I have verified the latest flash image from TRW - V3.0SL (07/12/2000-MVP3-586B-866-2A5LEQ1AC-00) isn't corrupted, it has a valid checksum and actually boots.
You can try booting from the bootblock - pull the highest address bit of the flash chip high (to avoid possible damage, use a resistor and don't do it for a long time, 1/10 of a second should do the trick) and power up the machine, the BIOS would fail the checksum validation and start a trimmed-down version that is capable of booting from a floppy.
But waiting for the programmer to arrive is safer.

Oh, some great knowledge there! I need to research what you said but my programmer should arrive on tuesday. Always open to learn new things though! The V3.0SL was a beta and I didn't want to go that far from the start so I flashed the 2.0 stable version. Could you check that one as well, so I know what I should aim for when I get the chance?

V2.0SL from TRW is also good.

If you have a similar board from that period with same pinout bios chip, you can boot the other board normally and do a 'hot-swap'.

So you boot into DOS with a boot floppy inserted containing Uniflash with the needed files. You swap the bios chip to the corrupted one before launching Uniflash, and then you flash the correct bios into it.

Then you can power off the system and reinstall both chips on their original boards. Done this multiple times and never had a problem!

It would be better to have an eeprom flasher but this solution is perfectly feasible.

kmeaw wrote on 2024-10-12, 10:58:

V2.0SL from TRW is also good.

OK Thanks! I must have messed up bady somehow. I will wait for the programmer. I don't wanna fry anything by attempting to short pins for bootblock mode right now.

Cyanopsis wrote on 2024-10-12, 08:48:

Award flash.exe

dont, use unifrash https://theretroweb.com/drivers/75
Im biased as Im in the credits 😜

Cyanopsis wrote on 2024-10-12, 08:48:

So I did what any normal person would do, I ordered an TL866II+ EEPROM programmer from Amazon for 70EUR almost the same price as the mobo 😀 I hope I can get this thing back in business. Open for any other suggestions. /Vent

70 euro out the window, cheapskate person like me always programs bioses using hot swap method + uniflash.

Yes you can hot flash.. IMHO having a programmer is like having a good Diag Card and good Volt-Ohm meter, to me all three are the minimum basic tools needed for long term working on vintage stuff 😁

Horun wrote on 2024-10-12, 18:20:

Yes you can hot flash.. IMHO having a programmer is like having a good Diag Card and good Volt-Ohm meter, to me all three are the minimum basic tools needed for long term working on vintage stuff 😁

Agreed. Having a proper programmer is a good investment for working on retro hardware, and can be used for a lot of chips besides BIOS ROMs.

@Cyanopsis: You might want to test your RAM with MemTest86 or similar software. Had not just one but two motherboards bricked by a single defective strip of DDR.

@dormcat thanks for the heads up! If my attempt at resurrect bios I'll take a closer look at my ram chip. Compared to the rest of you, I've just started with retro PC gear so I don't have many options for pinpointing problems using spare equipment (yet).

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-10-12, 13:43:

70 euro out the window, cheapskate person like me always programs bioses using hot swap method + uniflash.

Hotswap BIOS flashing is not always an option. Once I had a motherboard with 2Mbit sc*ewed up BIOS and one available working board with 1Mbit BIOS chip and of course this hotswap method did not work to reflash 2Mbit chip in working mobo with 1Mbit chip.

Some LAN cards with optional BIOS ROM socket can be used as EEPROM programmers, but I think there are no models which support 2Mbit EEPROM chips.

Universal (E)EPROM programmer like T48 costs about EUR 45-50 (not on ebay) and also it can be used as logic and RAM chip tester.

Ok folks, happy days! The programmer (XGecu T48) did what it was designed to do and I reflashed the old firmware. Thank God I backed it up before screwing up! Anyway, I have a few questions... As you can see in the picture, the mobo part number is VP3-586B-8661-2A5LEQ19C-00 but on the the Retro Web Bios section for my mobo, there's a slight difference. VP3-586B-8661-2A5LEQ1AC-00: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … dvance-iii#bios The date 09/15/1998 is however correct for the current version 1.3S.

Flashing also gives a warning.

Looking up the part number for the working firmware gives me this: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … advance-ii#bios
That's not my motherboard! Thats an AT motherboard with a different layout. There's no version 1.3 on the Retro Web above either.

I don't know what to do now really. Should I just try one of the other bios versions for the (wrong) P5V580 mobo?

The line at the bottom of the screen comes from the BIOS - if you use an external programmer to flash the wrong image, the line would change.

According to TheRetroWeb:
VP3-586B-8661-2A5LEQ19C-00 is QDI P5V580 VP3 (Advance II)
VP3-586B-8661-2A5LEQ1AC-00 is QDI P5MVP3/A3 (Advance III)

Sometimes cross-flashing is fine and people do that to get extra features that aren't found in the original BIOS. If the PCI slot layout is different between boards, IRQ table would need to be updated, so you either had some rare version that isn't known to TheRetroWeb, or someone could have made a hybrid version by mixing and matching different images together to make it work on your board.

If you share your backup, I could tell you the differences between those BIOSes.

Thanks! So again, the bios backup attached is the original one that was already on the mobo when I got it (1.3S). I flashed the 2.0 version from P3-586B-8661-2A5LEQ1AC-00 is QDI P5MVP3/A3 (Advance III) which is my motherboard. Black Screen. Then I got the programmer and flashed the 2.0 again. Black Screen. I then flashed the backup version and everything came back to normal.

Bios download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rEkzzCvJklJB … iew?usp=sharing

How should I interpret the warning? It tells what the bios reports and compares it to what I'm about to replace it with? It doesn't say anything about my "system" (=actual motherboard)?

Cyanopsis wrote on 2024-10-15, 19:10:

Ok folks, happy days! The programmer (XGecu T48) did what it was designed to do and I reflashed the old firmware. Thank God I backed it up before screwing up! Anyway, I have a few questions... As you can see in the picture, the mobo part number is VP3-586B-8661-2A5LEQ19C-00 but on the the Retro Web Bios section for my mobo, there's a slight difference. VP3-586B-8661-2A5LEQ1AC-00: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … dvance-iii#bios The date 09/15/1998 is however correct for the current version 1.3S.

What happens when you flash 11/02/98-VP3-586B-8661-2A5LEQ1BC-00 which is the latest for the QDI P5V580 VP3 (Advance II)?

IRQ routing table in your original_backup.bin (09/15/1998-VP3-586B-8661-2A5LEQ19C-00) is different from M1_V13SL.BIN (09/15/1998-VP3-586B-8661-2A5LEQ1AC-00).
Chipset register auto-configuration tables are identical. M1_V13SL.BIN also contains an option ROM for a SCSI controller and a full-screen boot logo, which your backup doesn't.
Both images boot fine in an emulator.

The only issue I see with cross-flashing either of those images is that there is a possibility that some of your PCI slots won't be able to deliver interrupts correctly - that would depend on the actual PCI circuitry of your board.

The warning you get from AWDFLASH is simply a check against the current BIOS ID it reads from your flash chip - it doesn't perform any probing other than that to determine if the image to be flashed is compatible. It's just a string comparison operation, not an actual motherboard check.

Once you have an external programmer, it is safe to flash either of those images. And if you find any issues with some of your PCI slots, just flash the other one.

Jan has a BIOS patched for K6-2/3+ CPU support for the QDI Advance 3 P5MVP3/A3 on his page.

http://www.steunebrink.info/k6plus.htm

kmeaw wrote on 2024-10-16, 00:23:

The only issue I see with cross-flashing either of those images is that there is a possibility that some of your PCI slots won't be able to deliver interrupts correctly - that would depend on the actual PCI circuitry of your board.

Some time ago I found a way how to manually edit IRQ table for PCI slots in Award 4.51PG BIOS dumps: Re: Looking for Award BIOS for Polaris/Ford Lian/RedFox BX-6AP2 or similar mobos with VIA BX/Apollo Pro II VT82C692/VT82

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-10-16, 00:36:

Jan has a BIOS patched for K6-2/3+ CPU support for the QDI Advance 3 P5MVP3/A3 on his page.

http://www.steunebrink.info/k6plus.htm

For more than a month Jan's site doesn't work for me 🙁

analog_programmer wrote on 2024-10-16, 08:06:

For more than a month Jan's site doesn't work for me 🙁

Try plain http://, not https://