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Can I flash a standard BIOS on a H.P. P4B?

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Lancelot

Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2001
Location
the Netherlands
A co-worker of mine gutted his current system to do an upgrade and I'll be getting a PIV-Willy 1.7, Asus P4B, and 512MB SDRAM (I know, I know) for our kids' rig. It will be an upgrade for them coming from their current P!!!667. Anyways, it's coming from an HP system and I've already seen the BIOS has no serious options whatsoever. The board looks to be a fairly standard P4B though, standard powerconnector and such. Will I be able to flash the latest standard Asus BIOS?!
 
No, sorry you can't. I've tried to flash a few HP OEM by Asus boards, and these boards will not even recognize the BIOS file to even begin the flash. The most common error code I see is "BIOS hook not recognized", but the good news is that it doesn't seem to hurt to try.

I even contemplated replacing the BIOS chip, but in some cases the BIOS chip is hard soldered onto the OEM motherboard, so it's not even worth trying.

Best thing to do for that board is to find a cheap Celeron 2.4 or higher and save for a REAL Asus board in the future.
 
yes, i was wondering the same thing, my brother in law has an HP pavillion 523W with an asus "p4g533-lv" motherboard

basically it is a P4B533-VM without an AGP slot

i was contemplating flashing the asus bios myself to get some overclocking ability out of it

actually the bios isnt THAT bad with the exception of no OC options

some of the other OEM's are awful: READ: compaq, dell, gateway...
 
Hmm, there must be a way to get this done! I've heard stories about stripping the first 32bytes out of the HP or Asus(?).bin flash file using an hex-editor enabling the BIOS to accept the flash. So I'll do a few web searches and keep you guys posted.
 
What I found so far:

I just got the internal soundcard to work now. It was a bit tricky but got it all working..
But no luck with running a ASUS bios on the machine.

The steps to activate the internal AC97 soundcard is: (on my machine anyway)
1. download the Asus P4B-MX bios (ver. 1004)
2. copy aflash and the bios to a bootable floppy.
3. start aflash and save the current bios. (IMPORTANT)
4. flash the MX bios and power down after the flashing procedure.
5. Enter the bios and reset to defaults.
6. Save the settings and power down.
7. Enter the bios setup again and disable the IDE controller to be able to boot from the floppy.
8. Boot from the floppy, but do not be afraid when you just see "Starting MS-DOS" and the floppy stops. It will continue after 20-30 seconds.
9. Start aflash and restore the original P4B-LA bios that you saved in the beginning.
10. Power down.
11. Power the machine up. Enter the bios and "Load bios defaults". (when you enter the bios this time you get a message that all settings has been restored to factory defaults)
12. Save&exit. Power down.
13. Enter the bios and configure the stuff you want (boot devices and stuff like that)
14. Save and reboot.
15. Done... When the machine now comes up it will detect a new soundcard (AC97).
 
okies I managed it! After doing some research I found that the P4B-LA I have is a custom made board for H.P. but it's based on the P4B-MX. I flashed the latest P4B-MX BIOS and it works!
 
Lancelot said:
okies I managed it! After doing some research I found that the P4B-LA I have is a custom made board for H.P. but it's based on the P4B-MX. I flashed the latest P4B-MX BIOS and it works!

Was this board by any chance a AMAZON? P4B-LA?


Thanks
 
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