Flashed wrong BIOS --Please Help!!!

[MrPanther0]

Well as the title says I flashed the wrong BIOS to my mobo. I have a abit Nf7-s2g. This is not to be confused with the regular Nf7-S which has the nice nforce sound.


My old Nf7-S died so I got my friend to order a new one ( i dont have a CC ) and he accidentally got the S2G. Its the same board it seems but it has a different south bridge and some generic AC 97 audio controller. My only problem, besides the sound, is that the new board only sees my Athlon XP-M 2500+ as a unknown 1200 MHZ CPU.

That really sucks because this new board doesnt let me mess with the multiplier. But the old one did so i decided to try to flash the new board with the old board's bios. Well due to my brilliant decision I cant flash the old bios back because i dont even have a working screen! This is horribly bad as I have a lot of stuff due this friday that resides on my hard drive.

Does anyone have any idea's or experiance with wrong BIOSes? TIA very much

 

[ixelion]

Dude, im very sorry to say this but what you did is very foolish.

If your board is till under warranty try sending it back they may replace the BIOS or send you a new board, otherwise im not aware of any way to restore the BIOS.

Im sorry man, but you really need to think twice before you do such things, dont take my crticisms to seriosly tho.

good luck.

 

[mdchesne]

did you happen to save your old bios to a floppy? if not, RMA explaining your fault

 

[TheGingerbreadGenius]

Isn't there a way to reflash a BIOS which involves getting the same model of motherboard with the BIOS you want to restore on it and linking it to your dead mobo and reflashing from there?

 

[MrPanther0]

Yes I have my old bios saved on another computer as well as I have a floppy with DOS and the old bios.

You ARE right though it was stupid but I think it was just as stupid for the board to not let me mess with the multipliers to get it running at atleast stock speed. Oh well I know now; I may try RMA it saying it was DOA.

 

[wpshooter]

Mr Panther0:

I assume you have tried resetting the CMOS via the motherboard jump and/or taking out the CMOS battery for about 1/2 hour.

If so, and that did not bring back the old BIOS, have you considered just calling ABIT and having them send you a replacement BIOS chip or you could send them your chip and they could reflash and return to you. I would NOT send them my motherboard unless there was no other alternative !!!

Good luck.

 

[Bozo Galora]

you can do a blind flash with a floppy

While I dont think so, you MAY be able to see your screen by taking out AGP card and putting in PCI vidcard
if the bios flash is an autorun (like wiith autoexec.bat) just set bios to boot from A
and let it run. You will have to watch light on floppy drive to see activity.

If there is no autorun flasher avail, you will have to type in commands after each step.
So, when it boots to floppy, you type awardflash xxxx.bin (or whatever), then enter. It will find rom or bin file on floppy then ask if you want this file (which you wont see), so you hit enter again - always waiting for light to stop blinking. It may just work if you keep hitting enter when light stops. Every mobo bios flasher system is dif. All files cannot be in folders - just by themselves in root of A.

Since some ask if you want to save old file, and where. in this case you will have to add appropriate switches after awardflash

Heres how it was done with a dif bios:

Downloaded the latest AT7 BIOS and awdflash

Downloaded Caldera DR-DOS 7.03 .

I then put these on a floppy, and edited the autoexec.bat file to:

@echo off
cls
AWDFLASH.EXE AT7_8V.bin /py /sn /cd /cp /cc /r
+++++++++++
note carefully the switches above and the spaces

 

[MrPanther0]

Man Anandtech is great! I posted a few other places have gotten 0-1 replies there!

Back to the problem.... This is what is going on. When I turn my computer on I get no screen. My optical mouse has no red light and the keyboard has no lights on either. This tell me the mobo isnt even communicating with any peripherals.

I think my only two options right now as Bozo and Shooter suggested would be to either1. order a new BIOS chip or better 2. find a way to get the old bios back on or alteast get this one with a working screen.

On the abit sight it says to do that command line with all those switches exactly as Bozo said but don't I have to go into the BIOS to even get it to boot from the floppy?

 

[Fern]

That really sucks because this new board doesnt let me mess with the multiplier

You'll need to get rid of this mobo. I'm surprised it even showing up as a 1200mhz cpu. Most mobo's default to a multi of 6, at FSB 100mhz giving you a 600mhz cpu.

If you can't change the mutli, you can't use the mobile cpu.

I'm not aware of any wire tricks or modded BIOS. Might hunt over at Abit.com forums or nForcersHQ.com forums though.

Fern

 

[wpshooter]

You can try what Bozo said but I don't think it is going to work because as you said you are going to have to have floppy set a first boot device which it probably is NOT right now.

You can try resetting CMOS via jumper or taking out the CMOS battery but I really don't think it is going to work but you might as well give it a try, you don't have much to lose at this point. I think you are going to have to get a new chip.

 

[GreyMittens]

Well on the plus side your hard drives are still ok If you need stuff off them or have to work on your assignments, take a drive to a buddies house and just slave it so you can at least get your crap done for Fri. until you get a new board.

Ps - Umm... don't try update your drive firmware

 

[helpme]

You two other options:

1. Pull out the chip, flash it in a chip programmer. Most universities have a few, problem is finding one that is new enough to have your chip in its database. I've flashed chips at my work before, but you're not in San Diego.

2. Pay for a new flashed chip from a company like biosworld or biosman. I've used biosworld in the past, but their page seems to be down now. 25$ will get you a new chip programmed with the proper firmware.

 

[w00t]

if you motherboard supports taking out the bios chip than get a new one i think there is antother way you can do it thru a floppy idk though.

 

[Bozo Galora]

no keyboard = you're screwed

 

[SnoMunke]

Dude! I did the same thing a few years ago and flashed EEPROM with right BIOS using wrong BIOS utility. I went to BIOSMAN and got a new EEPROM chip in a few weeks. Best way to go!

 

[xtknight]

If you have stuff due you'll be better off sticking the HD in someone else's PC and getting data off that way until you get a new BIOS chip or mobo.

 

[Jiggz]

I believe there is a boot block capability on this mobo. Anyways, get the specific from your manual or from Asus homepage. As for downloading the original bios get your friend to do it for you or go to a net cafe. Boot block will restore your bios.