Bios Flashed

[jleazer]

Hi, over the weekend I tried to fix my some problems with my Epox EPMVP3C motherboard with a AMD 450MHZ K6 processor by flashing the bios with the latest bios update from Epox. (recommended by the shop I bought it from) Boy did I fix it alright. Now it will not boot at all--just get a black screen.
Am I dead in the water or is there a way to recover from this.

[Axel]

Are you getting any beeps from the system? Allow me to re-phrase - what is happening when you reboot the system?

Did you remember to reset the BIOS to all default settings and save before you exited?

Did you change any other components when you flashed?

Did you back-up the old file to a boot floppy when you flashed?

Come back with that info and we'll go from there.

[jleazer]

Axel, I'm not getting any beeps, just the hard drive spinning up noise at first, then blank screen, and no more noise of any kind.
After I flashed the bios, I didn't even get to go in and load the default settings, like the instructions had said. It was at that point that everything quit. The program said it backed up the old file, but to the hard drive I believe. I didn't change any components after the flash.

[jonathankeeping]

Hi jleazer,
Hmmm... looks like your attempt to flash the BIOS EEPROM has gone very wrong!!!

What operating environment were you in when you flashed your EEPROM? You should have been in SAFE DOS mode with NO memory drivers loaded. If you flashed in Windows then there is a chance that the EEPROM wasn't written to properly. Also did you double check that you were flashing the EXACT version of you mobo/bios version.

Your next best step is probably to contact the shop that advised you to flash your EEPROM. They can either contact the mobo manufacturer and get hold of a new EEPROM chip at a cost, or they could re-program your current EEPROM in another computer.

It is possible, if you have another computer to re-program the EEPROM yourelf, but I would strongly advise that you don't as it involves removing the EEPROM inside a working computer while its still on, and replacing it with your one!!!

Whatever you decide to do, I wish you the best of luck, and I bet you never make this mistake again!!!

[Axel]

I'd have to agree with Jon - looks like something went terribly wrong -
I'd say you either got a bad flash file which wrecked the EPROM, or the EPROM is damaged. There are other possibilities, but those are the most likely two - The back-up is probably on the hard drive and you won't be able to get to it - Next time, please place a copy of the back-up file on the boot floppy with the flash utility on it - even if you have to stop the flash process to do it - most flash programs have a means to escape the process at any step without proceeding.

But that won't do you any good here - time to contact the mother board manufacturer to see if they might sell you a BIOS chip seperately. If they try to ream you on the price of an EPROM chip, then just buy a new board in the hopes the problem isn't a fried CPU chip. See it as an unfortunate opportunity - otherwise you'll just stay mad and frustrated.....

[jleazer]

Thanks for all the responses and help, I did end up contacting the dealer and since the board was still under warranty, they replaced it for free. Whew! I think my days as a flasher are over. JL