Bad Flash?

OS / Drivers / BIOS
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guppergoo
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Bad Flash?

Post by guppergoo »

I recently resurrected the BP6 I had in the closet for a few months. My aim was to get a webserver and Ftp server up and running. I installed Clark Connect fine but found the linux management a pain so I wanted to install the new Fedora from Red Hat. Before doing so I tried to flash the bios with the newest release from your downloads forum and it appears to have frozen when doing the flash. It is many of the same symptoms as illustrated in the other post in this forum. I have no ISA video card to try the PDF document tricks out with and I have tried the auto BIOS flash but to no avail. I have removed all components down to the RAM. When I take out all the ram it just beeps in a continuous loop. Add a stick back in and all it does is make hte keyboard lites flash off and on. I have cleared the CMOS and removed the battery for up to 3 hourse.

Other than than that there is ZERO activity. Am I just f'd? Or can I somehow save this great system?

Please help!
InactiveX
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Post by InactiveX »

If you can't get the ISA video card - and these can be picked up two-a-penny in second-hand computer shops - then your best bet is to contact Abit for a replacement BIOS chip. This will almost certainly be more expensive than the ISA card, and you would be back to square one if you subsequently had a bad flash again.

Maybe someone has a BIOS chip from a broken BP6 or similar board? Where are you located?
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guppergoo
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Post by guppergoo »

I am in York Pennsylvania --- I went to the local comp store and the 16 year old guy laughed at me when I asked for an ISA video card. :-(
guppergoo
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Post by guppergoo »

Does anyone happen to have a BIOS chip from a BP6 they are willing to part with?
BP6_Stress
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Post by BP6_Stress »

there are some places around the net that will flash and send you replacement bios chips... you may want to look into that. Also check and see if there are any computer shows in your area. Alot of time you can find people selling old, used stuff....
guppergoo
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Post by guppergoo »

InactiveX
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Post by InactiveX »

Never dealt with them, but the price seems very reasonable.
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guppergoo
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Sorry It took so long to get back

Post by guppergoo »

The bios chip arrived -- installed in 2 min -- it took so long mostly because I had to find the bottle opener for my beer -- and we were rocking right off the bat.

Thanks for all your help!
hyperspace
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Post by hyperspace »

Good to hear your new BIOS corrected the problem! Thanx for the feedback.
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davd_bob
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Re: Bad Flash?

Post by davd_bob »

guppergoo wrote:It is many of the same symptoms as illustrated in the other post in this forum.
Good to hear the new BIOS worked but as I read the senerio I wondered why it froze during the original flash. You mentioned symptoms. Hows the caps look?
There are *almost* no bad BP6s. There are mostly bad caps.

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guppergoo
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OS install issues now!

Post by guppergoo »

The caps appear to be ok....however I am not an expert on them. I will try to search the forums for some clarification.

Ok, I have moved to a new house and in the process had to shut down the bp6, obviously. After a few months I have had time to pull it out and have decided to switch to a hdd disk containing Clark Connect for a web/ftp/fileserver config that is easy to manage and deploy. I also wanted to setup a new xp disk in case the Clark Connect turns out not to be my cup of tea.

It seems that some of the IDE controllers have gone all crazy on me. I cannot connect more then 1 device to the primary IDE without it conking. I have even tried to use an Ultra 66 card, a modded FastTrack 66 card, and a ata 100 card with no luck. After about 20hrs of work I managed to get XP installed but none of my Linux/Clark Connect cd's will auto load from cdrom no matter what I try. I am totally confused. I have never had these sort of install issues on any other computer before.

I was thinking of upgrading the bios, and trying a larger PSU. Right now its a 250watt with dual 366's OC'd to 550, 16mb agp, lan, hdd, cdrom, floppy. I have removed all sticks for RAM except for 1 256mb.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Todd
Billl
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Post by Billl »

sorry double post
Last edited by Billl on Tue Feb 22, 2005 4:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
Billl
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Post by Billl »

I see Excaliberpc is now closed. I wonder what happened to him.

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