Ok, new to BIOS flashing. This shouldn't be to hard. Let's see...to flash the first thing you need to know is weather your platform is Award, AMI, or Phoenix. Splash screen should look like a star, a triforce, or phoenix logo. I don't think "little blue man" is listed anywhere. Oh it tells me Phoenix-Award on the startup. Here in the BIOS info it says it's Award-Phoenix. Alright, backwards compatibility always a good thing. Oh hey they had a merger so it's both, ok skip that for now...
Next step is identifying the BIOS version. 1st digit is BIOS maker, 2nd is chipset, 3rd is processor class, 4th is date but that's only on older versions. On newer versions 1st is maker, 2-5 is model #, 6-7 = ?, and the numbers after the v. refer to the BIOS Version/Date. Another says 1 is maker 2-5 = model, 6th is chipset, 7-8 = ??, and every number after the v refers to the BIOS version/date, but all that syntax still differs depending on BIOS vendor. Maybe it's just me but I wish there was some sort of standard.
Core version is 6.0, BIOS Revision is 3.47, previously 3.40, SMBIOS version is 2.4, Award BIOS v6.00PG. The board's serial is MXK61006M8, product # ER883AA-ABA product name M7470n. The BOM# is 0ny111400, not mother board, but it's on the motherboard but that's also considered a mobo but the number on the BIOS chip says W7093BH5340. W = Award Phoenix, 7093 is the model name, B = ???, H5 = Hewlett-Packard, and 340 must mean 3.40. I gotta break the code. BIOS ID is 03/03/2006RS480-SB400-6A666M4DC-00-none. Says my chipset is Athlon 1100 rev 0 even though It's ATI RS480 SB400 chipset. I can't be offset by these lies. Microsstar manufacturer or HP? DC model...DC comics....batman... it all adds up!
If I take the SMBIOS and reverse it and multiply it by 10 it becomes 42. If I take board# x the serial number - the letter-number-form of the model number and add the chipsetts by every other date I get 13. If I take the number of flash utilities by the version and types, round by the bus offset I get 45. x86 assembly language. 86 is a happy number, the 4th and 5th happy numbers are 13 and 19. 19 - 13 = 6. 6 + 13 = 19. 42 - 19 = 23. Numbers...NUMBERS!! blaaaAAARG!!! *jumps out window*
...ok so maby I could use a little advice on downgrading my BIOS. Here's the situation, I have a HP Pavilion Media Center whose on-board sound stopped working & flash videos started playing at 2x speed after a bios upgrade. Since I had a working Windows installation on another separate drive that also experienced this same problem at the same time with out being altered, along with testing all the BIOS settings, internal headers, sound drivers/codecs I think I managed to narrow the problem down to the motherboard.
I have a Phoenix-Award BIOS so I'm going to use the Award (Not the Phoenix) flashing/recovery methods. I don't have a USB flash drive or floppy so I'm going to try using either a large USB storage drive or a CD-R. I'll use AWD_winflash to flash the new BIOS easly enough, and awdflash.EXE to make the BIOS backup CD-ROM in case anything goes wrong. I was advised to use Nero to make a bootable disk since from what I understand I need a program that can make a boot disk but it doesn't give me any options to modify the boot98c.exe from bootdisk or the boot98c.IMA I extracted from it using WinRAR. I think if the BIOS is set up to boot from the CD drive first it will just see the autoexe.bat and execute it if it's on on the disk so instead I'm going to try using a Win98SE_bootdisk.iso from All Boot disks, extract the folder from that, then put all the modified data on the disk by just burning it. Since the old 3.40 SP26648.exe BIOS that used to be up on eMachines and HP vanished into the vortex of the netherworlds (I swear some one went to great lengths to make sure this file could not be found anywhere on the internet) I'll just try my luck with the Modded_MS-7184_beta1.zip assuming if that doesn't work I can just safely load my backup.
Ok so first things first, used AWD_winflash to make BACKUP.BIN of my old BIOS. From the Win98SE_bootdisk.iso I extracted a Win98SE_bootdisk folder which contains a lot of different files. In that folder I deleted the config.sys, edited the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to have 2 lines: "@ECHO OFF" and "@AWDFLASH BACKUP.BIN /cc /py /sn /r" In the folder I put 2 new files; awdflash.EXE and BACKUP.BIN. So if I just dump all the folder contents (not including the folder itself) onto a CD and restart with the CD in the tray and select the CD drive as the boot everything should just work like magic? I feel like I'm in a dark cave of the BIOS underworld stepping my way forward aimlessly on a thin ledge of assumptions and guesswork above a spikepit of lifeless motherboards. One wrong step and I'll be impaled by dead bios chips, jagged processors, barbed mainboards, & pointy connector pins. That brings up another question of why motherboards are made out of things just waiting to stab you but we'll deal with that another time...
Kudos to anyone who's actually read up to now. There's more BIOS/Mobo related numbers below and if there's any other info you want to know, feel free to ask.
Core Version: 6.0
SMBIOS Version: 2.4
BIOS Type: Phoenix-Award BIOS v6.00PG Phoenix Technologies, LTD 3.4
BIOS Date: March 3rd 2006
BIOS ID: 03/03/2006-R5480-SB400-6A666M4DC-00-none (W7093BH5340 on BIOS chip)
BIOS OEM: Copyright 2005 by Hewlett-Packard Company Rev 3.47 03/03/2006-3.47
Chipset: Athlon 1100 rev 0 (Integrated ATI Radeon XPRESS 200) Northbridge: ATI RS482 Southbridge: ATI SB400
Base Processer: Athlon 64 X2 (T) 4200+ 2.2 GHz 2000 MT/s (mega transfers/second) Socket 939
SuperIO: Unknown
Manufacturer: HP Pavilion 061
Product Name: M7470N
Product #: ER883AA-ABA
Serial #: MXK61006M8
Motherboard: MSI (Microstar manufactured) MS-7184 VER 1.0 ROHS aka AmethystM-GL6E
Thanks in advance to anyone kind enough to leave a reply.
Next step is identifying the BIOS version. 1st digit is BIOS maker, 2nd is chipset, 3rd is processor class, 4th is date but that's only on older versions. On newer versions 1st is maker, 2-5 is model #, 6-7 = ?, and the numbers after the v. refer to the BIOS Version/Date. Another says 1 is maker 2-5 = model, 6th is chipset, 7-8 = ??, and every number after the v refers to the BIOS version/date, but all that syntax still differs depending on BIOS vendor. Maybe it's just me but I wish there was some sort of standard.
Core version is 6.0, BIOS Revision is 3.47, previously 3.40, SMBIOS version is 2.4, Award BIOS v6.00PG. The board's serial is MXK61006M8, product # ER883AA-ABA product name M7470n. The BOM# is 0ny111400, not mother board, but it's on the motherboard but that's also considered a mobo but the number on the BIOS chip says W7093BH5340. W = Award Phoenix, 7093 is the model name, B = ???, H5 = Hewlett-Packard, and 340 must mean 3.40. I gotta break the code. BIOS ID is 03/03/2006RS480-SB400-6A666M4DC-00-none. Says my chipset is Athlon 1100 rev 0 even though It's ATI RS480 SB400 chipset. I can't be offset by these lies. Microsstar manufacturer or HP? DC model...DC comics....batman... it all adds up!
If I take the SMBIOS and reverse it and multiply it by 10 it becomes 42. If I take board# x the serial number - the letter-number-form of the model number and add the chipsetts by every other date I get 13. If I take the number of flash utilities by the version and types, round by the bus offset I get 45. x86 assembly language. 86 is a happy number, the 4th and 5th happy numbers are 13 and 19. 19 - 13 = 6. 6 + 13 = 19. 42 - 19 = 23. Numbers...NUMBERS!! blaaaAAARG!!! *jumps out window*
...ok so maby I could use a little advice on downgrading my BIOS. Here's the situation, I have a HP Pavilion Media Center whose on-board sound stopped working & flash videos started playing at 2x speed after a bios upgrade. Since I had a working Windows installation on another separate drive that also experienced this same problem at the same time with out being altered, along with testing all the BIOS settings, internal headers, sound drivers/codecs I think I managed to narrow the problem down to the motherboard.
I have a Phoenix-Award BIOS so I'm going to use the Award (Not the Phoenix) flashing/recovery methods. I don't have a USB flash drive or floppy so I'm going to try using either a large USB storage drive or a CD-R. I'll use AWD_winflash to flash the new BIOS easly enough, and awdflash.EXE to make the BIOS backup CD-ROM in case anything goes wrong. I was advised to use Nero to make a bootable disk since from what I understand I need a program that can make a boot disk but it doesn't give me any options to modify the boot98c.exe from bootdisk or the boot98c.IMA I extracted from it using WinRAR. I think if the BIOS is set up to boot from the CD drive first it will just see the autoexe.bat and execute it if it's on on the disk so instead I'm going to try using a Win98SE_bootdisk.iso from All Boot disks, extract the folder from that, then put all the modified data on the disk by just burning it. Since the old 3.40 SP26648.exe BIOS that used to be up on eMachines and HP vanished into the vortex of the netherworlds (I swear some one went to great lengths to make sure this file could not be found anywhere on the internet) I'll just try my luck with the Modded_MS-7184_beta1.zip assuming if that doesn't work I can just safely load my backup.
Ok so first things first, used AWD_winflash to make BACKUP.BIN of my old BIOS. From the Win98SE_bootdisk.iso I extracted a Win98SE_bootdisk folder which contains a lot of different files. In that folder I deleted the config.sys, edited the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to have 2 lines: "@ECHO OFF" and "@AWDFLASH BACKUP.BIN /cc /py /sn /r" In the folder I put 2 new files; awdflash.EXE and BACKUP.BIN. So if I just dump all the folder contents (not including the folder itself) onto a CD and restart with the CD in the tray and select the CD drive as the boot everything should just work like magic? I feel like I'm in a dark cave of the BIOS underworld stepping my way forward aimlessly on a thin ledge of assumptions and guesswork above a spikepit of lifeless motherboards. One wrong step and I'll be impaled by dead bios chips, jagged processors, barbed mainboards, & pointy connector pins. That brings up another question of why motherboards are made out of things just waiting to stab you but we'll deal with that another time...
Kudos to anyone who's actually read up to now. There's more BIOS/Mobo related numbers below and if there's any other info you want to know, feel free to ask.
Core Version: 6.0
SMBIOS Version: 2.4
BIOS Type: Phoenix-Award BIOS v6.00PG Phoenix Technologies, LTD 3.4
BIOS Date: March 3rd 2006
BIOS ID: 03/03/2006-R5480-SB400-6A666M4DC-00-none (W7093BH5340 on BIOS chip)
BIOS OEM: Copyright 2005 by Hewlett-Packard Company Rev 3.47 03/03/2006-3.47
Chipset: Athlon 1100 rev 0 (Integrated ATI Radeon XPRESS 200) Northbridge: ATI RS482 Southbridge: ATI SB400
Base Processer: Athlon 64 X2 (T) 4200+ 2.2 GHz 2000 MT/s (mega transfers/second) Socket 939
SuperIO: Unknown
Manufacturer: HP Pavilion 061
Product Name: M7470N
Product #: ER883AA-ABA
Serial #: MXK61006M8
Motherboard: MSI (Microstar manufactured) MS-7184 VER 1.0 ROHS aka AmethystM-GL6E
Thanks in advance to anyone kind enough to leave a reply.
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