Not specifically BIOS but I recall Windows 7 bootloader writes a word as "can not"

LITERALLY UNBOOTABLE.

I guess the only thing to do now is to dig a pit, pour gasoline on it and start a fire.

I'm a bit more concerned about the scratches in the anti-glare on that monitor.

Once I get even the slightest scratch, I remove the whole coating.

I guess now I need to recap and boot the Abit BH6 I have here to see if the same spelling mistake is present.... maybe it's specific to some BIOS versions? I'm curious to see now though

stlouis1 wrote on 2023-11-22, 21:15:

I guess now I need to recap and boot the Abit BH6 I have here to see if the same spelling mistake is present.... maybe it's specific to some BIOS versions? I'm curious to see now though

Can confirm the mistake is not there in the JJ version.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-11-22, 21:14:

I'm a bit more concerned about the scratches in the anti-glare on that monitor.

Once I get even the slightest scratch, I remove the whole coating.

Looks worse than it is, barely noticeable when gaming etc. I've thought about removing the coating but just not been brave enough yet.

This piqued my curiosity so I poked at the files from The Retro Web, the QN version doesn't have the spelling mistake while both SS versions do (I didn't check the QN beta version).

According to the changelog in this page the SS version seem to just add support for a few more CPUs (Celeron 633(66), 667(66), 700(66)MH) so if you're really bothered by that error and don't have those CPUs you could just revert to QN.

However I found this Award BIOS Editor which can open the binary inside the executable (I used binwalk to extract it, it's LHA) and let's you edit all the things including that string.

I'm attaching a corrected binary (only change is correcting the spelling error and checksum) BUT I have no way to test it thus I have no way to know if the binary has been corrupted in any way by that utility thus unless you can reprogram the BIOS in other ways flash at your own peril, don't blame me for anything pls

EDIT: I redid the mod with modbin which should be more trustworthy to not bork the BIOS

What a legend! Thanks for that. I'm sure it's perfectly fine but I don't actually have a way to reprogram the chip externally, so I'll drop back QN for now and worry about it down the line if I decide to try a different CPU.

Board description for Award BIOS version 4.51PG - that's easy fix with MODBIN. But if it POSTs, this is no a problem.

Got the same board, also noticed it. Never bothered to fix it though, it's part of the board's charm or something 😀

I redid the mod using modbin (I had forgot about it) and replaced the attached zip in my previous post. I would trust the new binary more than the previous one but same warning applies

Yrouel wrote on 2023-11-22, 23:57:

This piqued my curiosity so I poked at the files from The Retro Web, the QN version doesn't have the spelling mistake while both […]
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This piqued my curiosity so I poked at the files from The Retro Web, the QN version doesn't have the spelling mistake while both SS versions do (I didn't check the QN beta version).

According to the changelog in this page the SS version seem to just add support for a few more CPUs (Celeron 633(66), 667(66), 700(66)MH) so if you're really bothered by that error and don't have those CPUs you could just revert to QN.

However I found this Award BIOS Editor which can open the binary inside the executable (I used binwalk to extract it, it's LHA) and let's you edit all the things including that string.

I'm attaching a corrected binary (only change is correcting the spelling error and checksum) BUT I have no way to test it thus I have no way to know if the binary has been corrupted in any way by that utility thus unless you can reprogram the BIOS in other ways flash at your own peril, don't blame me for anything pls

EDIT: I redid the mod with modbin which should be more trustworthy to not bork the BIOS

IIRC the original awdbedit was corrupting only the 6.00PG BIOSes, with the 4.51 being fine. Not sure as I haven't used it in nearly a decade (last time I used it was in 2012, on some SiS based MSI Socket 7 mobo w/4.51PG IIRC) but I remember the disclaimer on BIOS-mods being that the 6.00PG BIOSes were the ones to get corrupted.

PcBytes wrote on 2023-11-23, 11:03:

IIRC the original awdbedit was corrupting only the 6.00PG BIOSes, with the 4.51 being fine. Not sure as I haven't used it in nearly a decade (last time I used it was in 2012, on some SiS based MSI Socket 7 mobo w/4.51PG IIRC) but I remember the disclaimer on BIOS-mods being that the 6.00PG BIOSes were the ones to get corrupted.

I poked a bit more again out of curiosity because I was getting different hashes between the binary modified with awdbedit and modbin and it looks like awdbedit besides doing what I explicitly asked it to also removed a string "NOT FOR RESALE" inside original.tmp (same file where the spelling mistake is/was) while modbin seems to only have changed what I asked it to (the spelling mistake).
I still can't test it but just for this small detail alone I'm more inclined to trust modbin because even though removing that extra string is most likely inconsequential I didn't ask awdbedit to do it

I still remember some P45C board identifying the processor as "Pemtium" during POST.

Around that time, a fishy German lawyer found that some company owned the trademark "Triton" in some IT-related field of business and then started calling computer into shops to get offers for boards with the Intel 430FX or 430HX chipset, urging them to explicitly specify the codename "Intel Triton" on the offer - just to send them cease & desist letters. A German PC diagnostic tool author responded by removing the code name from the executable and asked the user to manually enter it in the configuration file, if desired. To match the Pemtium boot screen, and friend and me decided to write "Tritom" into that file.

Good info ! 🤣 the "not for resale" bothered me too when first saw it, found out that the Award bios with that was a legally owned to that specific OEM iirc and is supposed to be there for certain versions/oem's of the Award bios