Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 20:38:48 -0700 (PDT) From: Howard Lew <hlew@www2.shoppersnet.com> To: Studded <Studded@dal.net> Cc: "hardware@FreeBSD.ORG" <hardware@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Flashing BIOS (Was Q: K5 clock speeds) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.91.970828203411.16357A-100000@www2.shoppersnet.com> In-Reply-To: <199708290035.RAA20625@mail.san.rr.com>
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On Thu, 28 Aug 1997, Studded wrote: > On Thu, 28 Aug 1997 10:37:15 -0700 (PDT), Howard Lew wrote: > > >Flash upgrades usually don't fail unless people flash it with the wrong > >version. Then the motherboard is hosed and they need a replacement chip. > >Even though Award BIOS supposedly still let's use reflash it with their > >flash bios boot block and an ISA video card, I have never seen that work > >before. > > Even the wrong version is usually not fatal. I had this exact > scenario happen (clueless techie on the phone told me to d/l the wrong > thing, "Oh, I'm so glad you called back!" *grumble*) and there is a > jumper on my mb (dell-tweaked intel of long ago) that clears everything > out and gets you back to the factory defaults. I just built a new box for > a good friend and the basically generic socket 7 mb had the same kind of > jumper, so I can't help thinking this is a pretty standard feature? > I maybe wrong, but I think you are referring to the CMOS settings right? Most motherboards have a jumper that you can short for a few seconds and it will get you back to factory defaults. However, when you flash a bios and it is wiped, it is gone for good unless you have some kind of motherboard with a backup bios eprom. Why they would go to the expense of having 2 flash eproms is beyond me because that kind of error rarely happens. Replacing a bios chip is very cheap unless you are getting it from Unicore, but I think putting a duplicate on each board is too costly.
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