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xanderenigma
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Corrupted BIOS, How can I fix it?

Sun Mar 01, 2009 2:57 pm

Hi.

This is my first post here at TechReport.
I ran a BIOS update through the software supplied with my motherboard but when it finished and my computer restarted it crashed wjust after the POST.
Ive heard a way to fix it is to get a bootable floppy with the BIOS on it and boot it from that but I dont have a floppy drive, a friend of mine set up my USB stick to be able to boot the BIOS but that didnt work, he gave me a floppy drive and I tried that and still no luck, because when it crashes everything seems to stop functioning.

Now Ive been told that I can buy a replacement BIOS chip, I would rather find out here if that could fix my corrupted BIOS or not before I decipe to purchase one.
Thanks.
 
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Re: Corrupted BIOS, How can I fix it?

Sun Mar 01, 2009 3:18 pm

Can you be a little more specific about what it is doing? Is it just freezing up? Do you get any error messages?

If it is making it through POST, the BIOS is probably OK, and something else is the problem.

Have you tried resetting the CMOS settings (check the motherboard manual, usually there is a jumper for this).

The exact procedure for recovering the BIOS varies from vendor to vendor and from model to model of motherboard.

Replacing the BIOS chip is only an option if the BIOS chip is in a socket. Many recent (past 3-4 years) motherboards now have the BIOS chip soldered directly to the board; it can only be replaced by desoldering the old one and soldering a new on in its place, which A) voids your warranty; and B) is quite likely to kill the board outright unless you really know what you're doing.
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xanderenigma
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Re: Corrupted BIOS, How can I fix it?

Sun Mar 01, 2009 6:29 pm

Thanks for the sugestion to reset CMOS but that didnt work.
To be more specific my board is an asus p5n32e sli plus, when i turn it on it posts but after that there would usualy be a screen showing the asus branding with option to change setting, when it reaches this screen the monitor partly shows the image but the rest looks like static you get on tv when its not tuned properly (kinda hard to explain) but without it all moving, the area that is displayed correctly is random each time i try.
I have 2x 7900gtx, ive tried it with only using one as at first ithought it could be the graphic cards?
As for the bios chip, it is of the removable variety so i can change it if necessary.
 
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Re: Corrupted BIOS, How can I fix it?

Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:27 am

Check out the "Asus CrashFree BIOS 2" feature in your board manual and see if that helps? I read the P5N32-E SLI manual and it was not clear, what I think this basically means is that you can rename the BIOS file to a specific name and the board will look for it.

Or try the "EZ Flash" feature and see if it gets to that (Alt+F2 I think).

Doesn't sound very good if you get a garbled Asus boot screen though. See that's why I never update the BIOS from the Windows utility.
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xanderenigma
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Re: Corrupted BIOS, How can I fix it?

Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:44 am

Ive taken a photo of my screen to help show what I couldnt realy describe well...
Image

Flying Fox, Ive tried to get into the EZ Flash feature but as you can see from the image above, my computer freezes up, I can tell my keyboard stops working when this happens as when i hit the caps lock/num lock keys their respective lights dont change. And yeh ive been told now quite a bit that if an update is needed not to do it through the operating system.
The anyoing this is if ive been looking to upgrade to an i7 platform but dont really want to part with the money and have been waiting for price drops but it looks as though I may have to spend the money?

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