$59.95 charge for a flash bios?

[Rookie]

Hello, I'm trying to get my Dad's machine upgraded. It has a President mobo
with an Award bios dated 4/23/96, I put a pent 133 in it. I went to
http://www.ping.be/bios/ and a spot your motherboard type site and the best
I could find out is that President apparantly went out of business or got
bought by another firm.
I then went to the Award site, and they were bought by Phoneix, who then
subed out bios stuff to Unicore.
The folks at Unicore have a bios flash alright, but they want $69.95 for it!
I protested and he came down $10 because I called on the telephone?
Have you ever heard of a flash bios costing $?
Getting a gereric flash bios was suggested to me as a possiblity, does that
sound right to you all?
Hell I can buy a NEW VA503 mobo or an ASUS for $70?

Here is the bios string: 2A59CPFHC-00
The 2A59 is supposed to mean i430FX intel chipset, the CPFHC is supposed to
be the mobo manufacturer.
Any ideas out there?
Thanks,
Rookie

[BBA]

I would find a clone to the MB under another manufactureres name and use the bios from them, or replace the whole board with something more modern.

USR also charges $60 to upgrade their 33.6 modems to 56K, all it is is a downloadable bios flash!

BBA

[800XL]

Unicore is a special case in bios flashes. They make custom bioses, and nothing else. They didn't make any money off of you for the motherboard originally, so they have to make it on the bios they made for that board. They provide a service of supporting motherboards that the board manufacturer has left out in the cold with bios upgrades. Award/Phoenix works pretty much the same way. They sold rights to a core bios, which the board maker then took and modified for their product. It is the board maker's responsibility to support it from there. If you want to complain about someone, they should be your target.

[Rookie]

Thanks 800xl, they did say I would get support and a paper manual for that price. So all in all, I can see where they're comming from. But it doesnt make financial sense? I can get a newer mobo for that price. Additionally, If I paid em what they ask- I'd still have an old mobo with substantial electronic *miles* on it ,correct?
Maybe they're catering the masses of newbies who are afraid of pulling the cover off and to whom changing a mobo is way over their techinical heads...?
Rookie

[CMonster]

This would be $60 not well spent. You stated the solution already - put that money towards a new system board.

[Rookie]

Thanks, BBA how do I find a *clone* to this mobo? socalgal suggested *maybe* I could get a *generic* bios?
So where would I start my quest for a clone?
find a mobo with the same bios string? Or find a mobo with the i430FX chipset that is similar in features to this one?

Note: On the ping site there was a guy who actually replaced a bios from a different manufacturer- but his mobo was fried and he had nothing to lose. And he had some fancy programmable flash tool other than flash33.exe, and it was still buggy (but less buggy than before).
Thanks,
Rookie

[lost1]

A quick note on Unicor BIOS- my father-in-law (who is quite talented in programming and building computers) purchased a BIOS chip from Unicor about 2 months ago after being told that it would solve several problems that he had been having with his machine. After waiting 2 weeks for it to arrive, it did not work. After talking to the Unicor tech rep who told him that "the person who made the new chip did not know what they were doing" (then why the heck is he working for them?!), he ordered another. After waiting 2 more weeks, he installed the new chip and found it to be faulty as well. He called Unicor & got the same "someone didn't know what they were doing when they made the chip" story. Call me silly, but it looks to me like they have a lot of inept people in the back room making their BIOS chips. Hmmmmmmm...
He didn't even bother to send the second chip back; he pitched it over the fence & bought a new mobo.
$70 worth of experience- glad he paid for it & not me!
Just my .02 worth /forum/smile.gif
Good luck.


[This message has been edited by lost1 (edited 09-17-99).]

[Susan]

Take a look at www.pricewatch.com (http://www.pricewatch.com)

It lists retailers where you can get a MB to put the P133 into for as little as $25 - or - get a MB and AMD K6-266 for $89.

/forum/smile.gif