Has anyone had any success using the flashmenu BIOS flash program on the ABit Taiwan website. I tried to run it on an ABit NF7-S v. 2.0. It said that my BIOS was not compatible with the program, yet the website says it is. What is up with that? Thanks in advance.
FlashMenu for Abit Motherboards
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Typing "Abit flashmenu" into Google Groups got me 417 hits. Try it.... some good info there.
Leon Rowell
Downtown wrote:
Leon Rowell
Downtown wrote:
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On Thu, 17 Jul 2003 19:02:45 -0700, "Downtown"
wrote:
I am avoiding this one. Let others be the guinea-pigs. I am using the tried-and-true DOS boot-floppy method. Any success doing the NF7-S BIOS upgrade the boot-floppy way ?
John Lewis
wrote:
I am avoiding this one. Let others be the guinea-pigs. I am using the tried-and-true DOS boot-floppy method. Any success doing the NF7-S BIOS upgrade the boot-floppy way ?
John Lewis
Unfortunately you have to be absolutely sure,, these versions wont cross flash like the old be6-II series did. I've also heard good things about the flashmenu on nf7, it allows some users to go back to the original where awardflash wont - but I use 8.23k awardflash on a boot disk
Downtown wrote:
Downtown wrote:
I have also used the "alt" +" F2" method on 3 MB's and it works great although there are downloads that make the bootable floppy and flash program a lot easier than the old days. The only drawback is you cant make a backup of you old bios with the ALT F2 method
Danny Y wrote:
Danny Y wrote:
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In article ,
(John Lewis) wrote:
I could only do it via the windows utility. Had to cross all my fingers and toes while doing it though! Maybe I was using the wrong BIOS in dos, but I checked and triple checked everything and still no joy.
Andrew McP
(John Lewis) wrote:
I could only do it via the windows utility. Had to cross all my fingers and toes while doing it though! Maybe I was using the wrong BIOS in dos, but I checked and triple checked everything and still no joy.
Andrew McP
I have nothing but problem with the flashmenu. Good concept, but this thing can be huge pain when it don't work. I'm helping my buddy to reflash the bios with boot disk since the flashmenu screw up his system. Can't even get to windows. The system keeps reporting disk read error and checksum error. We have tried clearing the CMOS, taking out the cmos batteries, nothing worked.
In the end, we are going to try restroing the bios with a boot disk tonight. The lesson to learn, make a boot disk before you flash. Windows CD ROM doesn't allow you to access your old bios files, so you can only use a floppy to reflash.
(Andrew MacPherson) wrote:
In the end, we are going to try restroing the bios with a boot disk tonight. The lesson to learn, make a boot disk before you flash. Windows CD ROM doesn't allow you to access your old bios files, so you can only use a floppy to reflash.
(Andrew MacPherson) wrote:
In my experience, and that of others, the IC7 and IC7-G boards require the DIMM voltage to be set ' at least 2.7v. I experienced similar problems to yours after a BIOS update. After cursing out the mainboard in the prescribed manner, I remembered that I had cleared the CMOS in the course I reflashing the BIOS and thus had set it back to default values. I then reset my DIMM voltage to 2.75v and everything worked well again. Give it a try.
Whilst here I mught save a fellow user from discovering another "eek!" feature in BIOS. My son was surfung the web on my machine when the screen went blank and the system just stopped. All the fans continued to run, the
C:\ drive light and the CDR light remained on. Hitting the reset had no effect and the system would not turn off with the power button, eek! I then removed the side of my case and had a look. Everything was running but I had no control over it. I then turned off the power supply and turned it it back on again and my system POSTed and booted into Windows XP normally. Everything was intact and functional. Greatly relieved I started to do some work on the computer and half an hour later the system shut down again with the same symptoms. This time it's eek, eek...panic! I then turn everything off again and again the system restarts as normal but losing some work. The cause of this disaster? Some cack handed workers working half a mile or so who had blacked out the neighbourhood's power three times in one hour!
In BIOS there's a setting to enable a restart after a power off. I had it set to disabled hence my system would not restart after a power off. "Not a lot of people know that"...or perhaps they do? Anyway I offer this as a minor contribution to our collective wisdom.
Whilst here I mught save a fellow user from discovering another "eek!" feature in BIOS. My son was surfung the web on my machine when the screen went blank and the system just stopped. All the fans continued to run, the
C:\ drive light and the CDR light remained on. Hitting the reset had no effect and the system would not turn off with the power button, eek! I then removed the side of my case and had a look. Everything was running but I had no control over it. I then turned off the power supply and turned it it back on again and my system POSTed and booted into Windows XP normally. Everything was intact and functional. Greatly relieved I started to do some work on the computer and half an hour later the system shut down again with the same symptoms. This time it's eek, eek...panic! I then turn everything off again and again the system restarts as normal but losing some work. The cause of this disaster? Some cack handed workers working half a mile or so who had blacked out the neighbourhood's power three times in one hour!
In BIOS there's a setting to enable a restart after a power off. I had it set to disabled hence my system would not restart after a power off. "Not a lot of people know that"...or perhaps they do? Anyway I offer this as a minor contribution to our collective wisdom.
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In article ,
(Soomo) wrote:
That's why I had everything crossed! Common sense said it was silly to try it, but my NF7-S 2.0 was quite a few BIOS releases out of date, and DOS flashing didn't want to work at all.
I was very impressed it worked, but I'm not convinced I want to do it again unless I really need to.
Andrew McP
(Soomo) wrote:
That's why I had everything crossed! Common sense said it was silly to try it, but my NF7-S 2.0 was quite a few BIOS releases out of date, and DOS flashing didn't want to work at all.
I was very impressed it worked, but I'm not convinced I want to do it again unless I really need to.
Andrew McP
Thanks for the tips, I will try upping the dimm voltage to see if it works. FYI the Dr Dos boot disk we use last night did not work, apparently XP doesn't like DOS. I am still stuck with a Disk Read Error after the boot up sequence and a checksum error whenever we reset the cmos. My friend and I tried fumbling with the XP recovery console, but it doesn't allow us to run the bios flash program, though we can see the files on the floppy. Since we only have access to Win Me machines, we might have to find someone else with an XP machine to make a boot disk.
If this doesn't work, I will try reinstalling windows, may be even trying installing Win Me to make sure all the hardwares work.
I suspect that part of the problem with my friend's machine may be that he is using a Maxtor 160GB HD, which needs to install some program call MaxBlast to overcome the 137GB limitation placed by XP. I recall when using the flashmenu, during the reboot, we have gotten a warning about MBR being written.
If this doesn't work, I will try reinstalling windows, may be even trying installing Win Me to make sure all the hardwares work.
I suspect that part of the problem with my friend's machine may be that he is using a Maxtor 160GB HD, which needs to install some program call MaxBlast to overcome the 137GB limitation placed by XP. I recall when using the flashmenu, during the reboot, we have gotten a warning about MBR being written.
Soomo wrote:
DOS, in most flavors, 'normally' wont hack FAT32 & NTFS file systems .
To be expected.
?? The HD ???
Likely caused by the as_yet, unloaded "DO" ... assuming you booted from a flpy using a DOS flavor
And ... the 'result' after you 'reset' the CMOS ???
As "it" should be with any of the NT derivatives ...
Try http://www.bootdisk.com ( from faulty mamory ) ...
for a bootdisk 'image' DL , =and= an 'image' reader/writer app for same ...
IMHO, not really required for 'what' you attempt.
Ouch!!!
Be damned careful what you do with =anything= on track 0 ... =all= of it. =ALL= sectors on it.
BIG Bummer!
*IF* you're using a Disk Overlay(DO)(maxblast)
DO NOT let "anything" =touch= "anything" on track 0 ... =incl= the MBR. Please.
More better_er ...
. use the 137GB "asis" ... dump/delete the DO
. get an addin PCI IDE cntrlr card which has a BIOS to hack the big HDs ... . 48_bit LBA ...
Qed.
DOS, in most flavors, 'normally' wont hack FAT32 & NTFS file systems .
To be expected.
?? The HD ???
Likely caused by the as_yet, unloaded "DO" ... assuming you booted from a flpy using a DOS flavor
And ... the 'result' after you 'reset' the CMOS ???
As "it" should be with any of the NT derivatives ...
Try http://www.bootdisk.com ( from faulty mamory ) ...
for a bootdisk 'image' DL , =and= an 'image' reader/writer app for same ...
IMHO, not really required for 'what' you attempt.
Ouch!!!
Be damned careful what you do with =anything= on track 0 ... =all= of it. =ALL= sectors on it.
BIG Bummer!
*IF* you're using a Disk Overlay(DO)(maxblast)
DO NOT let "anything" =touch= "anything" on track 0 ... =incl= the MBR. Please.
More better_er ...
. use the 137GB "asis" ... dump/delete the DO
. get an addin PCI IDE cntrlr card which has a BIOS to hack the big HDs ... . 48_bit LBA ...
Qed.
Soomo,
Not at all, just go to http://www.bootdisk.com/
The problem is your friends PC, NOT WinXP. Your friend's PC may not be able to see that big of a drive & MaxBlast was required, or he may have inadvertantly install MaxBlast when it wasn't needed. WinXP can see HD's bigger than you probably could afford. A PC's BIOS is the limiting factor, not WinXP.
Qed,
Thanks for your help. I am the owner of the computer and it appear that you are on to something though I am afraid I am not as up to speed with some of your comments.
In any case, let me clarify my problems, perhaps this would make it easier for you, or anyone else who is willing to help.
When I first flash the bios, I was warned that MBR may be overwritten, if I would proceed. Stupidly I did itagainst my buddy's, soomo, advice. In any case, after reboot, I get a checksum error and when I press one of the key to reboot it says Update Success, followed by a disk read error. This is when the system is setup to boot from HD, which has windows xp installed. As I have said earlier, I have no luck booting from a floppy thus far either.
When the cmos is reset, it goes through the same loop again i.e. 1) checksum error, 2) reboot, 3) update success, 4) disk read error.
I get the setup screen if I put in the Win xp CDROM, so hardware should be ok. It just refuses to boot from the HD. I can see the HD partitions (5 partitions on the 160gb) from the recovery console.
Based on your comments below, it appear that the most likely cause of the Disk Read problem is that DO has been corrupted. In that case, short of buying a controller card, do I need to reformat the entire HD? There is no repair function with the Maxblast software, so this may be my only option if reflashing don't work.
Lastly, is there any particular brand of controller card you would recommend?
Thanks so much your help.
On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 20:57:27 -0400, 0_Qed
wrotf:
Thanks for your help. I am the owner of the computer and it appear that you are on to something though I am afraid I am not as up to speed with some of your comments.
In any case, let me clarify my problems, perhaps this would make it easier for you, or anyone else who is willing to help.
When I first flash the bios, I was warned that MBR may be overwritten, if I would proceed. Stupidly I did itagainst my buddy's, soomo, advice. In any case, after reboot, I get a checksum error and when I press one of the key to reboot it says Update Success, followed by a disk read error. This is when the system is setup to boot from HD, which has windows xp installed. As I have said earlier, I have no luck booting from a floppy thus far either.
When the cmos is reset, it goes through the same loop again i.e. 1) checksum error, 2) reboot, 3) update success, 4) disk read error.
I get the setup screen if I put in the Win xp CDROM, so hardware should be ok. It just refuses to boot from the HD. I can see the HD partitions (5 partitions on the 160gb) from the recovery console.
Based on your comments below, it appear that the most likely cause of the Disk Read problem is that DO has been corrupted. In that case, short of buying a controller card, do I need to reformat the entire HD? There is no repair function with the Maxblast software, so this may be my only option if reflashing don't work.
Lastly, is there any particular brand of controller card you would recommend?
Thanks so much your help.
On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 20:57:27 -0400, 0_Qed
wrotf:
But the mobo is IC7, which I understand to support greater than 137GB even with the first release of BIOS. So PC Bios is not a problem.
My Win Xp is an old CDROM from my old computer and which does not have SP1, so my understanding is that it does not support 137GB until SP1 is loaded. My install process was to 1) partition with Maxblast, 2) install Wind XP, 3) upgrade to SP1, 4) use Maxblast to change the win registry. All worked well for a few days with me being able to access the full 160GB until the problem I have after tring to reflash the bios.
On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 01:25:05 GMT, JimL
wrotf:
My Win Xp is an old CDROM from my old computer and which does not have SP1, so my understanding is that it does not support 137GB until SP1 is loaded. My install process was to 1) partition with Maxblast, 2) install Wind XP, 3) upgrade to SP1, 4) use Maxblast to change the win registry. All worked well for a few days with me being able to access the full 160GB until the problem I have after tring to reflash the bios.
On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 01:25:05 GMT, JimL
wrotf:
Soomo wrote:
...snip...
Can you 'clarify' further ... ???
. wont boot at all ???
. boots properly, the flash app wont work ???
. else ???
Me?
I'd dump the DO,
reformat to max that mobo bios will allow,
reup your OS, assuming you have the 'install' CDs ...
Promise ... $25USD +\-
Almost not worth the cost to retrieve the 20+\- GB ... ;_(
Look into a Bios Savour as a backup, 2nd_ary BIOS ...
As TomG 'says' ... use( learn to use ??? ) DOS to flash.
Qed
...snip...
Can you 'clarify' further ... ???
. wont boot at all ???
. boots properly, the flash app wont work ???
. else ???
Me?
I'd dump the DO,
reformat to max that mobo bios will allow,
reup your OS, assuming you have the 'install' CDs ...
Promise ... $25USD +\-
Almost not worth the cost to retrieve the 20+\- GB ... ;_(
Look into a Bios Savour as a backup, 2nd_ary BIOS ...
As TomG 'says' ... use( learn to use ??? ) DOS to flash.
Qed
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