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Hi all,
Long story short, I attempted to upgrade the BIOS of my motherboard to use a newer Athlon X2 processor and it failed. I made a bootable USB key, used the included flash program and did the flash in DOS. Get this: It said the update / flash had completed successfully but upon reboot my system won't POST. I tried removing CMOS batter for 20 minutes and clearing CMOS with the jumper pin, but doesn't change the results. It won't do anything more than give power to my drives, so trying to get it to recover from the floppy was futile. I won't even get a signal to my monitor at all. Ie: It's completely bricked and it has no "BootBlock" or other recovery means.
And, since my BIOS is soldered onto the motherboard, I cannot order a replacement chip. I just spent the last hour calling every PC repair shop near my area that Google could find (It's a little hit and miss, I think there's more out there but the answer will probably be the same). Almost every one of them knew what I walk talking about, but said they can't [and don't know of anyone who can] directly flash a BIOS chip, or remove it from the board to flash it.
So that's it? No one in the greater Denver area has the tools necessary to desolder and flash a BIOS chip? What if we didn't have China or Taiwan to rely on? I bet I could buy an EEPROM burner on eBay and flash the chip myself! This is a freaking joke!
Let this be a warning that flashes can fail for no reason, and your only option is to wait for weeks to send your motherboard to Taiwan just so they can pop a new chip on in thirty seconds!
Thanks for listening to me vent. I'd love to hear any failed BIOS stories you have to share too. Oh and don't be hesitant to mention if you can flash BIOS chips and happen to live in Denver!
Long story short, I attempted to upgrade the BIOS of my motherboard to use a newer Athlon X2 processor and it failed. I made a bootable USB key, used the included flash program and did the flash in DOS. Get this: It said the update / flash had completed successfully but upon reboot my system won't POST. I tried removing CMOS batter for 20 minutes and clearing CMOS with the jumper pin, but doesn't change the results. It won't do anything more than give power to my drives, so trying to get it to recover from the floppy was futile. I won't even get a signal to my monitor at all. Ie: It's completely bricked and it has no "BootBlock" or other recovery means.
And, since my BIOS is soldered onto the motherboard, I cannot order a replacement chip. I just spent the last hour calling every PC repair shop near my area that Google could find (It's a little hit and miss, I think there's more out there but the answer will probably be the same). Almost every one of them knew what I walk talking about, but said they can't [and don't know of anyone who can] directly flash a BIOS chip, or remove it from the board to flash it.
So that's it? No one in the greater Denver area has the tools necessary to desolder and flash a BIOS chip? What if we didn't have China or Taiwan to rely on? I bet I could buy an EEPROM burner on eBay and flash the chip myself! This is a freaking joke!
Let this be a warning that flashes can fail for no reason, and your only option is to wait for weeks to send your motherboard to Taiwan just so they can pop a new chip on in thirty seconds!
Thanks for listening to me vent. I'd love to hear any failed BIOS stories you have to share too. Oh and don't be hesitant to mention if you can flash BIOS chips and happen to live in Denver!