"hot flashing" search wont work

it says hot is to short a word needs to be more than 4 letters

mayme i should search warm flash )

anyone got any links????

thx

P2P.

The key is to make it one word. Here is a good link, http://www.fortunecity.com/millenium/avondale/425/hotswap.htm .

And here is the entire thread, which may have some additional tips for you, http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=113628&highlight=hotswap+bios .

Just add a * to the end of hot, it will yield the same results.

Well, here is my unorthodox way of doing a hotflash with only one A7N8X board, and two BIOS chips (instead of having to go to your friends house to use his BIOS-socket compatible motherboard every time you need to hotflash ) - I post this because AFAIK I am the pioneer, and refiner of the one-board hot-flash technique

I turn on my board and discover that my BIOS chip is dead after changing some settings and saving to CMOS.

I pull my spare BIOs chip out of it's anti-static baggy, and I pull out the dead chip, and put in the good chip.

I clear CMOS using the jumper underneath and to the right of the AGP slot.

I boot my board, and press F2 to load the BIOS flashing utility (it is stored in the BIOs chip, so you don't have to make some crazy boot disk or somesuch).

I insert my pre-prepared diskette with my BIOS image on it (I named it 1006.BIN as it is easy to remember).

The utility asks for the BIOs image name, I type in "1006.BIN"

I *USE A THUMBTACK TO REMOVE THE BIOS CHIP THAT IS IN THE BOARD* (this is the working BIOS chip that is being removed, and a PLCC removal tool from radioshack is a better alternative to a metal thumbtack!)

I plug in the dead BIOs chip (scary as heck when the board is on!), and I proceed to re-flash it.

When the hot-flashing is complete the screen goes black and the board beeps several times, *I THEN TURN THE PoWER OFF BEFORE ALLOWING THE BOARD TO RE-POST* (this prevents another corruption from not clearing CMOS after changing the chip and loading from it)

I clear CMOS, and I boot my board and live happily ever after (and I toss my spare BIOS chip back into it's anti-static baggy, never to see the light of day untill next time I have a BIOS corruption, which is pretty often).


I got my spare BIOs chip from www.badflash.com (a great website with an awesome staff who will jump through hoops to help you, highly reccomended!). If you have as many BIOs corruptions with your board as I do you might want to invest in a BIOS savior device like I am going to - www.pcmods.com stocks them, and the one you need for A7N8X board is the PMC4 one.

Those are some good tips Felinusz. You should be able to use the /CC switch so you don't have to power down immediately. Here are some other Awdflash switches I picked up with a quick search:

/CC = clear cmos data after programming
/CD = clear dmi data after programming
/CP = clear pnp (escd) data after programming
/R = reset system after programming
/PY = program flash memory
/? = show help menu
/SY = backup original bios to disk
/SB = skip bootblock programming
/TINY = occupy lesser memory
/E = return to dos when programming is done
/F = use flash routines in original bios for flash programming
/LD = destroy cmos checksum and no system halt for first reboot after programming
/CKSxxxx = compare binfile checksum with xxxx
/CKS = show update binfile checksum
/PN = no flash programming
/SN = no original bios backup
/SD = save dmi data to file

It is sad that hotflashing has become so necessary.

ok thx for all the help on this subject

P2P.

Very useful information. I am planning to do a hot flash when I get my new Bios chip from Assus. I decided to perform this task with same mb. Having two reprogramable chips (1 for spare) will ease my mind whenever I experience another corrupted file. Idid bought the PLCC extraction tool, Cat no 276-2101, from Radio Shack for $10. I have been practicing with the removal and installation technique with the bad chip for now. I do have a question about cmos reset. Does the bios chip need to be installed on mb to reset the cmos on chip? I dont quite understand the reset of an electronic device with no power (Asus manual requires battery removal to perform reset). When you move the jumper to reset, what exactly does this do with no battery? Is there a capactor in the circuit that needs to be discharged?

I have read your above techiques, but when you say reset cmos, are we to follow manufacture's instruction?

The CMOS (Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) is a separate chip on the motherboard. It draws its initial parameters from the BIOS chip, but unlike the BIOS chip, whose settings are only changed by being flashed, the CMOS chips settings are readily changed. The CMOS data is retained by a battery backup, so the the data won't be lost everytime you power down.

ok i always wondered what cmos stood for thx

Let me review what is being said here and please correct me if I am wrong. The Bios chip allows the user to overwrite Bios files. CMOS extracts the data from bios chip and stores it with battery power. When we flash a Bios chip, we also need to reset the CMOS data, so it can be updated with new bios file. Here is one more question to clear my mind:

Assus requires the battery removal and reset as part of a troubleshooting procedure. I interpret this to mean the computer READS CMOS data to initialize itself during boot. Therefore, when we flash a bios chip, we also need to reset CMOS data so it will have a clean file from bios chip. If we don't reset CMOS data, there still exits a file, probably corrupted in CMOS, and when CMOS adds the new bios we flashed it will combine the two files and we get garbage right?

It sounds like you have it correct to me Sniper.
Though we talk about changing the BIOS (Basic Input Output System) we're really changing the settings in CMOS. Only when we flash a new BIOS file onto the BIOS chip are we actually changing the settings in the BIOS
Ive never generally bothered with clearing CMOS when doing a flash. But I've never been dealing with a corrupt BIOS issue on an Nforce motherboard. For that situation, clearing CMOS sounds like an important step.

I don't think you need to worry about the standard way to do it if you are doing a hotswap to deal with a corrupt BIOS issue. Like I said above, adding the /CC key to your BIOS flash line will to it automatically when you flash. The manual probably reccommends that you add this key when flashing.

Thank you all for providing important information for OC like me to understand about CMOS and Bios Chip. Finally I have a clear understanding, CMOS saves and applies the parameters we select when we go into Bios. Bios provides the program/database. So when we flash a bios chip, it is good to remove the battery as Assus recommends, and reset the switch to dischage any residual voltage in the CMOS chip in order to avoid any conflict with the new versus the old Bios data. I am clear!!!!!

repo man11 said:

Those are some good tips Felinusz. You should be able to use the /CC switch so you don't have to power down immediately. Here are some other Awdflash switches I picked up with a quick search:

/CC = clear cmos data after programming
/CD = clear dmi data after programming
/CP = clear pnp (escd) data after programming
/R = reset system after programming
/PY = program flash memory
/? = show help menu
/SY = backup original bios to disk
/SB = skip bootblock programming
/TINY = occupy lesser memory
/E = return to dos when programming is done
/F = use flash routines in original bios for flash programming
/LD = destroy cmos checksum and no system halt for first reboot after programming
/CKSxxxx = compare binfile checksum with xxxx
/CKS = show update binfile checksum
/PN = no flash programming
/SN = no original bios backup
/SD = save dmi data to file

It is sad that hotflashing has become so necessary.

Click to expand...

Cool, thanks a lot man!

It is really only on this ASUS board that hotflashing issues are so serious - it is a gigantic design flaw with the board that so many BIOS corruptions occur. I even replaced my battery with a better one (someone told me this might fix the problem), but it didn't work. I am sure that it is simply some big design problem with this board in particular.

I work in the field of QA and I must say it is not the design of board, but rather an issue with a supplier of bios chip. The supplier (Taiwan) who manufactures the chip has a production quality issue. Assus, being the prime contractor, needs to collect and analyze RMA data collection to apply corrective action. This is the approach any corporation would apply if its vision includes Total Quality. However, please understand the design of bios chip are certified by prime/supplier for its intended purposes. We OC's are operating outside the scope of design, thus Bios failures. If Asus continues to market their products to end users like us, they will have to listen to us and make better products, or we will eventaully go someone else.

I thought this had to do with Nforce 2 BIOS issues. Though I thought those had been solved for the most part, I assumed that we were dealing with older revision motherboards.

If it is just Asus that is still having this problem, then an inadequate BIOS chip would make sense.

Well, I sure am going to another manufacturer for my next motherboard. This board just doesn't offer the overclocking options that it should be offering. You can get better quality, and better features from ABIT instead. I'm going to buy a BIOS savior, hopefully this will fix my problems.