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So I bricked a bios

L

luckybob

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Feb 3, 2009
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denver
about a year ago, I was at my local computer recycling place, helping dismantle computers (they give you HUGE discounts if you help disassemble computers. i'm talking 75-95% off normal prices) And I opened a rackmount case t find a dual asus pentium pro motherboard. (p/i-p65up5)

long story short I got 2 1m processors and some 32mb edo simms cheap on ebay and when I put them in the board it diddnt like the 1mb cache chips. Well lets upgrade the bios I said! and after the flashing process I found that I had selected the wrong bios from asus and completely bricked it.

the board still posts.... kinda. the video card will display its bios post then it will sit there like a rock. What I want to know is, given the caliber of people here SOMEONE has to have access to a eprom flasher. Its a real common chip:

intel FLASH
p28f001
bxt150
u7j028j2

If there was some way I can send you my chip and you can flash it with the correct bios I supply then that would make me ever so happy. I'd be willing to pay for all shipping costs + whatever you thought was fair.

pictures of the board(s):




So basically its been sitting on my shelf for about a year. In my attemopts to find a replacement board I found out about the p/i-p65up8 which is the same board but on steroids as it has scsi onboard and is a full AT size motherboard. But I can't even find a PICTURE of that board, let alone someone who wants to sell me one...
 
dang man.,.. been dieing to get a dual ppro board (and another matched 200mhz 1mb chip) .... yea... got a nice set of 12mb voodoo 2s to throw in it.

Anyway this will probably get moved to the off topic area by mbrtuman as it isnt "vintage" enough. for this section.
 
This is a shot in the dark (it's a setting on newer computers) but have you looked for a reset jumper or anything on the motherboard? A lot of newer systems (again, PPRO probably doesn't but who knows) have that for that exact scenario and to reset the bios back to a default image/settings.

I'm sure a few folks here might have a rom burner also. Do you happen to have the copy of the previous bios image?
 
28f001bx

28f001bx

I can flash 28F001BX's if any one needs it done. I'm in central Wisconsin, so I don't know who's closer.
I don't have any handy, so I'd actually need the chip in hand.
Don't know who's closest.
patscc
 
boot block

boot block

barythrin said...but have you looked for a reset jumper or anything on the motherboard?
Click to expand...

That's a real possibility and definitely worth looking in the manual for.
The 28F001BX is organized into 1 8kb lockable boot block, 2 4kb parameter blocks, and 1 112 kb main block.
It's tight, but you could hide some fail-safe code in there, I think.
patscc
 
patscc said:
That's a real possibility and definitely worth looking in the manual for.
The 28F001BX is organized into 1 8kb lockable boot block, 2 4kb parameter blocks, and 1 112 kb main block.
It's tight, but you could hide some fail-safe code in there, I think.
patscc
Click to expand...

you're exactly right! that 8k chunk is where we did a bios recovery boot block back in the day, about 6 years ago for me. It was most certainly a tight fit-you'd only get beep codes and a blank screen and then it would try and access the floppy drive to self recover.

phoenix bios had a LPT port key that would force a boot block recovery, and there is usually a jumper as well. Not sure how other bios vendors did it.

the LPT key was simply a loopback with a couple specific pins tied together.
I might even be able to find mine tucked away in an old desk drawer somewhere at work.

You needed a special BIOS recovery diskette though, and that might be pretty difficult to locate.

I'm in minneapolis, and my eeprom burner is currently hooked up. if you can send me the chip and a bios to throw into it, I'd be happy to try and re burn it too.
 
yes the chip is easily removeable. its circled in yellow in the picture, 32 pins. its right next to the usb header.



This board is so cool, i have to get it running. I mean if I found the daughter board I could replace the dual p-pro's with pentium 2's. the p65up8 board does the same thing too but that board will take ATX power supplies to boot. Even dual socket 5's...

but back on topic, I did try to reset the bios via jumper, which was a no-go. But whats this I hear about a recovery mode? There is no mention of it in the manual; in fact the only real mentioning of the bios is that it must be changed when you install a different cpu card. Which is probably where I went wrong to be honest...
 
Last edited:
boot block

boot block

I'm looking at page 8 of one of the manuals referring to a "Boot Block Programming" jumper. Did you change any jumpers when flashing ?
patscc
 
Bios

Bios

There's still a couple of BIOS revisions on the Asus site, but someone might want to check if it's the correct one.

The burner software should let you select the part whether or not it's actually in there. At least I can on mine. That's how I checked if it was supported.
patscc
 
while flashing? no, I had to change the jumper to enable the board to flash.

this is what I have EXACTLY:

p/i-p65up5 with the c-p6nd daughter card. Nonne that I see seem to really fit and when i sent a email to asus they just linked me to a page that probably isnt the right one.

let me get this system into some sort of case and find a good spare floppy... i'm going to give this a shot...
 
flashing 2

flashing 2

No, I meant before you flashed, but you answered it. The manual I have at least mentions the 28F001BXT.
Let me dig around in the datasheet. I glanced at it earlier, and there was some mention of the boot block, and I want to see if there's anything in there on how it gets activated.
patscc
 
Hi Chuck! I am guessing its the 32DIP socketed chip in the back. I sure hope ASUS wouldn't solder the BIOS into the motherboard. That's just wrong on so many levels! Especially for server grade equipment like that... its a sweet set up!

I can burn ROMs for you too but it looks like you already have several volunteers. Let me know if I can help.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch
 
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