Replacing EEPROM chip instead of flashing

[bikman]

I have a older ASUS MB that I'd like to flash, but am hesitant since its my only system and if I hose it I can't afford a new system right now. I noticed that I can send a check and rewuest for the chip right from ASUS with the new BIOS on it and so I could pull and replace it. Has anyone done this, and besides ESD or bent pins, are there any other risks? It would seem safer to me to do this since if theres a problem i can always pop the old one back in.
Thanks in advance.
Dave

 

[AndyHui]

I think the best course of action would be to try and flash the BIOS 1st, and then if it fails, contact ASUS for the new EEPROM.

If the flash goes well, you will not need to contact ASUS for a new BIOS EEPROM. Most flashes do succeed....all of my ASUS boards (been using them for 7 years now) have never had a flash go wrong.

Just make sure that you boot up from a clean floppy without loading config.sys and autoexec.bat, then proceed through the flash slowly. Make sure that you save a copy of the current BIOS before you flash to the new BIOS, and then reflash at the end of the 1st flash to make sure everything is OK. You may get a message about the boot block being different....this is normal.

After the flash, reboot and go immediately into the BIOS. Set the BIOS values to Setup defaults, then go through and change any values that you wish.

Good luck.

BTW.....which model are you flashing?

 

[JimmyD]

First off, flashing your BIOS is not the huge "bungee-jumping" risk it's made out to be. I've flashed hundreds of Motherboards, I flash mine as soon as an upgrade comes out, I've flashed friends whenever they ask me for help with computer problems (99.5% of those computer crashes can be solved with a backup, fresh install, latest drivers and newly flashed BIOS). Having said that, I have on rare occasions experienced trouble. One time, the BIOS on my old FIC-VA 503+ gave out. Odd thing is, I wasn't even flashing it at the time. I stuck an ISA card in it and the failsafe barebones BIOS was able to boot to DOS so I could reflash. I also trashed a board one time by flashing it with the wrong manufacturers BIOS (stupid I know, but it was an old junker anyway). Anyways, if you're really all that nervous about flashing your BIOS your BEST solution would be to head over to www.mwave.com and get one of their BIOS Saviour products (in the motherboard section). Basically they're a little device that clamps on over your existing BIOS, allowing you to first copy your original BIOS to the device, then you can flash your Motherboard, should that fail, clamp the BIOS Saviour back on and it will take over, booting your orig. BIOS and allowing you to fix your Motherboards flash chip. Nice little device, and only $20, cheaper than the $30 most MB manufacturers want for a replacement chip.

Jay

 

[JimmyD]

First off, flashing your BIOS is not the huge "bungee-jumping" risk it's made out to be. I've flashed hundreds of Motherboards, I flash mine as soon as an upgrade comes out, I've flashed friends whenever they ask me for help with computer problems (99.5% of those computer crashes can be solved with a backup, fresh install, latest drivers and newly flashed BIOS). Having said that, I have on rare occasions experienced trouble. One time, the BIOS on my old FIC-VA 503+ gave out. Odd thing is, I wasn't even flashing it at the time. I stuck an ISA card in it and the failsafe barebones BIOS was able to boot to DOS so I could reflash. I also trashed a board one time by flashing it with the wrong manufacturers BIOS (stupid I know, but it was an old junker anyway). Anyways, if you're really all that nervous about flashing your BIOS your BEST solution would be to head over to www.mwave.com and get one of their BIOS Saviour products (in the motherboard section). Basically they're a little device that clamps on over your existing BIOS, allowing you to first copy your original BIOS to the device, then you can flash your Motherboard, should that fail, clamp the BIOS Saviour back on and it will take over, booting your orig. BIOS and allowing you to fix your Motherboards flash chip. Nice little device, and only $20, cheaper than the $30 most MB manufacturers want for a replacement chip.

Jay

 

[JimmyD]

First off, flashing your BIOS is not the huge "bungee-jumping" risk it's made out to be. I've flashed hundreds of Motherboards, I flash mine as soon as an upgrade comes out, I've flashed friends whenever they ask me for help with computer problems (99.5% of those computer crashes can be solved with a backup, fresh install, latest drivers and newly flashed BIOS). Having said that, I have on rare occasions experienced trouble. One time, the BIOS on my old FIC-VA 503+ gave out. Odd thing is, I wasn't even flashing it at the time. I stuck an ISA card in it and the failsafe barebones BIOS was able to boot to DOS so I could reflash. I also trashed a board one time by flashing it with the wrong manufacturers BIOS (stupid I know, but it was an old junker anyway). Anyways, if you're really all that nervous about flashing your BIOS your BEST solution would be to head over to www.mwave.com and get one of their BIOS Saviour products (in the motherboard section). Basically they're a little device that clamps on over your existing BIOS, allowing you to first copy your original BIOS to the device, then you can flash your Motherboard, should that fail, clamp the BIOS Saviour back on and it will take over, booting your orig. BIOS and allowing you to fix your Motherboards flash chip. Nice little device, and only $20, cheaper than the $30 most MB manufacturers want for a replacement chip.

Jay

 

[JimmyD]

I'd like to apologize on behalf of the piece of junk proxy I'm sitting behind right now, sorry bout the multiple posts guys

 

[bikman]

AndyHui, The MB is a ASUS p55tp4n, and I think I may got for it this weekend. I guess it's a case of you only hear the horror stories, nobody ever posts the success's.
thks!
dave

 

[gpgofast]

I flashed the bios on my new motherboard and I DEFINITELY don't know what I am doing. Go slow and follow the instructions and make a back up of your original bios and you should be ok.

 

[bikman]

After a bottle of B & James hard lemonade, I finally got up the nerve to try it. And IT WORKED! Thanks everyone for reassuring me it wasn't as painful as ithought it would be.

 

[bikman]

Ok Looks like a side effect ofthis popped up. A little background first. SInce my bios was so old, it didn't recognise large hard drives, and since I have a WD 6.4 and a WD 13.2, I had to use western digitals ez-bios so I would have full access to them. Now that I have a new bios that supports large HD's, I disabled ez-bios. So far so good. here's the problem. When I boot to dos mode from the start menu, only c is recognised, and if I boot with the custom boot disk I made, c is there and D is the cdrom. It should be c is the 13.2g, d is the 6.4g and e is the cdrom. weird thing is is when the system boots, the shows all drives as being detected and they are all there in windows. I have both drives set to "auto" detect in the bios, and tried changing em to specify them exactly. Anyone have a clue to whats up?
Da

 

[bikman]

Bump for help
thx
dave