BIOS flashed - now what's next?

[joah]

Well here it is,

I flashed the BIOS of my Tyan 1846 MoBo and now things aren't running so smoothly any more. I tried WinXP and Win2000 but they both fail to handle my Riva TNT2 correctly. So now I'm trying to go back to where I was... at Win98.

My question is: What is the routine for a complete hardware drivers update? I mean, I got my BIOS flashed (not sure if that worked out though) and I think the next part that need updating is the chipset? And is there anything else I need drivers too?

The thing is, my --&^#%&%-- MoBo is one of those premanufactured-, let's rip out the good stuff-, let's not have customer support- and let's not provide technical information- OEM boards. The whole computer was put together by Tulip (don't buy dutch, guys- I know, ' cause I'm Dutch! ) so I really haven't got a clue as to what driver goes where.

All suggestions are extremely welcome

[joah]

I tried win98 as well and it also crashes pretty badly on the Riva TNT2. I could have the AGP settings in the BIOS wrong, or my graphicscard could have died out on me. Still I think it's the BIOS.

So here's on more question: Can a BIOS flash kill a AGP-graphics card?? Even though the flashing itself seems to have been ok?

And can you mess up a BIOS if you flash it with the MoBo-manufacturers driver -and- the MoBo seems to be an altered OEM version rather than the original board?

I'm at this for a week now, trying to fix it, and it's very frustrating to experience life without my compu. I get shaky hands if I do not get my medication soon

All help greatly appreciated

[AllGamer]

there isn't really the need to Clear the CMOS jumper.

yeah it works, but that's the complicated way man.

every BIOS manual just recomends people to use

"Load BIOS default Settings"
save
reboot
and done

some times it's called "Load BIOS Fail Safe settings"

depending on the brand of your BIOS.

[joah]

Thanks for your reply!

You see, the BIOS interface has completely changed as well. Where the BIOS used to be an icon/mouse interface, it's now just a list of settings. I've got more options now, some of them seem pretty much the same, others are completely new. I've used default and failsafe settings, but neither does the trick.

When flashing the BIOS I also cleared out the CMOS settings, with the powercable unplugged. By the book uhm?

Problem still here

[joah]

Please tell me if it is possible to kill the graphics card with a BIOS flash?

Thanks.

[GatorBait]

And can you mess up a BIOS if you flash it with the MoBo-manufacturers driver -and- the MoBo seems to be an altered OEM version rather than the original board?

If the motherboard that you are currently using has been altered from the original specifications set by the manufacturer of the board and you are using the BIOS designed for a board that fits the manufacturer's spec, then that may very well be why you are having problems. If the BIOS wasn't designed for your specific motherboard, you shouldn't use it (and judging from the above statement, your motherboard differs from the one that the manufacturer designed the BIOS for). Did the flash utility that you used ask if you wanted to save the previous BIOS before flashing? If so, did you save it? If not, can you somehow acquire the original BIOS designed for YOUR particular motherboard? If so, then I would suggest that you re-flash your BIOS back the version that you were using prior to updating it, as it obviously isn't working to well with your motherboard.

[joah]

I've got most drivers on my harddisk already. Although I don't have any driver to a raid controller (not sure if i have those) and also, I haven't got drivers for the chipset that is on the board (Intel 440 BX). Do I have to install something for that as well?

Indeed, I do have some settings for the AGP slot, such as shadowing the video BIOS, BIOS shadowing and AGP size. I can put the first two in "disabled", but I'm not sure what the AGP size would be. It's set at 64 MB now. Do you know how or where I could find the correct settings?

Thanks for the help,
JOAH

[joah]

Hi again,

Well, I finally gave up on the board. The installation program of the right kind of BIOS (the one from the "second" manufacturer of the board, not the original) does not work. It has worked about a year ago when I last used it, but now (after the bad BIOS flash) it says that "This version of the BIOS is not supported on this system". So now I can't even revert to the BIOS that used top work. Anyway I'm going to buy a new (or actually old) MoBo.

Oww. Why did I do that in the first place....

JOAH

[Nukes]

Check in the directory of the program for a *.bin or dat file and pull it out, use the other flash utility. Might work. If you are using the updated flash util, there is sometimes a switch to force the write.