Hot-flashing:
You start up the computer, load up the bios flasher, then you physically remove the bios chip from it's socket and replace it with an new chip WITH the computer still running. Then you just press Y or something similar in the bios flasher to reprogram the new chip.
Of course if your chip is soldered directly onto the motherboard you can't perform this stunt... unless you're good enough with a soldering iron to replace the soldered chip with a socket instead. (Only for the truly crazy and gifted)
Hot-swapping sounds crazily dangerous but as long as you don't break anything while removing the chips, cause electro-static shock or short circuit something it does actually work as long. Just don't drop anything like a screwdriver or a bios chip on the motherboard that is live and running. Also you have to make sure that the bios chips are compatible as the come in different shapes, use different voltages and can store different amounts of code.
The reason that hot-swapping, or bios reprogramming in general, does work is that early in the startup procedure the bios code is copied from the slow ROM memory to much faster RAM, which we have more then enough of anyway. So when we're flashing the bios eprom we're flashing something that is only read a couple of times at startup. That is also why it is vital that you don't reboot if something went wrong during the flashing process. Try flashing a second time, or if that doesn't work go back to the original bios before rebooting.
Note that you combine cross- and hot-flashing, that's how I rescued my old Asus A7V motherboard which had been permanently dead for a couple of years. I used some old P2 mb I had. First I removed the p2 mb chip, then put it back only gently so it would be easier and quicker to remove while hot-swapping. I removed the A7V chip too. Then I started the p2, loaded up dos and the bios flasher (aflash I think) with the a7v bios. I gently and quickly removed the p2 chip, put in the a7v chip and pressed Y or something to start the reprogramming. After that I shut everything down, put the chips back where they belonged, and then I started up both motherboards. I almost wept of joy when the A7V successfully booted for the first time in years.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram