What I learned about BIOS Flashing

[bigbeark]

To the tune of "I flashed the BIOS, but i did not screw the Motherboard"
(apology to B. Marley/E. Clapton)

I have been on a flashing jag, upgrading several old motherboards using
a floppy drive and diskette containing DOS boot disk, flashing tool and updated BIOS.

I was wary of hot flashing, so I checked out flashrom, the Linux tool.
I installed it on this machine from Synaptic. It lets you use a 3com ethernet card in a PCI slot, as a programmer. Unfortunately, the 3com card only works with 128kb bios size, not too useful as modernish bioses run from 256kb .

I learned the chips I am working on are DIP32. I find there is a ZIF socket you can use which means you can easily do a hot flash without prying out the chip to be flashed on a running mobo.

There is also a DIP32 to PLCC32 adapter that you could mount in the ZIF DIP32 socket, so you could theoretically flash later model BIOS chips using an old motherboard.

See the attached pic of the 3com card and ZIF socket.
http://flashrom.org/File:3com_prog.jpg

So I ordered a pair of the ZIF sockets for future hot flashing adventures

[pfrcom]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

Depending on what you regard as old motherboards ....

... I found some old Gigabyte boards to be significantly slower with their final BIOS

One I particularly remember was a GA-686DLX which corrupted when I tried to reflash the second-last BIOS after it was updated to the final BIOS

Seeing that board uses a DIP40 Intel 2megabit BIOS chip, it was quite a challenge to recover

But with the second-last BIOS it runs a pair of Celeron 466 with acceptable performance for XP, whereas the same hardware with the final BIOS took a couple of hours just to do an XP install

[bigbeark]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

So pfrcom, are you running those 466 celerons in Slockets? If so, which ones?

I tried dual slockets in my GA-6BXDS and it FRIED my 370-DL slocket, although the board was undamaged.

I had set the slockets to 1.8v in hope of using dual coppermine 750s

[pfrcom]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

Yes they are in Slockets

IIRC one is an early revision MS-6905, and the other is a Brand X, possibly PC Chips

[ratdude747]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

slokets eh?

I have a bunch of those... in a van full of free computer crap, i guess i found 4 NOS slockets... 3 MSI, one ASUS.

they also had multiplier jumpers...

yay free stuff? (they still are in the boxes, LOL)

[bigbeark]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

Ratdude, what model is the ASUS Slocket? If it's 370-DL I might be interested.

[ratdude747]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

not sure... it was in a red box.

next time i am at my old house, I'll take a look.

[dumpystig]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

Slocket...

[ratdude747]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

Slocket...

it lets you use socket 370 CPUs in slot 1 mainboards. essentially a slot 1 cartridge with a 370 socket in place of a CPU die.

rare ones exist that have socket 8 in place of socket 370

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slocket

[ratdude747]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

Ratdude, what model is the ASUS Slocket? If it's 370-DL I might be interested.

the asus is a s370-133

the msi cards are MS-6905

all the cards (both asus and msi) support coppermine and lower cores. both have adjustable vcore jumpers, from 1.5v to 2.6v (asus) or 1.5V to 2.0V (MSI), in increments of 0.05v.

if interested, PM me, as my only use is if I ever dug out my EATX dual slot 1 cumine board (AMI megadual) and if that, I would only need 2 slockets (unless I used slot 1 cpus, like the 733s I used to use in it).

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

The 6905s are moddable to run Tualatin too.

[ratdude747]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

The 6905s are moddable to run Tualatin too.

and i have 3 of them...

and I have a dualie board

but all i have for tualies is a 1200 and a 1300, both celerons

and the board is an eatx monster (and I no longer have a case that fits)

(the board is an AMI megadual if you wanted to know).

[Topcat]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

TSee the attached pic of the 3com card and ZIF socket.
http://flashrom.org/File:3com_prog.jpg

So I ordered a pair of the ZIF sockets for future hot flashing adventures

Where did you get those ZIF sockets?

[bigbeark]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

Topcat:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/180729475520...84.m1439.l2649

I'll let you know how well they work when they arrive..

[Topcat]

Re: What I learned about BIOS Flashing

^
Apparently they're out of them...but I found some more that had them. These will be interesting to try in some car ECU's for quick eprom changes.