chip, and it didn't work. The bios I flashed on the board fried it.
Second: I RMAed the motherboard, and got a new one back 2 weeks later, and has been working great since then.
Third: Nor have I flashed the wrong bios. (3 updates since then so far. >_>)

Bad BIOSes CAN ruin motherboards, I was living proof.
(No, you can't flash an Intel BIOS chip using an AMD board.)

(No, you can't flash an Intel BIOS chip using an AMD board.)

this generalisation is wrong and leads to things that are called 'urban legends'. i'll try a short explanation.
It is true that Intel produces flash chips (where the BIOS is stored in). So do AMD and dozens of other manufacturers (like SST, Catalyst, ...), too. Those chips often work outside computers, like in mobile phones, telephone systems, etc. There are dozens of variants concerning physical size, memory size and electrical specification. To keep it simple one can narrow it down to 3 variants that can usually be found on mainboards: 3.3V, 5V, 12V flashes. This voltage refers to the programming voltage (Vpp) that is used to flash the data into the chip. The voltage used to run the chip is called Vcc and it may be different from Vpp.
Now let's assume something went wrong flashing a chip on one board (let's call it board1). The chip (let's call it chip1) used there has Vcc=5V and Vpp=5V. You remove it, put it into another board (board2). There a chip (chip2) is installed that uses Vcc=5V and Vpp=12V. While running chip1 in board2 is no problem, you will fry it immediately when you try to flash anything into it since Vpp is only applied during flashing.
So what's the deal about chipsets or cpu brands then? Simply none. It only depends on the board. And even there some manufacturers installed jumpers to switch between Vpp=5V/12V.