is this one fried?

[Greg Harper]

Think I did this one in. Went to do a repair on w2k after it crashed and instead found out it was installed on itself and layering windows on top of eash other. So decided to wipe the system and saved all the files I wanted to keep to the networked computers. Then decided to update flash on bios to try to get front usb to work this time. flash failed then system went to only cdrom and harddrive flashing alternately at power up. floppy will not engageand that's the main problem. swapped cpu's and same problem. tried amiboot and no luck. tried hotswapping and no boot. I removed the ram and thought on power-up I'd get a beep on power-up if it was absent but no sound. This is an old k7s5a 3.1 board and has given good service over the years.
Anything I haven't tied before I trash this one? If not what's a good price stable board for an amd 2600+ 512 pc 2100 ram,
40 gb drive, cdrw and old geforce 2 card?
Looking for ideas so what do you think guys.:t

[AllGamer]

firstable....

you did not need a BIOS update to get the front USB working

it's all matter of wiring to the Mobo

now About the Fryed BIOS

Well you can try a HOT SWAP with another Identical Mobo

Basically grab a good working BIOS from another Mobo
replace it with yours
boot it up,
after it has boot up
remove the loaned BIOS
replace it with YOur BAD bios
then Flash again

BUT USE EXTREME CAUTION!!!!!! :t

else you end up flying both BIOS
and your Mobo completely

:x

[ukulele]

Lot's of good motherboards will work with your hardware. I recently upgraded to a Biostar M7NCD which is a budget board like the KS75A and is has been an excellent motherboard for the price. The pro version even over clocks good if your into that. It also allows you to go up to 400 mhz fsb should you want to upgade to a 3200+.

[The Lodge]

You can hot flash with a different board if the have the same bios chip in them. I recently just hot flashed my bios for a NF7-S in my friends DFI Infinity.

It seems really scary at first but it’s not that bad. We tied a piece of fishing line to the chip and made a loop with the left over string to grab with our fingers\pliers so we didn’t have to stick anything metal to pop the chip out when the computer was on. You just gotta make sure the line doesn’t block any contacts on the chip or the flash may fail.

[Greg Harper]

tried the swap deal earlier with a pc chips board bios and it wouldn't boot the board. I had done this before and the whole procedure went quite smoothly but this time still the same results even with the good bios in it. I guess I'l swap boards and see if that's it. Got to get back to work . Thanks for the replies
gch3:D

[Canyon411]

Try removing all of the cards including video, sound, modem, ect. Disconnect the ide cables from the board, but leave the floppy cable connected. Power up the machine and put a floppy in the drive. Listen for signs that the floppy is trying to read and if you hear this you should be able to "blind flash" the bios with the origional bios.rom file.

Bootdisk.com has barebones bootdisk files you can download using a working machine and save to floppy. Then make an autoexec.bat file listing the flash utility and the oldbios.bin file you are attempting to restore. You can specify certain switches to use with the flash utility for unattended flashing.

For this to work, you do have to have floppy activity and pulling all cards and drives will give you the best chance.

[Greg Harper]

Okay,
Tried the last response too but had no luck. Small miracles do come around though. I had two extra bios chips. One from the old board that I thought I had fried years ago and one from a pc chips board that had tips broken off.
I checked my other two boards I kept for parts and found one had a bad power connecter and the other would come up and not boot--- then I dropped a battery into it and it(the board) blew up when it rolled over some connectors.
So I made up my mind to buy a new board and figured what the heck so I took the bios chip with the good tips and tried it one more time---no boot. Then I took the chip with two tips missing and plugged it in and took two pieces of mechanics wire and jammed it between the broken ends and the board contacts and lo and behold she boots up. go to default settings and wipe the drive clean and do a reiinstall and go and get the windows flash utility from ecs and the latest bios. I figure if on a hot swap the full tipped chip won't flash I can throw it away. Pull out the old chip while running,put in the other and tried the flash. Bang it works now too. Think I'll go play the lottery.Back up and running full speed . Thanks for all the ideas guys, just remember-- sometimes that old junk in the closet does come in handy.
gch3:t :t ::D

[AllGamer]

LMAO :r Amaaaaazing!!! (the most funny part is who would have thought a broken BIOS will actually work LOL) :x

Do make sure to get that Lottery ticket man! before your luck goes :D

yeah i always keeps tons of spear parts, actually i'm gonna start putting some of them on ebay... got way too much... family members complaining already... and well i need room to do some Home Redocoration before i can tear down the basement and rebuild it from grounds up, so got a long ebay project to go before i can start the basement project :p