A7V600-X Won't POST; UNIFLASH write errors; NFORCE Chipset;

alasdair · Last edited by alasdair on Mon Mar 24, 2008 11:47 pm; edited 1 time in total

Hi there,

My Asus A7V600-X board died last weekend:

I've tried to hot flash on a couple of different boards with the following results:

on 2 Intel PIII boards:

If I try to detect Chip type, "I'm told that Write protect may be disabled".
If I force type 9D6D (PM49fl002t) then I can flash the bootblock, but not the main BIOS file.

My only other machine to try this out is a Biostar with an nForce2 chipset, which according to UNIFLASH website might not work.
On Biostar, UNIFLASH can't read from floppy, so I use USB, which it can read but can't flash without verification errors.

Needless to say the Asus utility AFLASH is useless, because it won't let me hot flash on another board.

I could really do with getting this board working again, or at least confirming that the bios is NOT the issue Smile

Any suggestions warmly received.

alasdair

edwin · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 11:40 pm Post subject:

checked for bad capacitors?
http://www.badcaps.net
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alasdair · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 11:47 pm Post subject:

Hi

Yes, I've given the board a thorough visual inspection, there is no sign of damage anywhere, no leaking caps, nothing seems wrong.

I just booted the board with the PLCC from the Biostar, obviously the board doesn't post, but there is no beeping noise either.

Despite searching like crazy, I can't find out what my beeping pattern actually signifies, apart from a vague reference to "memory problems".

Because of the strange corruption to the characters on screen I'm sure that Bios corruption is not the only issue, however I'd like to rule that out.

Asus arn't making my life any easier by telling me how to flash this bios on another computer, pretty terrible support from them.

Alasdair

edwin · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 5:08 pm Post subject:

alasdair · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:23 pm Post subject:

I'm not sure, I think it's to do with the Asus write protection.

you see I can use this flash chip in the biostar board, flashing it works fine, however neither uniflash, the asus aflash, nor a whole bunch of awdflash will let me flash either chip with the asus bios.

Only uniflash even tries, and it fails with verification errors.

Is there a way to fake the chipset ID so that I can use the Asus flasher on my biostar board?

alasdair · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:50 pm Post subject:

a clarification:

Both flash chips are identical, both can be flashed by the biostar built-in flasher with any of the biostar bioses.

Neither Biostar or Asus bios can be flashed successfully by Uniflash.

Asus's Aflash won't run on Biostar board as it's looking for an Asus bios id.

Denniss · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject:

Try an AMI flashprog - it's often useable with other Bios as well.
Search for Aminf342.exe

This is a commandline flasher to be used within DOS. Make sure you always use the parameter -r to prevent a reboot with the other Bios still installed.

Aminf342 newbios.bin -r
-> To be sure what to use type Aminf342 /? or -? to see the optional commands.
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alasdair · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 6:33 pm Post subject:

Hi Denniss,
thanks for the advice.

I have tried using Aminf342 just now, however I get the some sort of exception handler:
PMODE/W: ABORT : 00
EXCEPTION 6

etc etc

I tried with
aminf342 latest.bin -r
aminf342 latest.bin -r /b /n
aminf342 latest.bin -r /b /n /i

maybe there's a combination that works with ASUS bios files, I just haven't found it yet.

I also have access to a very large collection of bios flashers/utilities, and could try some of those flashers, if you had specific recommendations for ASUS bioses hot flashed on non ASUS boards.

Isn't there a program that just flashes what ever you throw at it?
i.e No checking of BIOS ID/ SYSTEM ID.

Or are there modified aflash.exe that bypass Asus Hook test?

Denniss · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:17 am Post subject:

Did you use a Floppy that has received a fresh and full format ? Best would be the DR-DOS Bootdisk for biosflashing - search for drdflash.exe
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alasdair · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 1:22 am Post subject:

hi dennis,

I'm trying the full formatted drdos floppy right now. is there a particular set of command switches I should be using for a total flash including bootblock?

I was interested in the /i switch but to be honest the explanation on the output of aminf342 -h didn't amount to much

alasdair · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 5:24 pm Post subject:

full formatted floppy didnt make any difference, and uniflash doesn't read from floppies on my nforce board.

I'm currently considering building a flash programmer, as I'm not going to pass more money to Asus for a replacement bios.

Will take a look at Uniflash source and see if there's any comments on error 152, or nforce chipsets.

alasdair · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 8:35 pm Post subject:

It strikes me that perhaps it possible to only update the bootblock, then use the internal boot block recovery on the Asus board itself.

That should be fine as I can successfully flash a bootblock onto either chip, however I do not have the Asus boot block to flash Smile

I do not know why Uniflash will not correctly flash the rest of the bios, however I'm still seeing those verification errors, that are also mentioned here:
http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/topic7200.html

If someone could run uniflash and save the bootblock to a file for an asus Kt600 board and PM it to me I'd be grateful.

OR can I use acbrom to pull it from a rom myself?

alasdair · Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 10:02 pm Post subject:

Well, it's been a bit of time now, and I'm pretty surprised about the lack of any suggestions other than checking for bad caps and having a properly formatted disk! I don't know if I was asking these questions in the wrong place, or if it's just quiet round here these days?

I'm going to build myself a Willem eeprom flasher and have a crack at flashing it with that. The flasher will be used for other projects too, not just buying it for this K8 board Wink

.

Will report back to this thread once I have more results.

Alasdair

cp · Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 10:10 pm Post subject:

my suggestions would have been:

- get another version of uniflash (there are/were some more recent versions on rom.by)
- get another version of amiflash
- get another board to flash the chip on
- build an eeprom programmer (ct'flash, ideflash, willem)

these suggestions are more or less the ones already given here.
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alasdair · Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 1:02 am Post subject: