Knackered bios help

[Rave]

The bios on my 8RDA+ has managed to knacker itself again- I cleared it, went into bios to reset everything, then 5s later it reset itself and now gets stuck when it tries to load itself into RAM. This is the second time it has knackered itself for no good reason.

Anyway, what I did last time was buy another 8RDA+ very cheaply from the Ebuyer blowout deals section, and hotflash the original bios. So, this time I just reached for that board, extracted the bios chip (slightly damaging the socket in the process, but never mind ) and shoved it into the other board. Unfortunately, in my haste I managed to put it in the wrong way round, it didn't go all the way in but the pins seemed to be making contact. When I realised my mistake and pulled it out again it was scorching hot. Apparently eeproms are surprisingly resistant to this sort of treatment, I didn't let out any of the magic smoke out, so I may not have totally killed the chip, but it sure as hell doesn't contain a usable bios any more.

Now, to the point: I know I can get a replacement chip from Epox for £10, but I'm hoping that some kind soul with the same or similar board (or better still a proper programmer thing, or one of those Bios Saviours) will hotflash my original chip for me and save me the money. If no-one wants to do it for the karma, I might be able to throw in a secondhand 10m+ cat5e network cable, or a new Ebuyer 80mm fan, or something, as a sweetener. I'll cover postage in both directions, of course.

Post here or PM me if you can help. Meanwhile, I'd better get on with resurrecting my ancient KT7A rig so the wife can write her essays.....

Cheers,

Rich :¬)

[skattrd]

I've got an 8rda+ (and an 8rda3+) so could possibly do it for you, but I have never removed a bios chip before so am a bit scared about damaging the socket - you haven't got one of those eeprom remover things I could borrow to remove my chip.

email: campala at yahoo dot com

[LayZeh]

buy a new cmos battery, if you already did that you're right i didn't read the entire post.

[Rave]

I've got an 8rda+ (and an 8rda3+) so could possibly do it for you, but I have never removed a bios chip before so am a bit scared about damaging the socket - you haven't got one of those eeprom remover things I could borrow to remove my chip.

Nah, I used the corkscrew on my swiss army knife, hence the slightly damaged socket on the old board. I think it'll be fine, the pins are O.K., I just broke off the bit of plastic on the corner. I believe it'd be possible to make a decent puller with a paperclip and some pliers, thinking about it, so I might try that tonight. I'd feel extra bad if you knackered your own computer while trying to help me though, so I won't ask you to help unless I'm confident you're going to be O.K.; I'll get back to you with how well my homebrew puller works. Cheers for the offer in any case.

Rich :¬)

Edit: I don't think it's the battery LayZeh, the problem is that the board won't post, not that it forgets bios settings. I never turn the computer off normally, it runs Find-A-Drug.

[SilentDeath]

Rave what socket /number of pins is the bios chip?
Theres a few different types,
DILxx is where there are two parrelell rows of pins and theres usually 18, 32, or 36 pins on a bios chip. xx = number of pins.
PLCC is where the chip is square and has pins on all four sides and usually a lot smaller than the DIL chips with more space, and more commonly used in newer motherboards.
I think all PLCC based bios chips have the same number of pins but there is plcc standard with more.

The mobo used to hotflash doesnt matter as long as the same socket type/bios chip type. I am unsure however if using differnt bios brands (award, AMI, phonix etc...) is safe but i intend to try it in a min with a j530bf board and a ecs k7s5a (dead).

If the pins bend it doesnt matter as long as they make good electrical contact so bending them back is ok and if they snap off use a paperclip or something to temporaly bridge the connection...

I may be able to hotflash for you if its a DIL32/36 chip but not if its a PLCC - im not going to risk my nf7-s (ive tryed doing it on my nf7-s before to fix my other nf7-s and im suprised it still works, didnt fix the other one though).

[Rave]

Sorry, I should have made that clear, I didn't know the names and didn't want to look foolish. It's the small PLCC type that fits in a nearly square socket. Thinking about it, I'm not sure what socket type the old MSI KT4VL in my brother's computer uses, I might check that out as I seem to recall that it's similar.

It is possible to flash a different board's bios, I'm not sure about different bios brands, I'm pretty sure the MSI has a different one to the Epox. I guess you'd have to experiment with the flashing software, sometimes it'll refuse to flash a bios that's the wrong type for the board. The basic flashing program seems to come from the bios manufacturer e.g. awdflash.exe.

I'll see if I can have a go with my brother's comp at the weekend. Cheers for the reminder!

Rich :¬)

[Rave]

Right, I tried it on my brother's comp. It uses an AMI bios whereas the 8rda+ is Award. amifl.exe refused to flash as it couldn;t recognise the rom type- I guess they are different. awdflash.exe refused to flash because it said that the bios was only for the nforce2 chipset. Well duh. I tried the /f switch to try and force it, but that didn't seem to work. Anyone got any other ideas? If not, does anyone else want to volunteer to hotflash my chip for me?

Cheers,

Rich :¬)

[Agent]

use /tiny

I used to offer a free BIOS flashing service, but after being ****** about by a few people, i no longer do them. If you dont have any luck, pop along to your local uni and talk to an electronics teacher. They will usualy do it for the price of a pint.

[Steve]

http://www.uniflash.org/

Uniflash is also good if your normal flasher is having trouble dealing with things.

[Rave]

Kez, that looks like it's well worth a pop. Cheers!

Agent, I don't really have a 'local' university here in London, I guess the nearest would be Greenwich. By the time I've got there and hunted down an electronics teacher I might as well pay the tenner to Epox.

Rich :¬)