Anyone with NF7-S v2 in/near Berks?

[tfboy]

Guess what, I've caved in to the ease of using Abit's flash menu windows application and it's fried my BIOS on my NF7-S v2

So, if you feel like pointing at me, I guess I deserve it

However, if someone has an NF7-S v2 board near berkshire and fancies being my hero, I could really do with your help in reflashing my BIOS using the DOS version.

Any takers?

If you're wondering what I'm on about, I was reading on Abit's forum here that you can boot from a working board, then once booted, replace the BIOS chip with the badly-flashed one and then reprogram that.

I'd buy a new chip from the Abitstore but they only deliver to US / Canada

Thanks in advance for any help / suggestions.

Xavier

[jimborae]

Guess what, I've caved in to the ease of using Abit's flash menu windows application and it's fried my BIOS on my NF7-S v2

So, if you feel like pointing at me, I guess I deserve it

However, if someone has an NF7-S v2 board near berkshire and fancies being my hero, I could really do with your help in reflashing my BIOS using the DOS version.

Any takers?

If you're wondering what I'm on about, I was reading on Abit's forum here that you can boot from a working board, then once booted, replace the BIOS chip with the badly-flashed one and then reprogram that.



I'd buy a new chip from the Abitstore but they only deliver to US / Canada

Thanks in advance for any help / suggestions.

Xavier

Get one from the UK, there are places that sell them but I can't remember where at present, just do a google.

Unfortunately I can't help at present cos I don't run an NF7-S anymore, however if you get really stuck my friend is bringing his NF7-S v2 round to mine soon to fix it so we could do it then, I just don't when that will be.

I guess that'll teach you to use windows based bios flashing tool in future.

[tfboy]

thanks Jimbo. I'll do a search

In the meantime, if anyone else offers, I'm up for it

[Olly1234]

Here's what you want,I ordered off him about a year ago when my NF7 bios got screwed, very speedy service and only £12.50 delivered and programed..

http://www.motherboard-biosflash.co.uk/1115.html

[tfboy]

Here's what you want,I ordered off him about a year ago when my NF7 bios got screwed, very speedy service and only £12.50 delivered and programed..

http://www.motherboard-biosflash.co.uk/1115.html

Hmm thanks for that.
I'll try him tomorrow

[Rave]

Could be worth trying to use a different board and Uniflash.

[tfboy]

Could be worth trying to use a different board and Uniflash.

Ooooh Rave. Nice find. Thanks

I built a PC for a friend of mine who lives round the corner and I think he's got an Abit board on Via chipset. I'll give it a go this weekend if nothing else pops up in the meantime.

[Rave]

I think Agent or Kez gave me that link originally. Anyway, GL then. I've done a couple of hotflashes in my time; I resurrected my Epox 8RDA+ by flashing its chip in an 8RGA+. Before that though, I'd killed the bios chip of an older 8RDA+ by shoving it in backwards. It got very hot, very quickly. Be careful, plan ahead etc. If you don't have a chip extractor tool, practice removing the chip with the board switched off, then don't put it back in all the way, just far enough in to make contact; that makes it much easier to extract during the hotflash. I ended up using a sharp corkscrew as an extractor; I managed to crack the bios socket, but luckily that didn't break any connections.

I don't want to discourage you here, just don't make the same mistakes I did.

[tfboy]

Well, I "borrowed" my dad's PC which he's not using at the moment with an MSI KT3 Ultra board.

Practiced removing the chip and reinserted with dental floss so I could pull it out afterwards

Booted up on floppy, uniflash detected the MSI bios chip OK. Put in the Abit chip, did a re-detect and it said "UNKNOWN"

A bit more playing around, using the -chipset command, I determined which hex code to force the chip type of the Abit BIOS (mine's a 256kbyte PMC PM49FL004T). Uniflash then forced the bios file and failed to write to about half of it. It also failed on verifying.

I tried a few times and have come to the conclusion that the chip is physically / electronically FUBAR

So back to square one

[tfboy]

Hmm. I'd still be up for trying the hot-flashing with another NF7-S.

Emailed Abit and they said they can send me over a new BIOS chip for about £20. Seems rather pricey considering you can probably buy a new whole board for about double that...

I'm willing to travel a bit

edited to add if it's going to be £20 from Abit, might as well try Olly's contact

[Agent]

Ok, 2 ways i can help you :

Ive got a NF7-S BIOS here. I could lend it you, you hot swap and send it back to me.
or
Send me your BIOS, and ill flash it for you. May take upto a week though as im super busy.

You'll have to pay postage both ways though, no matter what option you choose If you loose / damage the chip, you buy me another one. Your call

[tfboy]

Ok, 2 ways i can help you :

Ive got a NF7-S BIOS here. I could lend it you, you hot swap and send it back to me.
or
Send me your BIOS, and ill flash it for you. May take upto a week though as im super busy.

You'll have to pay postage both ways though, no matter what option you choose If you loose / damage the chip, you buy me another one. Your call

Agent, where are you based? (I presume not on some sand dune somewhere ) I may well be interested I need to try a few more local friends first, but may well PM you some time this weekend.

Out of interest, does anyone know if different BIOS chips of the same storage capacity are electronically compatible or not? If I were to get my hands on another 256kb bios chip, as long as the flashing program knew how to read/write to it, would that then be recognised as a bootable BIOS in the motherboard? Just curious

[Agent]

<done over pm>

[tfboy]

Agent, thanks for your PM.

Having looked at what I originally did, it looks like I had actually used the wrong Bios in the first place, so maybe I oughtn't blame the windows flash menu at all

So, if I've made the mistake of putting the BIOS of a 1.0-1.2 board on the chip, does anyone know if the bios is salvageable / reflashable or do I really need a new chip?

Sorry for asking these questions, but if I have totally fried the BIOS, there's no need in trying to hotflash.

Interestingly, I also tried hot-flashing my incorrect BIOS on a friend's PC which I recently built, based on the Abit AV8 board. When I tried to use the awdflash program, it refused to do it saying something like this isn't an Award bios Agent, you mentioned using the -tiny switch. I hadn't tried that, so will try again tomorrow with a little more persistance.

After it didn't work with the awdflash, I thought I'd try uniflash. This time it did recognise the chip (PM49FL004T) and when I asked it to reprogram, it managed to produce more green squares than before. But it still failed in verifying

So I'll try again tomorrow on the AV8 board and if that fails, I'll go ahead with sourcing a chip with the NF7-S v2 BIOS and hotflashing directly on my NF7-S.

If that fails, I guess my BIOS is well and truly fubared and so i'll get a replacement one

[Agent]

It doesnt matter which one you flashed it with, it can be reflashed
The -tiny switch is REQUIRED to flash it. I cant remember the exact switches i used now, but i think 'force flash' and 'tiny' was the only 2 needed for a successful flash.

What size BIOS is used on the AV8 ?, if its a different size, it may cause problems. Ive never tried it though !

[tfboy]

I reckon the AV8 is the same size as the NF7-S. But the KT3 board I was using was I think a smaller variety EPROM which may well be why uniflash couldn't "recognise" the chip.

I'll have another try tomorrow with the all-important -tiny switch and let you know.