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First post, by biessea

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Hi all friends,

I am having problems with boot of a Compaq Presario 7460, with an AMD K6-2 500mhz.

I have the boot diagnostic card and it stops after some testing, I need if you someone could dump this system's bios, so I can study with a friend the exact point that my motherboard stops to boot.

I hope you can help me, thanks a lot!

Loris

Computer lover since 1992.
Love retro-computing, retro-gaming, high-end systems and all about computer-tech.
Love beer, too.

Reply 1 of 4, by Horun

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As you know Problem with Compaq: their bios updates are unique, like Intels. The Softpaq's do not give access to the actual bios file (have tried to extract with Sofpaq util and others but is never successful).
The odds of someone else with same board is rare which means any one with a old Compaq needs to find a way to save their bios as an image as soon as they get their Compaq.
Sorry I have no good news other than the same BIOS was used in:
"Presario Models 7350, 7360, 7400, 7430, 7450, 7453, 7454, 7460, 7461, 7462, 7463, 7464, 7465, 7468, 7469, 7470, 7471, 7473, 7474, 7475, 7476, 7477, 7478, 7479, 7480, 7481, 7482, 7483, 7485, 7486, 7487, 7922
ROM Version 686S4, dated 07/25/00"
based on: SP17455.txt for SP17455.EXE Presario Specific Models System ROM Update #1 for Models Sold in 2000 VERSION: 1.04 Rev A
That was the last bios update AFAIK.

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 2 of 4, by BitWrangler

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Either winrar or 7zip was unpacking some softpaqs for me the other year, they only had drivers though so not sure if the BIOS ones are different.

edit: had 7zip on this system and sure enough was opening driver softpaqs, then found one it wouldn't open, and it was a BIOS update for Armada, so yah, not any use then.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 3 of 4, by Horun

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BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-06, 03:05:

Either winrar or 7zip was unpacking some softpaqs for me the other year, they only had drivers though so not sure if the BIOS ones are different.

Yes the drivers can usually be extracted but the bios files leave odd size items and nothing but the Softpaq util would decompress to a say a 256k file size (on the ones I tried) but it was a mix of full test and the bios.
Did not spend much time on it but maybe there is a way to extract the actual bin file from within, just do not know how (hex editor gave no clues). I am just not equiped to do that 🙁
Will post the full and Softpaq uncompressed of above in a bit, need to move to the "work" computer 😀

added: and yes a quick check shows the the 7450 and 7460 running a K2/500 but could be wrong...OP did not give much info.......

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Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 4 of 4, by biessea

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Horun wrote on 2023-11-06, 03:14:
Yes the drivers can usually be extracted but the bios files leave odd size items and nothing but the Softpaq util would decompr […]
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BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-06, 03:05:

Either winrar or 7zip was unpacking some softpaqs for me the other year, they only had drivers though so not sure if the BIOS ones are different.

Yes the drivers can usually be extracted but the bios files leave odd size items and nothing but the Softpaq util would decompress to a say a 256k file size (on the ones I tried) but it was a mix of full test and the bios.
Did not spend much time on it but maybe there is a way to extract the actual bin file from within, just do not know how (hex editor gave no clues). I am just not equiped to do that 🙁
Will post the full and Softpaq uncompressed of above in a bit, need to move to the "work" computer 😀

added: and yes a quick check shows the the 7450 and 7460 running a K2/500 but could be wrong...OP did not give much info.......

Thanks for the info, I read but I understood that there is nothing I can do, isn't it?

My boot stucks in some codes and we wanted to know which problems are related to that codes;

Do you need more info from me?

Computer lover since 1992.
Love retro-computing, retro-gaming, high-end systems and all about computer-tech.
Love beer, too.