VOGONS


First post, by gattilorenz

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I have a couple of IGEL WinNet III (the marking on the motherboard is MB-5BLMP) but they come from a company that modified the bios and removed the possibility to access it by pressing DEL or Ctrl-Alt-Esc.
I've tried without success

  • removing the DOC2000 chip
  • attaching a regular hard drive with DOS installed. Result: no boot device present
  • pressing every key combination
  • dumping the original bios and looking at it with ModBin/CBROM - no way to re-enable the "del" key
  • compiling different versions of coreboot + seabios from when it had still support from this board. Result: coreboot and seabios do start, the video gets initialized, but it gets stuck while trying to find/booting the hard drive

Since I'm running out of options short of decompiling and patching the original BIOS, which is not worth it... does anyone have the same motherboard, and if so could you send me a dump of your bios?

Reply 2 of 11, by BinaryDemon

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I can't can't help with BIOS flashing or editing, but I would try two more things before going that route.

1) Change amount of ram (similar to removing the DOM, trying to have the bios detect a change)
2) Remove battery? Most bios that lose settings completely will prompt to enter bios and do initial setup.

Check out DOSBox Distro:

https://sites.google.com/site/dosboxdistro/ [*]

a lightweight Linux distro (tinycore) which boots off a usb flash drive and goes straight to DOSBox.

Make your dos retrogaming experience portable!

Reply 3 of 11, by Doornkaat

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Schule04 wrote on 2021-06-28, 11:26:

I think I have that board, but I don't own a rom flasher. What's the best software to dump an old AWARD BIOS?

Have you tried UniFlash 1.40? It has very broad support for a lot of chipsets and EEPROMS.

Reply 4 of 11, by Schule04

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Here's the BIOS file AWDFLASH 6.31 produced. The BIOS chip in my machine is a SST 39SF020 /5V

Attachments

  • Filename
    IGEL W BIOS.BIN.zip
    File size
    192.1 KiB
    Downloads
    74 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 5 of 11, by gattilorenz

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Thanks a lot, I'm gonna try it right now and let you know!

I use Uniflash 2 for the record, but since I can't get it running on the machine itself (I can't boot it) I power up a different PC with the same BIOS chip, once in DOS I remove the original BIOS and put the one from IGEL to be read/flashed... it's a convoluted process that requires a somewhat steady hand 😀

as for changing the amount of RAM and/or removing battery to reset the CMOS, I did do that too, but forgot to add them to the list...

Reply 6 of 11, by gattilorenz

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Lo and behold...

photo_2021-06-28_17-31-04.jpg
Filename
photo_2021-06-28_17-31-04.jpg
File size
104.9 KiB
Views
1107 views
File license
Public domain

It works!!! I attached an HD and without even detecting it I got it booting DOS, fantastic!

Thanks a lot for dumping your bios, I had these thinclients for almost 10 years now and it's the first time I can actually do something with them!

Reply 8 of 11, by gattilorenz

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Sure, I've added them to archive.org. including yours: https://archive.org/details/asi-5BLMP-bios
Let me know if you want your BIOS removed or at least if I should remove your nickname.

This is the content of your BIOS according to CBROM:

CBROM V6.06 (C)Award Software 1999 All Rights Reserved.

******** IGELWB~1.BIN BIOS component ********

No. Item-Name Original-Size Compressed-Size Original-File-Name
================================================================================
0. System BIOS 20000h(128.00K)13C28h(79.04K)original.tmp
1. Other(4100:0000) 04E20h(19.53K)033DBh(12.96K)awardext.rom
2. VGA ROM[1] 08000h(32.00K)04242h(16.56K)gxvideo.209
3. VSA driver 20000h(128.00K)09B05h(38.75K)GXM55306.LM4
4. PCI driver[A] 0D000h(52.00K)07DA5h(31.41K)V211.lom
5. LOGO BitMap 2583Ch(150.06K)00193h(0.39K)cmc_ph~2.bmp

Total compress code space = 33C28h(207.04K)
Total compressed code size = 2CC82h(179.13K)
Remain compress code space = 06FA6h(27.91K)

** Micro Code Information **
Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID
------------------+--------------------+--------------------+-------------------

Here the BIOS for one of my thinclients, you can see that some of the included ROMs are different (e.g. VSA driver):

CBROM V6.06 (C)Award Software 1999 All Rights Reserved.

******** NODEL1.BIN BIOS component ********

No. Item-Name Original-Size Compressed-Size Original-File-Name
================================================================================
0. System BIOS 20000h(128.00K)12BCCh(74.95K)original.tmp
1. Other(4100:0000) 04DF0h(19.48K)033A6h(12.91K)awardext.rom
2. VSA driver 20000h(128.00K)095B6h(37.43K)GXM55305.LM4
3. VGA ROM[1] 08000h(32.00K)04254h(16.58K)gxiv.209
4. PCI driver[A] 08800h(34.00K)053B8h(20.93K)rtspxe_m.lom

Total compress code space = 32BCCh(202.95K)
Total compressed code size = 28B34h(162.80K)
Remain compress code space = 0A098h(40.15K)

** Micro Code Information **
Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID
------------------+--------------------+--------------------+-------------------

Here is the other one. Should be exactly the same with an added logo that covers the POST:

CBROM V6.06 (C)Award Software 1999 All Rights Reserved.

******** NODEL2.BIN BIOS component ********

No. Item-Name Original-Size Compressed-Size Original-File-Name
================================================================================
0. System BIOS 20000h(128.00K)12BCCh(74.95K)original.tmp
1. Other(4100:0000) 04DF0h(19.48K)033A6h(12.91K)awardext.rom
2. VSA driver 20000h(128.00K)095B6h(37.43K)GXM55305.LM4
3. VGA ROM[1] 08000h(32.00K)04254h(16.58K)gxiv.209
4. LOGO BitMap 2583Ch(150.06K)0202Bh(8.04K)1primo.bmp

Total compress code space = 32BCCh(202.95K)
Total compressed code size = 257A7h(149.91K)
Remain compress code space = 0D425h(53.04K)

** Micro Code Information **
Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID
------------------+--------------------+--------------------+-------------------

The text inside the rom is "Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG" for all of them, but yours has the strings "03/21/2002-GXm-Cx5530A-2A434A3EC-00", "5BLGP VER:5.06.13" and "2A434A3E". Mine have "11/04/1999-GXm-Cx5530-2A434A3DC-00", "5BLMP Ver:0.9P 11/16/1999", "2A434A3D", suggesting they are a couple of years older.

Reply 9 of 11, by Schule04

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Thanks! By the way I found that the DOC and IDE conflict with each other so you'll have to remove the chip if you want to use IDE. Also thanks for removing the stupid logo, I will flash that one onto my machine too

Reply 10 of 11, by Lex-

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Schule04 wrote on 2021-06-28, 17:43:

Nice. Can you also upload your locked down BIOS file?

Hello Schule04 looking about IGEL thin clients I discovered this thread and this:

https://archive.org/details/h820c

can you please let me know how you do the h820c BIOS mod ?

I have a similar IGEL H830C and I want to unlock the hidden settings.

Hope you can help.
Thank you.

Reply 11 of 11, by Schule04

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Hi Lex-, I dumped the whole chip with an external SPI flasher and used AMIBCP to make the BIOS show all settings that were previously hidden. AMI BIOSes are pretty easy to "unlock" as long as the settings are there and hidden.

Your Igel H830 probably has an Insyde BIOS, the same tools sadly don't work for it.
There are some tools for changing hidden Insyde BIOS settings but they are very limited and changing them cannot be done using the BIOS GUI.