Bad BIOS flash - any hope to recover PCCHIPS M748LMRT

[RalphArch]

I reflashed subject motherboard (had successfully flashed about a month ago) to latest bios, but on startup I hit the end key (to clear CMOS) and apparently screwed up the bios. Now system just gives a beep on startup. Anyone know how to recover? - I have removed battery and reinstalled and shorted CMOS - still the same. Mr. Bios doesn't carry bios chips for this MB

(System was "working" before the flash. Actually I was having problems loading Windows 98 - Win SE - would always get about 50 corrupt files after initial install and loading the on-board lan drivers) Maybe this motherboard is not worth salvaging anyway.)

[Peter M]

If you flashed a BIOS intended for that board, and just failed, there's hope left. The beeping is an indication, the system should have the floppy drive light active while doing so.

AMI's emergency procedure: Place the same BIOS you tried to flash on an otherwise blank floppy disk, name the file AMIBOOT.ROM. Place this disk into the machine that just sits there and beeps.

The beeps here mean: Single beep - insert disk, Two beeps - file not found, and so on. Four beeps and a reboot, or a constant beeping (waiting for you to press Reset) means success.

Regards, Peter

[bdunn]

A single beep is a good sign. Pop an ISA video card in the board. You should be able to boot from a floppy and re-flash.

[RalphArch]

Thank you both. Your advice salvaged the bios and I'm back in business. (Didn't need to change anything except to rename the bios as Peter suggested and place in the floppy).

Now if I could only get the PCCHIPS drivers to load without corrupting W98. But thats another thread if needed.

[deep_sky]

dont ya just love pcchips??? i had one hellish all-nighter getting the drivers loaded on my computer. i was attempting to install them the proper way, but after hours of banging my head against the wall, i had to go to the cd and click on the proper setup.exe....stupid things like that irritate me...

[Peter M]

Given the speed of driver development, your CD might have gotten a little old by now.
Download latest drivers:
www.sis.com.tw (http://www.sis.com.tw) - 620 IDE and VGA, 900 LAN
www.cmedia.com.tw (http://www.cmedia.com.tw) - 8738 audio
www.pcchips.com.tw (http://www.pcchips.com.tw) - 748LMRT modem
www.davicom.com.tw (http://www.davicom.com.tw) - 9102 LAN drivers (if your LAN chip isn't an SiS 900)

Regards, Peter
Regards, Peter

[Jim Dancy]

I have the same problem, with my BIOS, that Ralph describes except it did not occur while flashing. I can get in to the BIOS but it is blank. If I hold down the enter key I can see the settings for the first page, flashing in the background, but can not access them. How can I obtain the BIOS on a floppy, as mentioned as a solution for this problem.

Thanks,

Jim

[RalphArch]

It doesn't sound like you have the same problem as me - I had no video; nothing; only the beep. Another indication for me was that the beeps changed when I put the floppy disk I was using to flash in. And this happened when I was doing a flash anyway. But following Peter's advice and changing the name from what it was when I d/l from PCCHIPS website (101899.rom or something like that) to amiboot.rom it worked. Still took a long time to flash (several minutes)

Sounds like you need to flash the bios anyway. Just use the program and bios flash from their website. The new bios did get me UDMA66 capability. And the second flash appears to have worked fine (I didn't jumper the cmos as directed after the first flash - maybe that was the cause of all my problems last go around).

I was paranoid after installing W98/SE over 5 times last week. Every time W98 would install and the world of files would get corrupted but only after several hours into the Windows installation while loading drivers or programs. I searched all over the pcchips website for updated drivers and programs but couldn't find any. I will go back and look at the sites Peter suggests as they appear to be later coming from their Taiwan pages. So anyway this time I was running SFC after each driver and each program. Also fdisked twice before starting. No problems whatsoever now except the normal expected corrupt files when installing IE 5.01 update.

I'm happy again with the Motherboard - it is quite a bargain for $80 and my problems appear to stem from my error in flashing. Their website is hard to follow though.

[RalphArch]

I finally think I discovered the solution to my corrupted files situation with the PCCHIPS M748 lmrt, After d/l latest drivers (thanks for the great links Peter) I did end up corrupting one more time a day later. I read a thread elswhere about UDMA66 problems on ABIT boards when it was enabled on a drive with multiple partitions. So I reinstalled the drive again, this time with a single partition; and it is now working fine. (It was great to have an extra hard drive available so I could just copy back the partition)

[IronMike]

Similar problem here with my PCCHIPS 748LMRT - I flashed the BIOS and rebooted and the machine spins up the HD, but then NOTHING happens. No beeps, no floppy light, no HD access, nothing.

Did I screw up and use the wrong BIOS? I got it from pcchips.nl - but it has a different filename than the one on the Taiwan site (I noticed this AFTER I flashed).

Help please?