BIOS upgrade needed desperately!

[dude2]

Hey,

I have just got a new maxtor diamondmax 8 plus.
Im running a P3 600mhz with 256mb ram, it wont detect my new hard drive.

BIOS info:

Manufacturer: Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG
BIOS ID: 09/30/1999-693-596-W977-2A6LGG3AC-00
Chipset: VIA 82C691 rev 34
Super I/0 Chip: Winbond 83977EF found at port 3F0h

I have been looking for ages without a result, please can someone direct me in the right direction!?

thanks so much

jonny

 

[badvector]

Here is what I came up with so far. I went to this site and got the following results. Note that this also matched up at the phoenix/award bios website for Gemlight.

Bios ID = 2A6LGG3AC
2A6LG = Via appolo pro plus (692/596) chipset
G3 = Gemlight

When I went to the site indicated for the motherboard, it took me to a dead link. I followed it to the root and it took me to this site . From here I navigated around a bit and came to the conclusion that you actually have to purchase a support kit to get the bios. The phoenix/award bios site also directs you to a site called unicore that charges for bios upgrades.

I then tracked down that Gemlight was now part of DTK and went to this site . After finally looking at several pages here, I found this BIOS UPDATE .

NOW, I DO NOT GUARANTEE THAT THIS IS THE BIOS YOU NEED. It is as close as I could get you without having the mobo in my hands. Both the chipset and Winbond chip match up, but the manuals indicate it is a PII board. The bios update however indicates the flash supports PIII processors. I put all of the links in here so that you could confirm the findings before you flash anything. You may also want to download the manual for the mobo which can also be done here . Good luck and hope this helps ya.

 

[dude2]

Thanks for that,

i am getting really annoyed. I have tried a couple but after syaing y/n to saving the current bios is flashes no source file or somehting liek that. Why!?

I will try this one you got me as it looks hopeful.

Please tell me anythihng i need to be aware of when i flash it as this is the first proper flash i am doing!

thanks

j

 

[dude2]

hey,

just tried that one, all was well, then it said, you sure you want to program y/n

went y. then it said something about an interprter and the command.com being wrong or not matching or something?

can anyone shed some light?

thanks

jonny

 

[badvector]

You need to make sure you boot into a clean DOS environment. Check out this thread on flashing your bios. You also have to make sure you are using the correct flash utility program. You can download the different flash utilities here . From looking at all the available choices, I would assume you want to use version 7.52(filename is awdfh752.zip). Once again, I CAN NOT guarantee this is correct, but it matches up. Again, Good Luck and hope you can get it running.

 

[dude2]

hey,

bad news.

I ran the flash, with the same flash util as you said, It programed all looked good, then i pressed F1 to restart and just my luck, monitor doesnt come on now meaning something has gone wrong.

What can i do now, or is that it have i blown it?

thanks

Jonny

 

[badvector]

O.K. lets look at some things a step at a time. Did your computer make it through its post. Did you get any beeps or beep codes as it rebooted?

 

[dude2]

No, after the flash, it said all done ok, then it had F1 to restart and somehting to shutdown or somehting like that. I pressed F1, removed the boot disk / bios upgrade from the floppy , the computer restarted but the monitor light stayed on standby and nothing, i just tried it again then and i heard no beeps etc, although the PS fan is going and u can hear it working at somehting - red light is on etc.

any suggestions!?

 

[badvector]

OK, lets start with something quick and easy. Reset your bios by changing the jumpers. If you are unsure as to what I am talking about, check the manual for the board. It will show you the location of the Jumper and the jumper settings. Make sure your computer is off when you do this. After you reset it and return the jumpers to their proper position, try and reboot the computer.

 

[dude2]

I have cleared the CMOS already and still the same problem, not looking hopful ay!

 

[badvector]

I'm still here. Just at work so I can't get back to you right away. I haven't forgotten about you

 

[badvector]

OK, what are the rest of the specs for your system? The more I look at what we've got so far, the more positive I am that you have the correct Bios. The flippin bios numbers are an exact match for goodness sake. Maybe try reseating your ram/video card. Are you using AGP or PCI for video?

 

[dude2]

ok thanks!!

this sytem is a:

P3
256mb ram
agp graphics
new cd-burner 46x or something with an older 32x cd-rom
at the mo it has an older 5gb HDD which works fine,
i am trying to upgrade to the maxtor

 

[badvector]

Lets try from scratch. Unplug all the peripherals (all drives, sound card, nic, etc.). Try and boot with just the cpu, memory and vid card. See if it will post and get you to the bios screen.

 

[dude2]

Hey,

I took all power ide cables out of everything, and just tried booting with the agp grphics card, the cpu obviously and nothing else.... still nothing, just a standby light.

what next!?

 

[badvector]

Sorry, had a bunch of errands to run. Did you leave the ram in for the boot up? Did you also unplug the molex connectors from the drives? If so, do you have any other memory or a pci video card that you can try in the board?

 

[dude2]

All was fine,

I disconnected everything, apart from the video card. I left RAM in on boot up and still the same thing. I really dont think changing the graphics card will solve it due to it working fine before! I am looking to get new BIOS chip at the moment.

 

[badvector]

I thought about that option but didn't want to bring it up until we absolutely had to. My take on the video card is this. Once you reset the bios, what if it reverted back to initializing video in the PCI slot first. I know it should automatically look at the agp, but what if it didn't. I've seen some strange things with bios and if you had a pci vid card, this would be easy to rule out with a swap. Just wondering, but which version of the bios update did you download?

 

[dude2]

Got ya, although idont have a pci card. That would be abit strange anyway, i doubt that would resolve the problem. well, i wont be able to test!

i used the bios you reccomended. I downloaded the ones you said, as well as the utility that mached.

 

[dude2]

Phoned Tiny today,

They told me it was a MSI motherboard.

I am trying to get hold on a new BIOS chip, or just a new motherboard. My cpu fan isnt turning anymore as well.

They told me the model number fo the msi board so i checked up on the BIOS upgrades and there were 3 of them direct matches!!

OOOOPPS:

Lesson learnt - make sure you know exactly what you are dealing with!