Did you by chance back up the original?
Look for recovery process for ami/award

Basically, there should be enough to run a floppy, and recover it

Otherwise, someone here probably has a programmer

Wait, you have bios access?
Try a reset.

myne wrote on 2025-03-08, 17:04:

Did you by chance back up the original? Look for recovery process for ami/award […]
Show full quote

Did you by chance back up the original?
Look for recovery process for ami/award

Basically, there should be enough to run a floppy, and recover it

Otherwise, someone here probably has a programmer

Wait, you have bios access?
Try a reset.

I unfortunately didn't backup the original BIOS.
Took a picture of the BIOS chip, if anyone has any clue of what I need to reprogram it manually.
I occaciounally have BIOS access, yes. But the BIOS doesn't recognize any drives at all.

Ribbicipp wrote on 2025-03-08, 17:22:

I unfortunately didn't backup the original BIOS. Took a picture of the BIOS chip, if anyone has any clue of what I need to repro […]
Show full quote

myne wrote on 2025-03-08, 17:04:

Did you by chance back up the original? Look for recovery process for ami/award […]
Show full quote

Did you by chance back up the original?
Look for recovery process for ami/award

Basically, there should be enough to run a floppy, and recover it

Otherwise, someone here probably has a programmer

Wait, you have bios access?
Try a reset.

I unfortunately didn't backup the original BIOS.
Took a picture of the BIOS chip, if anyone has any clue of what I need to reprogram it manually.
I occaciounally have BIOS access, yes. But the BIOS doesn't recognize any drives at all.

Can you disable all the ide pata devices etc and leave the floppy enabled. Set boot order to A: first and see if you can limp the system to boot off a floppy.

Otherwise, you'll need a replacement programmed eeprom. That board has no recovery modes.

If you have another board with a similar PLCc32 bios eeprom you can try and hotflash the bad chip.

You need an IC extractor (or very carefully lever it out using 2 fine tip screwdrivers on opposite corners).

On the board you will use to hotflash, make sure you have a working floppy, check you can boot a DOS boot disk and run the flash utility.

Now remove the eeprom and put a loop of cotton or dental floss diagonally in the socket. Press the original eeprom back in very gently, so it's only just making contact, not all the way in.

Boot the system. Once in DOS, use the cotton to carefully remove the eeprom. Press the bad flashed chip gently into the socket (don't drop it now!)

Flash the correct BIOS.

Power down and remove the flashes chip and it should now work when placed back in the badflashed board.

I personally own one of these: https://www.amazon.com/TL866-3G-Programmer-Su … 0CCDCP7LK/?th=1

Comes in very handy. I use it to read/backup and flash ROMs when needed. The set I got ($85) one, comes with adapters for most all the common chips, including yours (PLCC32). For a "cheap" programmer, it works really well. I've got a lot of use out of mine. Of course, I use the term "cheap" loosely. At $85 it's cheaper than most, but it's hard to justify if you don't need it all that often.

Second both the TL866 as best solution and hot-flashing as plan B if you don't have one and don't want to get one.

Your issues are due to the rev 1.0 having 686A southbridge and the 2.0 having 686B southbridge. They need different BIOS code so with the wrong one you lose southbridge functionality, including floppy and IDE.

StriderTR wrote on 2025-03-08, 19:54:

I personally own one of these: https://www.amazon.com/TL866-3G-Programmer-Su … 0CCDCP7LK/?th=1

Comes in very handy. I use it to read/backup and flash ROMs when needed. The set I got ($85) one, comes with adapters for most all the common chips, including yours (PLCC32). For a "cheap" programmer, it works really well. I've got a lot of use out of mine. Of course, I use the term "cheap" loosely. At $85 it's cheaper than most, but it's hard to justify if you don't need it all that often.

Thanks for the response. I was looking into these adapters, but man, for a one time use, I don't find it worth the price. I'd rather buy something like the picture I've attached instead. But dunno how well those work and they seem quite hard to find in my area (Sweden).

dionb wrote on 2025-03-08, 20:49:

Second both the TL866 as best solution and hot-flashing as plan B if you don't have one and don't want to get one.

Your issues are due to the rev 1.0 having 686A southbridge and the 2.0 having 686B southbridge. They need different BIOS code so with the wrong one you lose southbridge functionality, including floppy and IDE.

Thanks for the reply. Im not really keen on buying something at that price if im only gonna have one use for it tho 🙁
Is there no place to buy PLCc32 chips that are pre-installed with the BIOS of your need?

Good info on the southbridge! I thought it might be something like that, since I can enter the bios, but can't do anything else after that. It boots up but gets stuck, unable to boot into anything.

Lostdotfish wrote on 2025-03-08, 17:35:

If you have another board with a similar PLCc32 bios eeprom you can try and hotflash the bad chip. […]
Show full quote

If you have another board with a similar PLCc32 bios eeprom you can try and hotflash the bad chip.

You need an IC extractor (or very carefully lever it out using 2 fine tip screwdrivers on opposite corners).

On the board you will use to hotflash, make sure you have a working floppy, check you can boot a DOS boot disk and run the flash utility.

Now remove the eeprom and put a loop of cotton or dental floss diagonally in the socket. Press the original eeprom back in very gently, so it's only just making contact, not all the way in.

Boot the system. Once in DOS, use the cotton to carefully remove the eeprom. Press the bad flashed chip gently into the socket (don't drop it now!)

Flash the correct BIOS.

Power down and remove the flashes chip and it should now work when placed back in the badflashed board.

Thanks for the hotswap tip. I tried this out with another motherboard i had. Just as you described. However I got this error message that I attached a picture of.
Seems like im unable to write the bios to the swapped PLCc32 chip. Dunno if it has anything to do with the one PLCc32 chip being AMI and the other being AWARD.

Ribbicipp wrote on 2025-03-08, 21:00:

Lostdotfish wrote on 2025-03-08, 17:35:

If you have another board with a similar PLCc32 bios eeprom you can try and hotflash the bad chip. […]
Show full quote

If you have another board with a similar PLCc32 bios eeprom you can try and hotflash the bad chip.

You need an IC extractor (or very carefully lever it out using 2 fine tip screwdrivers on opposite corners).

On the board you will use to hotflash, make sure you have a working floppy, check you can boot a DOS boot disk and run the flash utility.

Now remove the eeprom and put a loop of cotton or dental floss diagonally in the socket. Press the original eeprom back in very gently, so it's only just making contact, not all the way in.

Boot the system. Once in DOS, use the cotton to carefully remove the eeprom. Press the bad flashed chip gently into the socket (don't drop it now!)

Flash the correct BIOS.

Power down and remove the flashes chip and it should now work when placed back in the badflashed board.

At a guess - the broken one is a 2Mbit and the hotflash board is probably 8Mbit - try and find an older board

Thanks for the hotswap tip. I tried this out with another motherboard i had. Just as you described. However I got this error message that I attached a picture of.
Seems like im unable to write the bios to the swapped PLCc32 chip. Dunno if it has anything to do with the one PLCc32 chip being AMI and the other being AWARD.

There are different types and capacity plcc32 eeproms - they're not all cross compatible. Pull the sticky label off the bad flash chip and post a photo of the chip and we can work out what size/type it is

Ribbicipp wrote on 2025-03-08, 20:56:

[...]

Thanks for the reply. Im not really keen on buying something at that price if im only gonna have one use for it tho 🙁

You can find it for quite a bit cheaper than that on AliExpress. Watch out that some prices can be misleading, with different 'colours' being just a single adapter instead of the main kit.

That said, if you're into vintage computing, you'll be having a lot more opportunities to use a device like this. It can flash BIOS, it can back up old BIOS, it can check whether BIOS EEPROMs are still working correctly, it can test SRAM chips, it can test 74-logic chips etc etc.

Is there no place to buy PLCc32 chips that are pre-installed with the BIOS of your need?

First you need to know what chip you need, PLCC32 is just the shape, not the type of chip. But even then: not likely. Not many people need to flash ancient EEPROMs and most of those have the necessary hardware themselves. What's left is hardly something to build a profitable business model around.

Ribbicipp wrote on 2025-03-08, 21:00:

Lostdotfish wrote on 2025-03-08, 17:35:

If you have another board with a similar PLCc32 bios eeprom you can try and hotflash the bad chip. […]
Show full quote

If you have another board with a similar PLCc32 bios eeprom you can try and hotflash the bad chip.

You need an IC extractor (or very carefully lever it out using 2 fine tip screwdrivers on opposite corners).

On the board you will use to hotflash, make sure you have a working floppy, check you can boot a DOS boot disk and run the flash utility.

Now remove the eeprom and put a loop of cotton or dental floss diagonally in the socket. Press the original eeprom back in very gently, so it's only just making contact, not all the way in.

Boot the system. Once in DOS, use the cotton to carefully remove the eeprom. Press the bad flashed chip gently into the socket (don't drop it now!)

Flash the correct BIOS.

Power down and remove the flashes chip and it should now work when placed back in the badflashed board.

Thanks for the hotswap tip. I tried this out with another motherboard i had. Just as you described. However I got this error message that I attached a picture of.
Seems like im unable to write the bios to the swapped PLCc32 chip. Dunno if it has anything to do with the one PLCc32 chip being AMI and the other being AWARD.

Assuming you were using the standard AMI flash utility, you may still be able to do it with the Uniflash utility (no guarantees of course). And I've found that putting a strand of dental floss under the lightly inserted chip makes for easy extraction when doing a hot swap.

Is the correct BIOS for the board an Award or AMI?

Repo Man11 wrote on 2025-03-08, 22:33:

Ribbicipp wrote on 2025-03-08, 21:00:

Lostdotfish wrote on 2025-03-08, 17:35:

If you have another board with a similar PLCc32 bios eeprom you can try and hotflash the bad chip. […]
Show full quote

If you have another board with a similar PLCc32 bios eeprom you can try and hotflash the bad chip.

You need an IC extractor (or very carefully lever it out using 2 fine tip screwdrivers on opposite corners).

On the board you will use to hotflash, make sure you have a working floppy, check you can boot a DOS boot disk and run the flash utility.

Now remove the eeprom and put a loop of cotton or dental floss diagonally in the socket. Press the original eeprom back in very gently, so it's only just making contact, not all the way in.

Boot the system. Once in DOS, use the cotton to carefully remove the eeprom. Press the bad flashed chip gently into the socket (don't drop it now!)

Flash the correct BIOS.

Power down and remove the flashes chip and it should now work when placed back in the badflashed board.

Thanks for the hotswap tip. I tried this out with another motherboard i had. Just as you described. However I got this error message that I attached a picture of.
Seems like im unable to write the bios to the swapped PLCc32 chip. Dunno if it has anything to do with the one PLCc32 chip being AMI and the other being AWARD.

Assuming you were using the standard AMI flash utility, you may still be able to do it with the Uniflash utility (no guarantees of course). And I've found that putting a strand of dental floss under the lightly inserted chip makes for easy extraction when doing a hot swap.

Is the correct BIOS for the board an Award or AMI?

Is the Uniflash utility able to run in dos?
The correct BIOS for the board is an AMI (as seen in the picture on my previous post in this thread).

I had 2 motherboards of very different generations that used the same bios chip and performed a hot swap after an update failed, (booted it with fishing line under the bios and yanked to out, then installed the bad bios to program)
I didn’t need a programmer and actually did many hot swaps after that.

Ribbicipp wrote on 2025-03-08, 23:56:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2025-03-08, 22:33:

Ribbicipp wrote on 2025-03-08, 21:00:

Thanks for the hotswap tip. I tried this out with another motherboard i had. Just as you described. However I got this error message that I attached a picture of.
Seems like im unable to write the bios to the swapped PLCc32 chip. Dunno if it has anything to do with the one PLCc32 chip being AMI and the other being AWARD.

Assuming you were using the standard AMI flash utility, you may still be able to do it with the Uniflash utility (no guarantees of course). And I've found that putting a strand of dental floss under the lightly inserted chip makes for easy extraction when doing a hot swap.

Is the correct BIOS for the board an Award or AMI?

Is the Uniflash utility able to run in dos?
The correct BIOS for the board is an AMI (as seen in the picture on my previous post in this thread).

Yes, it is a DOS program.

If Uniflash won't do the trick, a different version of AMI flash might work. Here is a download page with several versions. https://web.archive.org/web/20061020193306fw_ … 2.asp#socket478

This page has the command line arguments for Afudos - I can't say for sure if they will work with the AMI flash utility that you are using, but /x seems to be the one you'd need to flash it without checking the BIOS version. https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1950

Ribbicipp wrote on 2025-03-08, 20:52:

StriderTR wrote on 2025-03-08, 19:54:

I personally own one of these: https://www.amazon.com/TL866-3G-Programmer-Su … 0CCDCP7LK/?th=1

Comes in very handy. I use it to read/backup and flash ROMs when needed. The set I got ($85) one, comes with adapters for most all the common chips, including yours (PLCC32). For a "cheap" programmer, it works really well. I've got a lot of use out of mine. Of course, I use the term "cheap" loosely. At $85 it's cheaper than most, but it's hard to justify if you don't need it all that often.

Thanks for the response. I was looking into these adapters, but man, for a one time use, I don't find it worth the price. I'd rather buy something like the picture I've attached instead. But dunno how well those work and they seem quite hard to find in my area (Sweden).

The depicted 25 and 49 series chips are serial eeproms, completely different from the parallel 29 series one I'd guess your mobo's BIOS is stored on. It would really surprise me if those dirt cheap programmers could handle parallel eeproms.

There are some homebrew Arduino based parallel eeprom programmers , like Tommyprom, Ben Eater's programmer, etc, that might support your chip without modification if it's written in 128 byte blocks, but the suggested XGecu T48 ("TL866-3G") is probably the cheapest and easiest to use programmer that's guaranteed to with those out of the box.

As mentioned, if you get hooked on this hobby or are generally inclined to tinkering with computers/electronics stuff, you'll find plenty of use for it over time. In my opinion, a universal programmer with an extensive set of adapters for different packages is almost a must in any retro enthusiast's toolbox.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2025-03-09, 01:50:

If Uniflash won't do the trick, a different version of AMI flash might work. Here is a download page with several versions. https://web.archive.org/web/20061020193306fw_ … 2.asp#socket478

This page has the command line arguments for Afudos - I can't say for sure if they will work with the AMI flash utility that you are using, but /x seems to be the one you'd need to flash it without checking the BIOS version. https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1950

Regarding the hotswap:
I've been messing around with three different flash eprom programs and tried out different settings, doing the flash in different ways etc.
The first program i tried was implemented in the latest (v3.8 ) BIOS zip that i downloaded from here: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-ms-6309-v2-0#bios
It's called AMIFL827. Guess that's short for AMI flash?
That program has so far been working fine, except for a few problems that I have no idea of what to do with as im not very experienced in this matter.
I've attached a few pictures in this post to show you what the program shows me when launching it from DOS.

I launch it by typing "AMIFL827 A6309VMS.380" (A6309VMS.380 being the bios flash file. I was expeting an ISO or BIN file, but I was unable to find any at all).
When I launch into the program I get this:

Im guessing it says the flash part isn't supported due to the hotswapped bios chip? Or simply because the correct settings haven't been entered?

When I dig into the other menus i get presented with different settings, like how the flash should execute. Dunno really what's important to check from the list here:

Then further down the menus you get a "Part List" with three different options. Im guessing this is for what type of BIOS chip it is and what kb size it has:

Even further down the menu you get "Chipset List" and "Module" with many different options (more than shown in the pictures) of what DevID, brand, etc you can choose from.
I have no idea of what to check in these menus. When trying the "Auto Detect" option it only chooses Intel and Solano and two Unknowns (as seen in the bottom left corner):

As an experiment I tried flashing the chip with just random settings and as long as I chose that it's a 256kb chip, the rest of the settings didn't really matter since the flash was successful (a bar ticking up, showing that it was flashing to the chip). However, when trying out the BIOS chip in the other motherboard, it didn't work at all. Guessing you need the right options for it to work...

I have also tried the Uniflash utility, but several options seem to be greyed out, making me unable to do anything useful.

Ribbicipp wrote on 2025-03-08, 16:45:

So, I made a stupid mistake when trying to update the BIOS of my MSI MS-6309 motherboard. I mixed up this version: https://there […]
Show full quote

So, I made a stupid mistake when trying to update the BIOS of my MSI MS-6309 motherboard.
I mixed up this version: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-ms-6309-v1.x-va5
with the version that I have: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-ms-6309-v2-0 and dowloaded the 1.9 BIOS for the first one linked.
Created a floppy with the driver and let it install. Seems to have finished fine and asked for a system reboot. Restarted the PC and then noticed that the PC basically didn't do anything. No boot up sequence, no picture on the screen.
After a few restarts (restart-button did nothing, so I had to power off and power on the machine several times), it finally booted up and showed picture on the screen with it counting the SDRAM memory as usual. I was able to enter the BIOS and change settings etc. However the BIOS was no longer able to detect any HDD, CDROM or anything even though it did so automatically before. So basically I couldn't boot into anything, not even a bootdisk floppy.
After another restart, the screen went off again with nothing happening.
This seems to be how it is now. Have to turn off and then turn on the PC several times before I get lucky and get picture with the boot up. But that's it. No HDD, CDROM or floppy access. I am however able to enter BIOS, but I mean, what can I even do in there if I can't access anything else?

Any way of reverting to the old bios or doing anything else, or is this motherboard now bricked?
I've tried resetting the CMOS with the jumper, but I guess all this does is revert the current BIOS settings back to factory (which means it doesn't revert the actual bios version, just it's settings).

I recently wrote about an MS6309 motherboard, in my case a strange VER:2, because it has the SB of the VER:1, and the same BIOS, but it did not work well, maybe it is possible that the previous owner, did an incorrect update, currently it is no longer working, but I am not able to know, originally what BIOS was there, to reprogram the BIOS chip, the nano USB is fine but you also need the Legacy adapter, you can see it on the page where I usually write, it is here:
Re: Test and troubleshoot PC@LIVE motherboards