The thing with BIOS flashing is, theres absolutely no comprehensive guide or webpage that has the information that's actually relevant.
If you need to flash a BIOS to some board, you're in a jungle basically and I can't make heads or tails out of it!
The BIOS file is often not hard to locate, but WHAT FLASHER TO USE ON WHAT MOTHERBOARD????
I collected several versions of Award and AMI Flashtools. The oldest are from ~1994. Often it is necessary to try some versions until you find one that is able to flash the ROM of a particular board.
BastlerMike, do you have a FIC 486-PIO3 mobo with the latest BIOS? Also, the awdflash util (ver 5.2c) on FIC's FTP webpage for the 486-PIO3 is dated 1993! I would be interested to know what later versions I could use, without using a version that is too new. Something like a version 6.x, perhaps? Do you have something like that in your flash utils collection please?
Yes I have this mobo. I will post a zip-archive of the tools tomorrow.
Awesome, thanks very much! 😀 Yesterday, I stumbled upon a webpage on the net, and a poster stated that one of the FIC BIOS files is corrupt. It would be extremely useful to be able to get the BIOS file from a "real working board", and then do a "file diff" (difference / comparison) on the file obtained from the internet (FIC FTP and elhvb, and also driverguide), with a BIOS file obtained from a real working board. Thanks a lot!
It's really interesting that Uniflash successfully identifies the BIOS chip on the board, and also successfully creates a back up BIOS file, and also flashes the BIOS chip successfully with this back up BIOS file. But it can't flash the BIOS chip with any of the FIC FTP BIOS files. Strange.
As promised, here are my collected flash utilities
Thanks very much BastlerMike! Only if convenient, is there any chance you could do a "file comparison" on your working BIOS, with the BIOS available on the internet please? Also, looking at your collection of flash utilities, which one would you recommend I use for the FIC 486-PIO3 mobo? Thanks a lot.
wrote:Thanks very much BastlerMike! Only if convenient, is there any chance you could do a "file comparison" on your working BIOS, with the BIOS available on the internet please? Also, looking at your collection of flash utilities, which one would you recommend I use for the FIC 486-PIO3 mobo? Thanks a lot.
I've done some re-reading about modding BIOS files. Never tried anything with it, but it's always looked interesting in a way.
wrote:is there any chance you could do a "file comparison" on your working BIOS, with the BIOS available on the internet please? Also, looking at your collection of flash utilities, which one would you recommend I use for the FIC 486-PIO3 mobo?
I have no clue, which utility to use in this case. As mentioned before, it might be necessary to try some of them.
I attached a bios image which should to be ok. (file is not zipped, only renamed to make posting possible)
Very unfortunately, my 486-PIO3 mobo is now "bricked". I cannot boot up from either the HDD or the FDD. The BIOS flash operation appeared to half succeed. I flashed it with the 486-PIO3 BIOS attachment file found above, using the awd66.exe flash utility file found above.
After the awd66.exe flash operation finished, I pressed F10 to reset, and then the system printed a strange "malloc error" message. I rebooted, and I could then see the new BIOS datestamp during the BIOS POST stage. It says: 1.15G705. If I set the system to boot from C: first, after the IO controller has identified the HDD, the system just pauses indefinitely. If I set the system to boot from A: first, the screen says "Starting MS-DOS", and stops. Nothing happens.
For the awd66.exe flash operation, I used this command line: awd66.exe 486pio3.awd /py/sn
That means program the flash and don't make a back up. Previously, I made a back up file, but I cannot get in to DOS in order to run Uniflash, in order to reflash the BIOS using my back up BIOS file! Any ideas please people? Can someone please reprogram my BIOS chip? Please?! 😀
Edit: I wonder if the awd flash bios utility I used was "too new"? I tried running the awd55.exe version, but it is zero bytes in length, and couldn't be run. Also, my Winbond chip is W83787F. I read on the FIC 486PIO3 FTP server area, that this is important, but I think the BIOS file attachment found above is suitable for this chip. BastlerMike, what Winbond chip is on your 486-PIO3 mobo?
Update. I removed the ISA-based enhanced IO controller, and re-enabled the onboard integrated IDE controller. I also removed the FDD. I can now boot to DOS. Phew, that's a relief. However, the damn system is still dog slow. Speedsys still posts terrible results. Oh well. I blame VIA. Everyone else does! 😉
Edit: Sorry about the false alarm above, about the "bricked system BIOS". I've never seen a 486 hang like that before. Now it's working again, I'll retry it with the ISA IO controller... BTW, many thanks to BastlerMike for the downloads! 😀
Edit 2: Where I went wrong - IMHO, it was unwise of me to use an IO controller for the flash operation. I should have used the onboard IDE/FDD instead. Why? Well, after a flash operation has completed, I expect it tried to set the BIOS settings to defaults. And that means setting the onboard integrated IDE to "Enabled". That will clash with the external IO controller, because using one of these controllers, you need to set the onboard integrated IDE controller to "Disabled". It's just a thought, but it sounds plausible.
This is odd. The mobo doesn't want to cooperate with the IO controller any more. It won't boot up DOS with it. The BIOS POST stage shows the IO controller's BIOS information, and shows that the IO controller can detect the HDD OK, but it won't boot DOS. I just tried this IDE IO controller in another mobo, and it works fine.
Do you think I've discovered a bug in the 486-PIO3's latest BIOS? I am very tempted to reflash the BIOS again, and go back to my earlier initial back up BIOS file, to see if the ISA IDE IO controller will work again. BTW, the onboard integrated IDE IO appears to be OK.
Check if there is a boot order issue?
I did a 'load BIOS default" on my 486 and the same issue happened. Turns out the boot order was reset as well.
It's not a boot order issue, because if there wasn't anything in A:, it would just then look at C: Also, I can't reflash the BIOS back to the older back up version. Uniflash complains of a verification error. I'm stuck with the latest version, that appears to not want to cooperate with an IO controller. I'm not sure what to do now...?
Edit: I remember the error message from the awd66.exe flash util, after it finished flashing the BIOS. It was "Memory allocation error." And then something about command.com.
Why use a separate I/O controller when the board has an on-board one in the first place?
wrote:Why use a separate I/O controller when the board has an on-board one in the first place?
With the IO controller, I have everything plugged in to it. If I want to remove the HDD, optical drive, and FDD, all I have to do is pull one card out. OTOH, if I want to remove these 3 items from a 486 mobo, I have to pull out 3 cables away from the pins on the mobo, and this in itself is more awkward than removing a single controller card. So, it's just done for convenience. 😀
Unfortunately, I've definitely "bricked" the BIOS now. I used awd66.exe, and flashed the back up BIOS file I made using Uniflash. Now I get no POST. I've tried several times to power on the system. The 3 keyboards lights flash once, then a second time, and that's it. Nothing.
Can someone please reflash my BIOS chip? I'll pay for the postage, etc etc.
Man, you should have trusted Uniflash when it said "VERIFICATION FAILED"! Obviously it thought the backup was bad.. >.>
I've got a chip flasher but I've never gotten it to flash anything. If nobody else offers to do it I'll give it a go for you, since you've offered to pay the postage back and forth. If anybody else has a flasher and is willing to help though, you should go with them (since I haven't successfully flashed a damn thing)..
I (and anybody else willing to help) would need to know what sort of chip (physically) it is, though.. I could look it up from the number, but I'm lazy - is it a PLCC, DIP-8, etc..?
wrote:Man, you should have trusted Uniflash when it said "VERIFICATION FAILED"! Obviously it thought the backup was bad.. >.>
The BIOS file that I just unsuccessfully used with the awd66.exe flash utility was a "good" back up file made by Uniflash. I know it was a good back up BIOS file, because after I got Uniflash to make this back up BIOS file, I then used it with Uniflash to flash the BIOS! And it worked! So, I am disappointed that awd66.exe made a mess of my BIOS, using this good back up file.
Thanks very much for the flash operation offer. 😀 I'll give you all the details soon, but I am kind of hoping that some kind soul will offer to "hot flash" the chip, because I think that's the best chance of success. The BIOS chip is an SST chip, with 16 legs on either side.
