BIOS Flashing not working

[sackynut]

Hi First post!

Anyways, I consider myself pretty good with computers overall so im not stupid or anything. I have an Albatron K8SLi motherboard, two 6800gs's in SLI an Athlon 64 3200+ @ 2.4ghz and 2gigs corsair XMS ram.

I went to my mainboards website and saw there was a bunch of bios updates that I could do. Some supporting new E6 Stepping on CPU's, some supporting Dual Core processers, some fixing the broken tempature gauge.
this page can be found here: http://www.albatron.com.tw/english/it/mb/bios.asp?pro_id=190
.
I didnt have a floppy driver so I took, it out of my old computer and hooked it up, made a bootable floppy with the latest BIOS, 1.12. (i was currently at 1.01). (skip ahead) I flash the bios sucessfully and reboot. Before I flashed I also brought back down to stock speed just incase, so. It boots up, I see there are new features in place... it gets time to load windows after POST, and right as you would think the windows loading screen would show up, I blue screen of death. I tried restarting many times, none worked. So I made another bootable disk on a nother computer, with the BIOS update one BEFORE 1.12 (1.08 ) and flashed again. The flash was sucessful and when it got time to load windows it blue screened again. So I flashed back down to 1.01, and windows worked....

I tried again with a couple things, and I found that the only BIOS update that would work and let me load windows without blue screening was 1.07, everything else crashed.
Albatron support is impossible to talk to.
Does anyone know at least WHAT is going on?
and maybe if you know what is going on, how to do anything about it?
Its not TOO important because it works pretty fine now, but, in the future if I get a dual core CPU, (which I Might) I dont want to have to spend another 120$ on a new mobo, I can just flash this current one. Thanks for any responses.
-sackynut

 

[baracuda73]

try to have it boot to safe mode after the flash. might need to set something up that way.

 

[sackynut]

nope, after the blue screen, I restarted (with the little reset button) and it gave me the windows did not start right error and it gave me

Start Windows normally
in safe mode
with command prompt
something about networking

so I chose safe mode, and it blue screened again before loading windows. So I dont think safe mdoe works either.

 

[Wgfalcon]

if your using sata make sure its set to the single drive option in bios if you have one drive or to raid if your using raid i've that most mb's iv'e seen default to raid setup

 

[sackynut]

I have one hard drive, Ill check to make sure its in single drive though. im using SATA II.

 

[sackynut]

i checked, the only thing I could find was under
RAID Control >

Sata device 1 [enabled]
sata device 2 [ enabled]
something i forgot [auto or enabled]

 

[baracuda73]

disable sata device 2 and try again

 

[Jackalope73]

I would check your memory timings in the settings of the BIOS to make sure it doesn't default them to a different voltage or speed then required. While your in there probably should check all of the settings if you haven't already.

 

[sackynut]

I did for the most part. Let me give a quick overview. My lowest (default) ram voltage is 2.7. when i OC, i bring the ram to 166mhz, and because of the added HTT it is back at 200mhz again. according to CPUz. after the bios flash, i checked all the settings and they SEEMED to all be the same. I MAY (and this is a definite maybe) try flashing again and fiddling with the RAM timings, and making sure they are the same, but it was a pain in the ass to go through all that. If I buy a dualcore I will definitly try again, but unless I think I have found a solution I will hold off.

 

[Jackalope73]

I would, the BIOS description under each revision states added memory compatibility. While I am sure it is mainly to do with the revision E A64s being able to run 4 dimms at ddr 400 stable you never know the layers and the traces on the board might have needed some clever microcoding to make due if such frequency was never intended on all four slots.

 

[blue68f100]

Clear cmos, remove the battery and set the jumper the clear for 45 sec. Reinstall battery and jumper to there original position. Now restart it should startup now.

 

[sackynut]

noob question... whats the jumper? ^_^

 

[blue68f100]

It's a jumper block, that plug on top of pins sticking up. If you have the manual it should be right next to the battery. Should be 3 pins sticking up with the jumper bridging 2, normally black. May be labeled cmos/clear.

 

[Wgfalcon]

Go under default in bios and load system default setting.

then try to reboot

 

[Wgfalcon]

if that doesn't work go into bios where you enable or disable sata port highlight raid above there and hit enter see if there is an option to switch between raid and base(possibly called something different ) set to the option that isn't raid and try to reboot again

 

[sackynut]

Go under default in bios and load system default setting.

then try to reboot

did that, didnt work.


and I guess i could try the RAID thing, but I doubt that is what is causing the problem, my best guess is more ram based, or OS based...

 

[Wgfalcon]

the ram could make your system unstable but i don't think it would consistantly keep you from booting especially since everything was ok before the bios upgrade

 

[Wgfalcon]

if you have your xp cd handy you could also try repairing the os from the installation setup just to rulle out the os

 

[sackynut]

if you have your xp cd handy you could also try repairing the os from the installation setup just to rulle out the os

o yeah! good idea...

 

[pip_seeker]

why were you flashing the bios for? was there a problem before?

 

[sackynut]

why were you flashing the bios for? was there a problem before?

a noticable problem? not really.
But my tempature gauge on the mobo was broken, stuck at 66C, so they released a fix for that, along with Dual Core support and E6 stepping support. as well as many other fixes, some I wanted (because I had issues with the thing it was fixing every now and then) and some I didnt. I figured it was worth it. Also, I plan on probably going dual core (I might wait for AM2 though), and I figured, instead of buying a new mobo, I could just flash this one. good thing I learned early

 

[shamoo]

hes a nice simple answer
the bios sometimes changes the way the computer responds to drivers
hence get the newest drivers for all parts of the mobo before flashing... that should solve your problem... should. also read any warnings provided sometimes its for a differnt revision of the board.

 

[sackynut]

hes a nice simple answer
the bios sometimes changes the way the computer responds to drivers
hence get the newest drivers for all parts of the mobo before flashing... that should solve your problem... should. also read any warnings provided sometimes its for a differnt revision of the board.

well, I have the motherboard drivers that are the version before the newest ones. I have like 6.61 or 6.66 something like that, whereas the newest is like 7.77 or something. does that mean I should get th 7.77 and try flashing again? would that serisouly work?

 

[shamoo]

yes i would try that
i once upgraded a driver for a server raid controler and the server failed to boot untill i upgraded the raid controllers bios

so upgrade to latest drivers then upgrade to latest bios version tell if that works

 

[sackynut]

yes i would try that
i once upgraded a driver for a server raid controler and the server failed to boot untill i upgraded the raid controllers bios

so upgrade to latest drivers then upgrade to latest bios version tell if that works

wait
okay reply with a list of what you feel for best performance (or at least I should) update driver wise:

1.chipset/motherboard
2. video card
3. sound card
4. any others?