Recovering from Bad BIOS Flash

BillytheImpaler

BillytheImpaler

BillytheImpaler

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Cleveland, Ohio, USA
My Asus PC-DL Deluxe has been behaving baldy lately. Whenever I shut it off or tell it to reboot it refuses to POST unless it's been first unplugged from the wall. It's rather obnoxious. Even moreso, whenever it does POST it says that the CMOS checksum failed and resets everything to stock. I had to drop my overclock from 15x200 to 16x133 because it was unstable at 200 MHz FSB. I could typically drop it to 15x200 for perfect operation but since I couldn't make any BIOS changes the multi is stuck at 16.

Anyway, I was talking to a friend who suggested that I attempt to reflash the BIOS to attempt to clear up any issues. It seemed like an OK idea to try. I downloaded the same BIOS I had on it, 1009, and prepared a boot floppy. The flash went very well with me running all of the recommended flags for the best results. I checked the disk for bad sectors and fsck'ed it and all seemed perfect.

However, now it refuses to boot at all. There are no beeps and no audio messages, it just sits there with its fans churning away. I tried resetting the CMOS, changing the FSB to 100 MHz, changing the FSB to auto, moving RAM around, removing expansion cards, and removing SATA devices all with no effect. When I remove the auxiliary power connector on my graphics card it does flash the warning message and deliver beeps but that's about the only thing I can do to it.

Do you folks have any idea how I can recover from a bad flash? I'd call up Asus but their technical support is dreadful. I'm afraid it might be the end of the line for the old girl and I can't afford a decent new rig. :(
 
split said:
It refuses to boot, but you change FSB?
Are we talking refuses to boot into windows?
Click to expand...
No, the FSB is controlled via an array of jumper pins on the mobo. I physically move a jumper to set the FSB speed. The multi is controlled in the BIOS, hence why I cant change it. It won't POST whatsoever, that's it.

I'll try again with that flashing method when I get back home this evening. It's certainly worth a shot.

Bony, I have tried with one RAM module to no avail. The vDIMM is non-adjustable on this board so I don't think that that's what's happening. I left it off and disassembled last night so, again, I'll see how it is this evening.

Thanks for the replies so far, gents. :)
 
Perhaps with some luck I can get it to POST and reflash. If I can't get it to work after a few weeks I think I'll have to part it out and start saving up for a new rig. The upside is that by the time I'm done saving Penryns should be in full swing. :p

The downside is that I'll be relegated to a laptop until then.

EDIT: Or recruit my MythTV box to pull desktop duty. Either way it's undesirable. ;)
 
Oh, I NEVER flash from Windows or from the built-in BIOS utility. I always get the stand-alone DOS version and update from a bootable MS DOS (or FreeDOS) environment.
 
Every source I've ever read about the board says that the built-in utility is broken and will render the mobo useless, kinda how mine is now.

I'm preparing a new boot disk to try split's suggestion. I'll report back later.

EDIT:Bah! No luck. I think I might contact Asus and see if they'll send me a new BIOS chip. :(
 
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Wow, Asus finally sent me the chip I ordered a half month ago! I popped it in and it worked straight away. It seemed to be just fine but now it's behaving oddly again. this time it'll be running great for hours then, when left alone for a bit, it will lock up and give me three beeps and refuse to wake or respond in any way until I kill the power and reboot it. It doesn't happen very often but I'm afraid it's the end of the line for this rig. I'll have to part it out via auction and get a new rig. :( :)
 
This hasn't put me off buying Asus in the future; I still think they're the best mobo manufacturer. Heck, I've been running this thing at double its rated speed for years without the slightest hiccup until now. I can't expect heavily overclocked parts to last forever.

But then again, I'm no fanboy. When I go to get a new setup I read around and see what the market is like and see what people are doing. If I had to buy ATM I'd get an Abit IP35-Pro and a Q6600.
 
It's from 2003. At stock it's dog-slow but with the 100% overclock it's not bad. I always run the RAM at DDR400 for that reason.

It'll play crysis at reasonable framerates with its X850 Pro flashed to XT PE.
 
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