flashing the bios

Mikesoft · 24 Jan 2006 at 18:40

Today my Asrock duel sata mobo was delivered. The mobo comes with the 1.2 bios which does not support my athlon 64 3200 venice cpu. I have downloaded from the asrock website the newest update for the mobo which is version 1.5. Do I copy the ASRflash.exe and 939DM21.50 file to a floppy disk and the when the mobo is running boot from the floppy disk and the type in the 939DM21.50 file name?

Mike

split · 25 Jan 2006 at 00:34

This is what you do providing it boots.

Go to http://www.bootdisk.com/ and get "Driver Free Disk For BIOS Flashing"
Make a bootable floppy disc with that, and the copy the flash program and the BIOS file to the floppy you made.

Make sure your "A" drive is the first boot device, and seek floppy is enabled.
Turn it on with the floppy in the drive, and it will boot to an A:\> prompt.

At prompt type flash program name followed by enter.
It will prolly ask you if you want to save the old one, but it may not fit on the floppy depending on the size of the new BIOS file etc.
It will then ask you for a name to flash the BIOS with, and you would just type the BIOS name followed by ENTER.

Ha, then I found this.

BTW, if it's 939DM21.50 you will be able to save to old BIOS to a floppy as they are small.

bikes · 25 Jan 2006 at 02:46

Or you could just download the 'windows' bios & flash through windows

split · 25 Jan 2006 at 03:15

bikes said:
Or you could just download the 'windows' bios & flash through windows

I agree, but nice to have a floppy..... just in case

vanandjuanunited · 25 Jan 2006 at 08:34

Also be aware that the board may not boot even though the flash has worked. If this is the case leave 1 stick of memory in and reboot. Has done this numerous times on me. Persevere and it will come back to life.

Arcane · 25 Jan 2006 at 11:01

Don't forget to load optimised defaults in BIOS before and after flashing.

Mikesoft · 25 Jan 2006 at 15:59

Thanks for all the help. I am about to start this upgrade and then hopefully experiance for the first time athlon 64.

I wonder how it will compare with my athlon xp 2000

Arcane · 25 Jan 2006 at 20:46

Good luck, if you have anything you're not sure about be sure to ask, better to be safe than sorry.

Mikesoft · 25 Jan 2006 at 22:15

Upgrade done!

I seems I don't need to flash the bios as it reconized my processor and I was able to install windows.

A little question

. When I ran 3D mark with:

athlon xp 2000+
512mb pc2100 ram
nvidia 6800nu

I got 3260 points. Now that I have upgraded to 1gb OCUK pc3200 ram and an athlon 64 3200 venice I am still getting the same amount of points. Is 3d mark 05 only really testing the gfx card power?