Updating BIOS question?

BloodBath

Hey I want to update my BIOS as I am having a few problems with my current one. My RAM is running at 400mhz when it shoulod be 500 and the max I can set my agp aperture size is 256mb. I want 512.

I have the new BIOS downloaded. My mobo is ABIT ic7 max-3. Now all I have to do is put the update on to a floppy and reboot and run awdflash to flash the BIOS is it? Can someone tell me exactly what to do as I've never flashed the BIOS before.

Cheers.

BloodBath

Gerry

There are full instructions on the website, you make a bootable floppy disk ( go to www.bootdisk.com and get the dr dos 7 boot disk if you don't have one ). Then you copy all the files needed for bios flashing onto the disk, these are mentioned in the instructions.

Then you reboot with the disk in the drive, set the bios to boot from a: first obviously. In the instructions, it probably tells you to run a file called runme.bat , this starts the awdflash program with all the correct command line switches.
Then you wait for the progress bar, and reboot the computer at the end when it tells you to.

Are you sure you really need to flash it? I find it surprising that abit left some memory settings out of the shipped bios. Also, increasing the agp aperture will have no effect on your system performance. The aperture value as specified in the bios is the maximum amount allowed, it is only allocated on request. normally not much is allocated, as game designers avoid using agp memory for textures.
This is due to its terrible bandwidth and latency compared to the onboard ram on modern graphics cards. Agp is mainly used for geometry data.

BloodBath

Cheers for the help but I do need to update it. There are some feautures missing from my BIOS that I need. Hopefully the new version will sort out the RAM problem. Like I said it's only running at 400mhz when it should be 500mhz and there are no options to change it in my current BIOS.

BloodBath

jozi

i have an asus mobo and it come with a utility to flash your bios from windows works great, no floppy needed (not that i have one in my box) just internet connection and the prog

don't know if abit have a similar program but you should look into it it makes it so much easier

jozi

Sir Random

I think the floppy method is safest. Downloaded BIOS zips usually have the latest awdflash.exe and a readme.txt included. You can rename the BIOS bin/rom file to something simpler like "bios1.bin", then just boot to the floppy, run awdflash and type in the filename. When it's finished, press F1 and let it boot fully to windows.

Dempsey

Download Flashmenu and update the BIOS while windows is running. Automated BIOS flashing.

unkel

Yeah flashmenu. On my AI7 the BIOS upgrade is done from within XP. You don't even have to download the file first. The software works all that out for you. Prefer to download myself to exercise some control though

One thing I find very hard to believe is that the IC7-MAX3 doesn't let FSB go over 200

BoB_BoT

hey Bloodbath, If I remember correctly your mainboard has a windows flash program with it, but also instead of creating a boot disk, all you have to do is put your awd flash program and .bin file onto a disk and when booting at the bios screen press "f2 (or whatever it says) to enter flash utility program. If not, drop into me and i can show you how to flash a comp if you still need help.

Gl,
Rob

Creamy Goodness

Originally posted by Dempsey
Download Flashmenu and update the BIOS while windows is running. Automated BIOS flashing.

used it on my ic7-g no problems

but i only flash if somethings wrong

you know the saying

"If it ain't broken don't fix it!"

Gerry

I wrecked a bios with flashmenu, it crashed while flashing, left the machine for a while in case it somehow recovered, no luck. Rebooted, and bios was corrupted, had to get a new bios chip. Now, this would have been an early version, but it was on the motherboard cd. Hopefully they have improved it since then, but I still prefer to flash from a clean boot.

Sir Random

Originally posted by Gerry
I wrecked a bios with flashmenu, it crashed while flashing, left the machine for a while in case it somehow recovered, no luck. Rebooted, and bios was corrupted, had to get a new bios chip. Now, this would have been an early version, but it was on the motherboard cd. Hopefully they have improved it since then, but I still prefer to flash from a clean boot.

Agreed, very little can go wrong running a single application (in base 640k) from a legacy drive. Flashmenu needs your HD, RAM, OS, Net Connection and the Remote server to remain stable while flashing. The less that can go wrong when flashing a BIOS, the better.

unkel

Originally posted by Sir Random
The less that can go wrong when flashing a BIOS, the better.

Absolutely, it is very risky flashing the mobo's BIOS

I only ever had one flash (of a graphics card) go wrong on me. My solution was (with another card in the rig - had no second pc at the time) to download all relevant files to floppy, to write down the instructions and then change back the corrupted card,
boot up the system with the floppy in the drive - Obviously, the screen was black during this whole procedure - type in the commands as I had written them down, wait and voila, the graphics BIOS was working and there was light

Suffice to say is that I hope I'll never go blind....

Of course this would not work for a mobo's BIOS

Gerry

Well, maybe it does.. If you look at awdflash while it is writing the bios to the prom, it skips over part of it. This 64k section doesn't get updated, it is the bootblock. Supposedly, it enables the machine to boot from floppy, even when the rest of the bios is corrupted. I think you construct an autoexec.bat which flashes the bios, with no user interaction. Problem for me has been, that when bios flashes go wrong, they tend to overwrite stuff like the bootblock which is supposed to be read only.

LastIrishMonkey

theres a load off info on Bios's in this months computer active maginzine if its any help at all