TR Forums

Can anyone tell me how to upgrade the bios on my abit ip 35 pro motherboard? I can't seem to find it. Thanks!

Best question to ask is - why? If you don't know why you're upgrading your BIOS and aren't already familiar with the process of same, I wouldn't. Leave well enough alone unless there is a specific reason to flash.

I thought I would spare you all the details but, if you'd like to know, my computer has been experiencing bsod crashes for some time now. I have other pc's to use and with a new baby, new job, international move, I've wanted to fix it but it hasn't exactly been the top priority. I think I may have a failing hard drive but one of the first messages I get when trying to diagnose the problem with windows is to upgrade my motherboard bios. I'd be open to other suggestions as well if anyone has any. Its your typical bsod irql_not_less_or_equal and driver_irql_not_less_or_equal. I also have a windows update error 800B0100 where it won't install my updates and I'm unable to fix that one as of yet too.

Thanks for any help you can give me!

Memtest your memory before you do anything else. Memory can go bad over time, and produce many different failure modes including the BSOD codes you mention. Your BIOS, on the other hand, generally doesn't start failing over time so unless you changed the system in some way (overclocking, adding hardware, installing a new OS, etc), a sudden spate of BSODs is unlikely to be fixed by a BIOS upgrade. If your system has been moved recently, or you've been inside fiddling with something, you might want to go in and check that all cables (data and power) are securely plugged in. Some poor cables never have tight connections, and some can work themselves loose due to vibration or even thermal expansion/contraction over time.

Also, have you checked the temperatures of your CPU and system? And voltages -- PSUs are also known to fail, and can create all sorts of odd intermittent problems along the way.

memtested and didn't find any problems. how do I check my temps and voltages and how do I know if they're ok?

chances of finding the correct bios for your board will be slim to none as Abit went under several years ago. You could take your chances and hope you don't get a wrong or mislabeled one, but your very likely to hose your board. A shame they went under, had nothing but abit boards for 10+ years. RIP Abit

http://www.lejabeach.com/ABIT/IP35Pro/

Fellow IP35 Pro holdout here, and the BIOS files on this page have never let me down.

francois wrote:

memtested and didn't find any problems. how do I check my temps and voltages and how do I know if they're ok?

Did you memtest more than 12 hours? Just 1-2 passes are not enough. IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL usually means memory and/or drivers. I don't think a BIOS upgrade will solve anything.

To check temps and voltages you can use CoreTemp or HWmonitor.

To check your disk, run the manufacturer's diagnostic utilities, usually available from the manufacturer's website.

I've used The Raptor Pit for help with my old Abit IP35 Pro. Good forum for Abit support.
http://www.theraptorpit.com/forum/index ... nofficial/

ok, now I'm getting some memtest errors. what should I do now?

errors=bad=replace the stick

make sure u ran it with just 1 stick in a time to isolate it to 1 stick....could possibly be both, but they need to be checked solo.

XorCist wrote:

errors=bad=replace the stick

Or back off the timings.

wht should I replace the timings to and what is the best ddr2 RAM to get?

Crucial, Kingston, and Corsair are who I usually buy RAM from. They're reputable and not overpriced.

Timings are set in your BIOS. You should be able to dig around and reset them to defaults, or tell the BIOS to use SPD values -- SPD is a little flash chip on the DIMM that tells the BIOS what the officially-supported timings are. If you don't know what timings are, you probably have it default anyway.

You can kind of tell which RAM stick is bad. It says that it's at ~2.9GB and you have 4GB total, so if you've got four sticks it's probably the third one out from the CPU, or the second one out if you've got two.

Timings are set to SPD. Guess I'll get some more RAM

Should I do these:

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ

or

G.SKILL 4GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL6S-4GBMQ

or two of the last one even to get 8GB?

Given that DDR2 is relatively pricey compared to DDR3 these days I don't think I'd bother with 8GB. Although as that price difference will only widen you could also regard this as your last chance to put 8GB in that machine

NB you'd also need to be running 64bit windows to make any use of it. Maybe you already are but even then sinking more money than you have to into a relatively old system doesn't seem worthwhile.

In theory having two sticks of ram give you a performance boost as it allows you to use two memory channels. TBH I've no idea how big that boost is on the system you've got and there's a good chance it would be fairly negligible but I suppose I'd still always want to have it so I'd recommend a two stick option over a single as long as there isn't a big difference in price.

I'd also take the time to work out which of your sticks has failed by testing each on its own and possibly testing both slots on the board separately too. There is still a small chance that errors are being caused by something else in the machine (mobo/psu/cpu) and removing that bad stick will give you a working machine to use in the meantime... keep using a machine that's bluescreening and there's a chance you'll eventually hose your OS.

Of course you could even decide that 2GB of ram is actually enough for you... 4 or 8GB is nice but if you're just web browsing etc it won't make that much difference.

Thanks for the advice. I am doing mostly web browsing, photo editing, movie watching etc. on there these days so nothing too serious. I think I'll probably opt for 2 sticks of 2g and be done with it. I agree, like you said, its a relatively old system and I'm not sure how much more money I want to sink into it. That being said, I do want it to last for a bit since I'm not that excited about starting all over again either and spending all that money on a totally new build. Hmm. I will do some checking though to see which have gone bad. Is it just as simple as pulling one stick out, booting up and trying to make it crash? If it does't crash that was the one? Or should I memtest it after take one out?

Memtest each stick individually.

notfred wrote:

Memtest each stick individually.

Do this.

Will do. But that sounds like a pretty laborious process considering it took memtest 4 hrs to find errors before. Will it go quicker with only 1 stick? I guess it will naturally. Ok, I'll do that tonight. Thanks!

Also after you have a set of RAM sticks that pass individually then you need to test all together as well as some failures are only seen in dual-channel mode or with heavily loaded buses. Yes, it is time consuming and sucks, but it is no where near as time consuming and sucky as trying to troubleshoot a flaky OS that got corrupted during the install due to bad RAM.

francois wrote:

Will do. But that sounds like a pretty laborious process considering it took memtest 4 hrs to find errors before. Will it go quicker with only 1 stick? I guess it will naturally. Ok, I'll do that tonight. Thanks!

hoho, now you see the light! the truth is, all computer hardware problems are laborious to diagnose. fortunately you've accidentally posted in our masochism forum, so we're aching to help you

but seriously, don't complain about a 4 hr memtest run - if i can afford the time all my systems get a 48-hour burnin. once you've got your 4gb in, memtest at least overnight.