How many ppl have had CMOS problems?

[huges911]

Just wondering how many ppl experienced a bad board/BIOS bcoz they can't flash the CMOS successfully?

Seems like majority of ppl face this problem in this forum when they assemble a system......

 

[Kronos]

My problems for flashing BIOS have so far been of my own making. Either misreading the associated .BIN number or failing to set the BIOS and or jumpers properly for flashing. I have yet to experience a true hardware failure.

I want to die like my Grandfather...in my sleep...not screaming in terror like his passengers.

 

[lagger]

only problem I have ever had in 8 years of flashing bios's was just a few weeks ago flashing my soyo p4s ultra screwed it up royally .. Soyo has since pulled the "upgrade" from their site ..

lagger

<b><font color=blue>Checking under my North<font color=red> AND</font color=red> South bridges for <font color=green>Trolls</font color=green></font color=blue>

 

[jihiggs]

i flashed my ka7, went to restart, nothing. turned it off, TRIED to turn it back on, nothing. computer was down for 20 days trying to get a replacement.

i went to the tomshardware forums and all i got was this lousy signature.

 

[phsstpok]

My only flashing problem (other than that incident of running through the library...but I'm much better now) came from two things, a corrupted flash program and stupidity.

Before the holidays I was trying to test the Boot Block protection of the Award BIOS. Supposedly the boot block has enough information to boot the system and read from a floppy. Not understanding the mechanism (I still don't) I created a bootable floppy with the flash program and BIOS file, and an Autoexec.bat file to run in unattended fashion). Now since AGP support is not included in the Boot Block there would not be any video for the recovery. I decided to test (here's where the stupidity comes in) under simulated conditions. I flashed my system with a new BIOS (so that I could tell if the test worked). I pulled out my video card and rebooted the system. It seemed to be working but then I got the "Wee Wah Wee Wah" invalid CPU alarm. It didn't have a video card so I didn't know what was wrong. When I reassembled the system it would power up but would not POST.

I tried to recover by using the hot swap method. That's when you boot another system and remove the BIOS chip while it still running. You then insert the BIOS chip from the failed system and flash a new BIOS to it. If the two systems aren't identical or at least the same manufacture, you use a program like Uniflash because the factory flash program might not be able to flash a different ROM type. It didn't work because I didn't have another board that uses a 256KB EEPROM. I tried many times but eventually I got careless and inserted the chip backwards and fried it. (Luckily I didn't do that to the good chip).

10 days and $12 later I received a BIOS replacement from ABIT. That's when I learned my flash program on the floppy was corrupt when I tried using it, this time WITH video. Computer was dead, again. By this time it was the last two weeks of December and ABIT was shutdown for the holiday's.

3 Weeks and a second $12 later I had the machine working again. (My nephew finally received his Christmas present).

I haven't flashed a BIOS since and I'm not going to do so until I get BIOS Savior, a hardware BIOS backup device.

That was my only bad BIOS experience and I've been updating BIOSes since the 486 days, about 6 years ago.

<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 03/29/02 03:59 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

Had a P1 board before. flashed the bios then it never boot again. Good thing I saved a copy of the old BIOS.
Got my DMM, traced the board and researched for the EEPROM size. Fiddled with the EPROM writer and got lucky! Whew. and flashing the BIOS was never the same after that!

 

[NickM]

Got my DMM, traced the board and researched for the EEPROM size. Fiddled with the EPROM writer and got lucky!

What're the DMM, EPROM writer ?
Any additional details on that possible? Thank you.

/ BIOS upgrade experience: 2 times success (on Dell Optiplex P-classic, and Abit BH6 P-II),
1 unlucky (PCChips M-525 P-233MMX, probably wrong Voltage or jumper setting, I still don’t know) /