HOT SWAPPING A BIOS

[shezan]

Need help with hot swapping my bios chip
I tried to flash my system with this supposedly proper bios revision for my board from ZDNET (mainly cus my board wasn't running my 9800 radeon, and the latest revision on my board's site is from the stone ages). It said it was good but when i restarted the screen doesn't go on, and it doesn't do any of the boot block recover stuff. So my last bet is to reflash the bios by doing a hot swap technique.

My question is, my system is an amptron pentium 4 mobo, using a DIP AMI Bios chip, but my friend is letting me use his Pentium 133 to do the bios flash on. His system however runs a Award Bios chip. Will it still let me flash my chip when i stick it in there?

 

[InlineFive]

That's a major no-no! You might end up rendering both boards useless. Download the latest official BIOS for your motherboard and try flashing it.

-Por

 

[dkozloski]

It's best to use the exact same type motherboard when doing a hot swap but the odds are pretty good you can get away with using a board with the same BIOS chip and chipset even from a different manufacturer. It worked for me. In fact on the board I used I had to unsolder the BIOS chip and solder in a socket for it. You will quite likely have to use a generic flash program if you have to work across manufacturers.

 

[Budman]

better off ordering a new bios chip from here.

http://www.badflash.com

 

[aircooled]

Didi you try clearing the CMOS with the onboard jumper?

 

[Davegod]

there used to be a trick with AMI bios': rename the .rom bios file to AMIBOOT.ROM, sticking it on a floppy would automatically flash the BIOS on reboot. Only ever going to work if there is a floppy seek happening though (i.e. floppy LED comes on).

* Absolutely last resort only * And dunno if the bios file coes as a .rom anymore.

 

[redbeard1]

The member zzzzzz used to reflash chips for a reasonable fee. I had him do one for me and it worked out well.

 

[shezan]

Nope, my bios didn't seem to have the boot block, cus it didn't seek the floppy drive. That's why i wanted a hot swap.

However, my uncle's comp store turned out to have an Amptron mobo with the same chipsets and same bios distribution, just diff model. I tried his bios chip in mine. I didn't want to keep his chip of course so i hot swapped with my mobo (no use killing his mobo right?), and it worked flawlessly. Thanks to all those that gave advice on what to do. Appreciate it .

- Shezan