HELP!! BIOS wouldn't upgrade!

[compatoll]

Hi. Got an old ABIT BH6 ver1.1 board and in order to be able to run a PIII 866 on it i have to upgrade my BIOS but it refuses(!) Found a new BIOS upgrade but after flashing with the new .bin-file it still displays the same date/year version at POST during startup. Do you have to use a certain flash utiliy tool version for it or what am i doing wrong?
As far as i know, if you flash with the wrong .bin-file you gonna kill the card..right? As is, got a celeron 433 running at 66mhz FSB and Award Bios..
Would really appreciate some help.
thanks.

 

[Guest]

Well I have to say flashing your bios can be death 2 your pc. Cause if u mess up its gone unless u get a new bios from the bios manufacture, And by the time u do that its $$$ and some time they send the wrong one. Take it from me thats what they did for my pc. so i built another.Anyway go 2 the ABIT site and read all u can on bios flashing.And be very sure your using the right flashing utility and update. Also
Some of the old flash programs caused various probs.
Really Iam not to intouch with the P111, but just be carefull.

 

[compatoll]

thanks for your advice I'll keep in mind.

 

[Flyboy]

In asking this question, I'm not trying to insult you- I just want to make sure you didn't make a silly mistake. If you did- no big deal we all do that sooner or later.

Are you sure you downloaded the new BIOS and not the same one as before? Because I've never heard of this happening, but I guess its possible. If you did flash with a more recent version and still get the same date, it doesn't necessarily mean you unsuccessfully flashed the chip. Perhaps the BIOS image is incorrect with regards to the time stamp. I think this is unlikely though.

Are you sure you actually flashed the chip? Maybe you should first tell us what version you had and what version you flashed. And then tell us how you did it...step by step.

What exactly do you mean it "refuses"? Do you actually get some sort of message stating this? Did you go into the BIOS and check it out? Many times a BIOS change will actually have a few new items or be different in some way. Of course this isn't possible if you don't know what the original BIOS looked like...

As far as i know, if you flash with the wrong .bin-file you gonna kill the card..right

Just FYI, it won't "kill the card". In fact it won't kill the ROM either. It will make the ROM useless until you successfully flash it, so in a sense it may kill your system because it may not boot with a corrupt BIOS. This is fixable though. You could either:

1. Buy a new BIOS chip (usually ~$25.00)
2. Use a PROM programmer (doubt this is feasible unless you know someone with this tool)
3. Try to "Hot swap" with another A7V system in order to use the computer itself as the PROM programmer. This technique is somewhat risky, but works if your careful. In fact any motherboard will work as long as the BIOS socket contains the same number of pins (in theory).

 

[Flyboy]

One more thing:

Did you flash in DOS mode? Did you reset the BIOS to it factory default settings BEFORE flashing?

 

[compatoll]

Thanks for your reply.
Well, this is the current Bios info before & after Flashing:

Bios.ManFact: Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG
BiosID: 05/05/1999-i440BX-W83977-2A69KA1VC-KK
BiosDate:05/05/99
BiosROMsize:256K
OEMsignon:GREEN AGP/PCI/ISA SYSTEM
Chipset:Intel 440BX/ZX rev 3
SuperI/O chip:Winbond 83977TF found at port 3F0h
So i Dl AwardFlash latest Flash utility,
DL proper .bin-file(BH32_KK.bin v.1.1)booted the comp. into DOS, loaded the .bin-file into the AwardFlasher, pressed
and the .bin started to Flash into ROM. Now, the progress displays this white-coloured progressbar which indicates that the process goes okey, if it's green it means that the ROM is not upgraded, and if it's red, that's a failure.
Mine shows the white Ok progressbar almost all the way, only two areas at the end of the flashing process shows green colour. So either my EPROM is screwed or the Bios suppliers renamed the "new" .bin-file wrong. Since my ABIT
BH6 board is a 1.1 version and the new Bios is suppose to say: 29/6 1999 instead of the current one, it sucks 'cause i can't use a harddrive above 8 gig, neither use a PIII 866mhz processor..
Thanks

 

[Flyboy]

Wow...it appears this is not a new problem. Check this link out:

<A HREF="http://members.fortunecity.com/overclocker/hardware/abitbh6.htm" target="_new">http://members.fortunecity.com/overclocker/hardware/abitbh6.htm</A>

I'm still looking for more info. Note that the link refers to an ealier 1998 BIOS version, but this guy had the same thing happen. He recommends downloading from the FTP site not the Web site.

 

[Flyboy]

Maybe you should try this one:

<A HREF="http://www.anomaly.org.au/bh6faq/Bios_Info/bios_info.html" target="_new">http://www.anomaly.org.au/bh6faq/Bios_Info/bios_info.html</A>

It says it supports up to Coppermine 850...so I don't know. Man this one looks tough. You may have to wait until tomorrow and maybe some of the BH6 users will be able to help ya out better.

Sorry man. Hope it works out for ya.

 

[compatoll]

Thanks a lot. that's some valuable information you came up with here I'll check it out.
compa