FIC VA-503+

[dr_truax]

Soulie2001 posted here http://www.sysopt.com/cgi-bin/overc/readfull.cgi?record=11257 that he has this MB running WinXP??? I have the latest bios je439 and can't even get it to run Win2000. Anyone have any suggestions and can I get ahold of Soulie2001 via here somehow?
Thank you...

[Bovon]

Hi, I don't know how to contact Soulie2001 unless that is his/her user name and you could do a search here for that, then send him/her a note.

But, I would like to ask you a question about the 503+ bios upgrade. I have the 503+ also, and recently bought a K6-2+ 533 cpu. The old `98 bios will not recognise the chip, so I downloaded the JE438.BIN bios. I did that because it said at FICA that this version supported the 550 and K6 III chips. I have not flashed yet, and I am now curious if maybe the JE439 would do the same as the JE438?

Back in August, I downloaded the JE4333 bios upgrade but never got around to do the flash, now I see that the JE4333 is no longer available. I have never flashed a bios, but from what I read, the most recent (in this case, the JE439) should be used.

Any comments appreciated.

BTW, I have Win98SE and Win2K Pro on the system now using the old `98 bios. It runs fine...hope a bios upgrade dosn't screw that up.

[Bovon]

Update, go to the following SysOpt page and from there you can PM (Personal Message) or e-mail him (Soulie2001) from the forum e-mail form.

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=23544

[nadine]

Hi: To Bovon
Could you please give me a little details on how did you flash you fic-VA-503+
Bios
I know i shall go to FIC Web site and download a file But I need a personal experience
Thanks,laters nadine

[Bovon]

Hi Nadine, well..I wish I could help out, but to tell the truth, I have never flashed a bios.

I am just getting my feet wet on the process myself. If you will go read my post in the Tech support I made early (very early) this morning, you will see where I am at. BIOS flash attempt, nothing happens

The process goes like this.

You make a boot disk with nothing but system files on it. In a case where all I need is a boot disk to get to an A: prompt, I use Winfile from Windows directory, put a formatted floppy disk in drive A:, and from the "disk" button on the tool bar, select 'make system disk'. Make sure it points to the floppy drive A:.

Making a boot disk with Winfile, only adds what it needs to boot to an A: DOS prompt, no drivers ect.

Go to start, run, and type winfile.

Now, you have already downloaded the zip file from FICA, and you need to extract that to the floppy boot disk you just made. This will include the BIN (bios) file and the flash utility to flash it with.

The one I got was JE438.BIN and FLASH73.EXE ( I have now downloaded the JE439 and may go with that one instead)

Now, you shut down the computer and reboot with the disk in the A: drive.

When you get to the A: prompt, type the following:

A:\>FLASH73 JE438.BIN (I'm using my own file names here, yours may differ according to what you downloaded, and there is a space between FLASH73 and JE438.BIN.) [don't type A:\>, I did that to show the entire text line]

Hit enter. This will now bring up the FLASH73 menu with the name of the BIN file you chose in a block. It will then ask if you want to save your old file, Y (yes) or N (no) I want to save mine, so I say 'Y' and hit enter. Now, I have a space to type in the name of my old file, which on my mobo is: 1.15JE32 and I gave it the .BIN as an extension, and hit enter...

This is where I am at now, because nothing happened. No flash, no save of the old file...zilch, nada...so I posted at the Tech Support here and asked why?...Sterling_Aug replied to not use two dots in trying to save the old file, so that may be why my flash did not work, and as soon as I get a response concerning the JE439 file, I will try again. I will just save the old bios as bios.old as he suggested.

Be sure to read the text at FICA about the process as well, because there is one more step in the flash process where it will one last time ask if you want to do the flash, and again you type 'Y' for yes.

Now, you sit back and wait until the flash program tells you to shut down or reboot. If it starts and stops, do not reboot until you are sure the flash went ok, I would presume if the flash didn't work the first time, you can flash it again, but if the flash does not go well, and you reboot or shut down, you may not be able to reboot. The rom chip on the 503+ is soldered to the board, so you cannot remove it and get a replacement. A flash gone bad on this board will need to be reflashed on the board by using an old ISA VGA video card and an old floppy drive controller card...most people do not have these old cards, but fortunately, I do...just in case.

[nadine]

Hi:thanks a lot Mr:Bovon for your great info.
I will print it out and used when I flash mine in The
future best regards,nadine

[Bovon]

Nadine, I flashed mine tonight and no glitches. I did find a site with a bit more info on what, when and why to do certain things which helped me understand what I was about to do.

There are some parameters to add after you type in the data to do the flash which helps.

dr_truax, After I flashed the bios, I went into the new bios, loaded the defaults, saved that and rebooted. Went back into bios and changed the settings back to where they were before the flash. Then, after saving that, I booted into Windows 98...alls well so far, sence I have a dual boot drive, I rebooted to go into Win2K. The machine failed right after verfying dma pool data (I think thats correct..can't remember for sure) anyway, it wanted the system boot disk. I put that in, and booted to an A: prompt, tried to change to a C: prompt and got an invalid drive spec.

Now, I use a Promise ULTRA 66 controller card. I changed the HDD over to IDE 1, autodetected the HDD, saved and rebooted into Win98 and then into Win2K...so, my problem now is finding out why it will not boot on the controller card. It booted the first time, then failed on the second boot, well before it got to the choose OS screen.

Are you using a controller card?..if so, try your onboard IDE controller. I also used JE439.BIN and it runs Win2K just fine.

[dr_truax]

Bovon,
Thanks for helping me get in touch with soulie2000 & helpefully he'll respond to my email. The old MB manuel contained alot of written errors and my board which I installed in AUG 2001 came with the latest bios but since you have win2x running and I can't perhaps you should leave well enough alone. If you decide to upgrade don't fret as their is a jumper on the mb to restore your old bios settings. I'm running a K6-2 500 amd the manuel says it'll handle a K6-III 450 with the je439 bios also it seems to me there was a single page addendum to the manuel which I cannot find regarding even faster AMD K-series CPU's. I've overclocked this mb to 112 mhz and win98 was pretty stable but I put it back to 100mhz in order to try to install win2k and winxp both of which failed. I get 30 minutes into the install and then i get blue screens with....page_fault_in_a_nonpaged_area. Let me know if I can help further....
DocT

[dr_truax]

Similiar Problem...
Bovon,
I have an ultra ata100 pci card and the silly mb/bios wont let me boot to win98 except for "safe mode". Crazy isn't it??
Doc

[Tron]

Hello
I had the same win2k installation problem 2 years ago.
But i thnik i was not able to fix it.

Have you set the ide harddisk (in standard bios setup) to auto detection? w2k needs that.

good luck TRON

[soulie2001]

Yes the je439 bios revision works in updating the bios to support the k6-2+ and k6-III+... this is what I have heard from other that have used this. I have no true way to test it myself because I don't have a k6-2+ or k6-III+ however make sure your mother revision is a v1.2 as je439 is for the v1.2 motherboard. the v1.2 should be on a white sticker sowhere on the motherboard, mine was on the bios chip. If it is a v1.1 I don't know what bios supports this. So make sure about your motherboard revision ALLWAYS as a rule of thumb BEFORE you flash a bios.

so there it is,
l8r,
soulie2001

[soulie2001]

Promise has addressed this issue with 98 and 98SE booting up improperly at this address:

http://support.promise.com/trouble/FIC503WorkAround.htm

Check it out, and read it in detail

[soulie2001]

Ok I took this from MSI so don't use the file names and stuff on it... only take it for its similarity content. This is also a way to possibly reflash your bios after you mess it up with improper flashing. This is provided the board will even still post:

Boot Recovery Feature

For AMI BIOS:
1. Rename the desired AMI BIOS file to AMIBOOT.ROM and save it on a floppy disk. e.g. Rename A569MS23.ROM to AMIBOOT.ROM
2. Insert this floppy disk in the floppy drive. Turn On the system and press and hold Ctrl-Home to force update. It will read the AMIBOOT.ROM file and recover the BIOS from the A drive.
3. When 4 beeps are heard you may remove the floppy disk and restart the computer.

For Award BIOS:
1. Make a bootable floopy disk
2. Copy the Award flash utility & BIOS file to the said floppy disk
3. Create an autoexec.bat with the award flasher utility name and the biosbinfile in the content (e.g. awdfl535 a619mj21.bin)
4. Boot up system with the said floppy (it will take less than 2 minutes before screen comes out)
5. Re-flash the BIOS & reboot.

Like I said don't take this info for the filenames in its context, only for the info. This is provided we have this feature in our board. And if we do then then the video card trick will work also. But if we DO NOT have it then not even the video card trick will work. So the gentleman with that info is only part way correct, it has to be a feature of the motherboard, to be able to even post bios and boot after a bad flash. If it doesn't the board is worthless and therefore is dead, the only way to fix would be send back to the manufacturer. But if it does post you can reflash over the bad bios and put the proper bios. The key is BEFORE you do ANY FLASHING is to check your motherboard revision to find its revision number, then look for your latest bios. like in the VA-503+ boards there are 2 revisions, v1.1a and v1.2a. je439 is the latest for v1.2a and does work as I verified and is stable. The latest for the 1.1a is JK1535 and I have no idea on its stability or issues and it IS an older bios revision.

Hope this info helps

l8r,
soulie2001

[Bovon]

Thanks for the input Doc. The 503+ I flashed is an extra board that I use as a test bed setup. I have recently purchased a K6-2+ 533, and the board will not recognise that cpu, hense the need to flash the bios. The flash went well, and all seems ok, except for the Promise Controller card glitch which soulie2001 may have provided the answer to. I disabled a bunch of stuff in the bios prior to flashing, ACPI was one of them. I did not re enable ACPI in the new bios, so I will try that...plus reading the data and complying with Promise tech advisories. I feel sure I can get it going ok.

soulie2001, thanks a lot for the links. I had no idea what ACPI did. Like most weekend computer enthusiasts, most bios settings are baffling to me. I do not have a clue what most of those criptic settings are, or what they do. Any chance you know of a site that goes into some detail concerning bios terms and settings?. I know just enough about the bios to be dangerous as heck.

The 503+ has its rom chip soldered in, so a replacement is out of the question if a flash goes bad. What I have read elsewhere is, an old ISA video card and floppy drive controller card will allow a flash to be performed. Of course, this requires 2 ISA slots, which are not present on newer mainboards. I have also read where sometimes, a PCI video card will work when the bios is dead and a reflash is needed, and then only 1 ISA slot is needed for an ISA floppy controller card.

Doc, I have that extra page that came with my manual for the 503+ that gives the newer settings that came out after the manual was printed. I can scan it and send you a gif or jpg of it if needed. PM me with your e-mail address if you want this.

[Bovon]

Well, dam...that bios, JE439 will not detect a K6-2+ 533. Bios reports 66 mhz. I will try again, but I don't think there is a bios at FIC that actually mentions a K6-2+. They say for K6-2 550 and K6 III I believe. If the bios supports a K6 II...I would have thought it would support a K6-2+...Unless!!...there is something wrong with my chip...hmmmmmm

Update, reflashed to JE4333 and now it finds the K6-2+, and I have it running at 5.5 X 112 fsb for 622 mhz...alls well that ends well..or so they say.

If anybody needs that JE4333.bin, go to the following URL. (use FLASH713 with this file.)

http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

[soulie2001]

Ok, here is a question, what is your clock multiplier and FSB set at? That CPU seems to be a CPU that I would think runs offa 5.5x clock multiplier and 95mhz FSB. The VA-503+ needs jumpers to set for every CPU, you can't just pop another CPU and expect it to see it properly, ESPECIALLY with these CPUs. This chip was actually a design for a laptop and is found in them most prominent. They have a PowerNOW! option on that CPU that also lowers the clock speed, but meant for laptops. But the VA-503+ shouldn't have this option. So check your info and see what you have.

l8rz,
soulie2001

[soulie2001]

Bovon, the VA-503+ BIOS is not soldered in... On mine it is clearly a socketed bios on my board. So if the Bios did give out immaturely with is a snap to fix it with a new bios chip and a bios chip puller. just make sure when you do something like that, to not push down too hard into the socket. It has to seat right, but not too far in or else it may spike the board and make your motherboard useless.

And in other news...
lates,
soulie2001

[Bovon]

soulie2001, I did not notice that this thread had spilled over to 2 pages, so I just edited my last post on page 1. I got it working by reflashing to JE4333. The JE439 would not detect the K6-2+ and I do not have a clue why. The JE4333 worked right off.

My rom chip is soldered in...I have two 503+ boards, and both of them are soldered in...you musta got a special board.

BTW, the JE439 bios reported the processor as only CPU 66 mhz. No AMD K6 nothing. I tried it at 500 mhz and 550 mhz. I tried 2.0 Vcore and 2.2 Vcore. I now have it running at 2.2 Vcore and may drop that back to 2.0 and see it it still runs ok.

[soulie2001]

Could you perhaps send me the JE4333 bin file. Email it to my email at soulie2001@juno.com it would be greatly appreciated. That way I can compare the bin files coding and see the differences. Thank you!

soulie2001

[Bovon]

Its on its way, but you can also get it here:

http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

I have one more question for you while I am posting here. I have two FIC VA 503+ boards. The one I flashed had a bios of JE32 before I flashed. I did not take notice of the date version.

My other board, (this one) has a bios, 1.13JK10 dated 7-20-1998. The bios ver is v4.51PG. bios extension is v.10A I am most certain it is a 1.2a 503+, but I cannot see the sticker on the ISA slot without removing the board. I have a friend that has almost the same, his bios is 1.13JE12, v4.51PG. We want to flash these other boards, but there is a large difference between the JE32 and 1.13JK10 or 1.13JE12. The board I flashed, I bought used, and may have been flashed one time already...and I wouldn't then know what the original bios version actually was.

The one I flashed had the following on the front page of the manual:

DOC No : 16409
Rev. : A3
Date : 7, 1998
Part No. : 25-10865-03

My friends board has the same.

My working board (this one) has the following:

DOC No. : 16409
Rev. : A2
Date : 5, 1998
Part No. : 25-10865-02

If any of that made any difference to you, would you think these two boards will take the latest 503+ bios?...eg: JE439.BIN. The difference in the bios versions have me gun-shy.

[soulie2001]

That is an absolute good question, there is honestly no way I can board revision without searching the motherboard. The funny thing is that it seems to be a 1.1a bios version but it has a latter make which in all likeliness probably is a 1.2a. So as of right now I refrain from it being elusive from it with the famed "20 foot pole". I can't tell you anything except earch the board. Another place to look is on the MD next to the keyboard hook-up, there should be a silk screened number which is the revision of the mb.
Hope this helps a little.

L8r!
soulie2001

[Bovon]

I understand. I thought just perhaps that data would be sufficent to decide which it is. I bought the board in September `98 after I learned that the 1.2a would be coming out in August. I suppose whoever I bought it from did not have a big turnover, because 503+ boards were selling like hotcakes at the time. I do feel mine is a 1.2a however, because I am running a K6-2 500 in it, the bios reports it as 400, but Windows utilities report it is running at 501 mhz. Also, when I got it, the manual had an addendum page extra that gave the fsb jumper settings above 100mhz. I don't believe a 1.1 version would have supplemented the manual with that addendum if the board was not capable of running at the specified frequencies.

I will get a good flashlight and see if I can see any revision #s near the keyboard socket.

I wrote FICA with the same info I posted above...maybe they will be able to figure it out and give me an answer.

Thanks again, l8r...Bov..

[plug-n-pray]

You can also download the bios at the Taiwan ftp site

ftp://ftp.fic.com.tw/bios/motherboards/socket7/va-503+/

The only problems I had with the JE433X versions were in Win98. For some reason it would not reboot properly without screwing up my Matrox video drivers. To make matters worse, it would reboot when trying to shutdown. So I had to stay with the system and shut the power button off at the BIOS post (AT power). Then I installed Windows 2000 and it fixed those problems for the most part. At least it now shuts down to a blank screen with a blinking curser.

I could not get my K6-2+ 500 to go higher than 100MHz bus. Don't know why, maybe something else in the system or version is too old (3.5 years). So I'm stuck at 600MHz. Actually it doesn't matter because I gave it to my parents and have moved on to an athlon.

[Bovon]

soulie2001, I am ticked off to no end today. I looked at the board, and found the version silk screened near the last ISA socket also near the mounting hole in the corner of the board, bottom left as mounted in a tower.

It is a 1.1B!.. I had ordered this setup in Sept or Oct. `98 as a bare bones setup from a vendor in NY. I specified a 1.2A version, as I had waited until they were out in late August. I was not as computer savy back then, and didn't want to put my first decent machine together. I didn't know much about versions, other than what I had read, so I trusted the vendor, and of course I paid more for the 1.2A than the 1.1 versions were selling for by that time.

The board runs a K6-2 500 just fine, except it reports it as 400 mhz in DOS.

I doubt now that I will do a bios upgrade on this one..I may just swap this board out for my other on which is a 1.2A version. Do you happen to know of a bios upgrade that will be of any benefit for this 1.1B?...

Thanks for your insight, I appreciate it.


plug-n-pray, The 503+ 1.2a That I flashed with the JE4333 bios has Win98Se and Win2K running on that HDD, and altho I have not really put that machine thru its paces, I have seen no problems with Windows sence the flash. I first flashed to JE439 which did not recognise the K6-2+ 533 processor...and while I had that bios installed, the machine would not boot with my HDD connected to a Promise ULTRA 66 controller card...I had to connect the drive to the IDE primary mobo controllers, but after the flash to 4333, it again works with the controller card.

Both versions of Windows boots up and shuts down like it did before all of the bios flashes.

[soulie2001]

Here is the info on the 1.1b
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=254
by this info it looks as if the 1.1b bios and 1.2a are alike. maybe 1.1b was an early release of the 1.2a? Because 1.1b added the support 1.2a had as far as FSB and clock multiplier. So maybe you could give it a try, but at your discretion.

l8r!
Nate

[Bovon]

Are you aware of a site that lists or have a reference to the different bios versions for this board?.

Looking at the versions offered at FICA, I do not see anything specifically for the 1.1.B. They have JK1535 date 8/26/99 for the 1.1A, and JE1537 date 8/26/99 for the 1.2A...this kinda leads me to think you are correct, and the main difference between the 1.1B and the 1.2A is maybe the bios version.

I just love it when they do not give any info as to what the version corrected or was updated for.

The next in line is the JE438 dated 4/6/00 and says support AMD K6-2 550Mhz CPU

ONLY the Motherboard with certified sticker can support AMD CPU up to K6(2)-550 or K6(3)-500

The last is version JE439 date 5/23/00 which says, fixed COM port mouse can't work under WIN98 ACPI mode.

If FICA tech's would reply to queries, I might try one of these. I am comfortable that I could flash to the JE1537, but I am hesitant to try the 438 or 439, which I don't need for K6-2 550 or K6 III support.

I would definately like to read about the different bios versions for this board, and what they did, or corrected. And also, what..if any difference there may have been in the PCB for the 1.1B vs the 1.2A. If I had access to this type of info, I could make a logical decision about which bios to use.