Hot Swap BIOS Chips???

Hot swap is impossible, but if you're <font color=red>REALLY</font color=red> good with a soldering iron and can get your hands on a BIOS chip with a BIOS already loaded, you can switch it out.

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>

What do you mean really good with a soldering iron? I have an older motherboard that has a BIOS already on it(the removable kind). So, it's impossible to remove a BIOS chip from a motherboard, put in a bad flash BIOS chip and flash it to where it will work again? Maybe I should call it a CMOS chip............

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by TNC10284 on 10/31/01 01:05 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

It isn't impossible at all, remember you run the risk of breaking the good chip though...

Here's a link,

http://www.tokenasians.com/articles/bioshotswap.html

It deals specifically with an Abit board but the procedure is similar for any mobo on which the operation can be carried out.

So what would happen if I got an old Socket 4 Pentium motherboard, hooked it up to an AT case, got me a floppy drive and a video card, booted up the motherboard with a boot disk, removed the Pentium mobo's BIOS chip, inserted my Amptron 598LMR bad flashed BIOS chip, and tried to flash it? I have two bad flash chips that came out of the Amptron motherboard. So I don't think i'll loose much if I pop one of them. =)

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by TNC10284 on 10/31/01 02:04 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

I didn't know you meant the removeable kind. Never mind then.

BTW, there is a big difference betweeen BIOS and CMOS. I believe you mean BIOS.

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>

Heh, no problem. I really did mean BIOS, but I thought that I was calling it by the wrong name by what you said in your post. =P

Never heard of anyone attempting this with different types of board.

The Amptron is socket7 right? Probably 2mb BIOS chip. I wouldn't be suprised if it didn't even fit in an old Pentium board. Possibly different voltage too.

Another possible problem is the Flash utility recognizing it is being asked to flash a BIOS on the wrong motherboard (I'm a bit hazy on what checks they perform).

Still, sounds like a fun thing to try :smile:

Yes it is Super Socket 7. I would try it but I did not know they have different BIOS voltages (I already know the CPU's have different voltages). Both boards have the same size of BIOS socket. I don't really want to burn up my BIOS chips though. Maybe I should just ask Amptron how much they would charge to reprogramm the two I have?

Really don't know whether it's worth an attempt or not. I'm not speaking from experience, just thoughts off the top of my head...

BIOS's are usually 12v or 5v so it's easy to check. Probably not too hard to find out what size chip the old mobo has either.

So I should just forget it?

Naa, as long the voltage/size is the same it should work IMO.
If one can flash a bios for the wrong chipset, it would be exactly the same the other way around!

<font color=orange><A HREF="http://www.mindbuster.net" target="_new">http://www.mindbuster.net&lt;/A></font color=orange>

It is totally possible and I do it all the time. When I get a mobo with a bad flash (usually free), I take the BIOS chip out, then take a spare board, start it, hot swap the chips, and do a BIOS flash with the right BIOS for the other board!

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

if using two different mobo which bios flashing softweer do you use, the donor or the destination, or can you use either?

Wow, I remember this thread! (nice necrothreading)


The two different mobos will have to accept the same type of BIOS chip for hot flashing, so that means using the version of flasher software e.g. both using AMI.
Not necessary the exact same BIOS chip, but at least pin compatible.