Re: What is this additional awardext.rom that accompanies the latest BIOS version for my motherboard?

Posted on 2021-10-12, 16:58

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Kahenraz, The awardext.rom file is one of the modules of the BIOS and sits, in compressed form, inside the 256KB 675VS026.BIN BIOS image. You probably tried to unpack the 675VS026.EXE before use and ended up with awardext.rom and some other files. The 675VS026.EXE file was provided by Shuttle to …

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Re: Questions regarding the ASUS P/I-P55T2P4 rev 2.3

Posted on 2021-09-12, 13:40

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Whoops, I didn't know about that, thanks for telling me. So, if I got this right, then the BIOS revision should be #401A0-0105. Many thanks for your help, I appreciate that. One more question. Should I replace the Dallas RTC battery before updating the BIOS? Hi Wilius, I understand your T2P4 has …

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Re: Questions regarding the ASUS P/I-P55T2P4 rev 2.3

Posted on 2021-09-11, 19:34

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On Asus boards, the BIOS revision is shown on the boot screen as #401A0-0207 or #401A0-0207-2. Revision 0207-2 from 04/28/99 is actually the latest from Asus for this T2P4 board. This 0207-2 BIOS however is still limited to 32GB HDDs. I used this 0207-2 BIOS to make a patch J.2 version with HDD …

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Re: What happens when your MB doesn't support the K6-2+/3+?

Posted on 2021-08-28, 17:16

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

One additional tip; on boards with the SiS 5582 chipset I often had boot problems with K6 CPUs with on-die L2 cache, K6-2+/K6-III+/K6-III non-plus, that would go away when the "System BIOS Cacheable" option in the BIOS (CHIPSET FEATURES SETUP menu) was Disabled. As the SiS 5598 is basically a 5582 …

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Re: What happens when your MB doesn't support the K6-2+/3+?

Posted on 2021-08-28, 16:10

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wow Nathan_A, this BIOS replacement procedure makes an ordinary BIOS flash look trivial! ;) I’ve looked at your videos and they clearly show the issue when the K6-III+ is installed. But luckily the patched BIOS works when the K6-III (non-plus) is in the card. I’ve checked the patched code again but …

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Re: Vortex86 series benchmarks

Posted on 2021-08-27, 19:43

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi rasteri, Thanks for sharing your work on these interesting Vortex86 SoCs, and your kind offer to perform further tests with them. I’m the guy who wrote Chkcpu, the little DOS CPU Identification tool. (Hence my handle.) Because Phil adopted my tool in his Dosbench package, I see it’s been put to …

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Re: What happens when your MB doesn't support the K6-2+/3+?

Posted on 2021-08-27, 09:54

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Nathan_A, Good to hear the original K6-III works. This definitely points to a BIOS issue when using the K6-2+/-III+! During the detailed analysis of the OPC_620 BIOS, I found not only the general speedtable for Pentium/C6/K5/K6 CPUs, but also 2 extra tables specifically for the Cyrix 686MX/MII …

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Re: What happens when your MB doesn't support the K6-2+/3+?

Posted on 2021-08-24, 17:08

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-08-24, 14:53: Didn't know that you were here at VOGONS! I joined recently. After helping people via e-mail and visiting here as guest for many years, it was high time I joined the VOGONS community and make my contributions directly. 😉

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Re: What happens when your MB doesn't support the K6-2+/3+?

Posted on 2021-08-24, 14:26

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Jasin Natael, Thanks for chipping in with your SiS5598 chipset experiences. I read your M571 K6-3+ adventures with great interest! :) Interesting. I'll try out 66x3 @ 2.1v just to see if it gets any further through the initialization. How were you able to determine so quickly what the supported …

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Re: Intel shuttle socket 7 motherboard ?

Posted on 2021-08-24, 11:53

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Also what do you think the Max supported hard drive capacity is ? The manual does not state anything. The latest revision 569AWIQ7 BIOS supports drives up to 32GB. I have a patched version of this BIOS that has the 32GB limit bug fixed and supports drives up to 128GB. This 569A_J2 BIOS has been …

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Re: What happens when your MB doesn't support the K6-2+/3+?

Posted on 2021-08-23, 19:57

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A great vintage project indeed, and nice you could extract the BIOS image! I've checked this Award SiS 5598 BIOS for CPU support and as you would expect, it has no K6-2+/K6-III+ support. It does support the K6-2 and K6-III up to 400MHz. So if it boots with a K6-III, but not with the K6-III+, you …

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Re: Harddrive in 486 broken ?

Posted on 2021-08-14, 15:31

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Drives like this Caviar 2850 are usually used in LBA Mode. Note that your BIOS may change the order in which it addresses the sectors on de drive in LBA or LARGE Mode. So a drive formatted in LBA mode will not work in LARGE mode and vice versa. So try to read and backup the drive when set to LBA …

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Re: ASUS P5S-VM PCI issues

Posted on 2021-08-13, 13:58

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks a bunch! That involves buying a programmer and also a new bios chip (long story but the pins are weak on mine after removing it to clean). I wonder if you could modify the BIOS and put the HP Oem logo in it... Sorry Iris4g, I never played with BIOS logo's so I'm unable to help you here. But …

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Re: ASUS P5S-VM PCI issues

Posted on 2021-08-10, 14:57

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Iris4g, Great that you were able to fix this nice HP Pavilion socket 7 system! :) And now you are running the latest v1.10 BIOS as well. Being a Phoenix BIOS, this explains the error message you got when trying to flash the Award BIOS. ;) The fastest CPUs this Phoenix v1.10 BIOS supports are the …

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Re: ASUS P5S-VM PCI issues

Posted on 2021-08-09, 20:05

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Getting the error "can't find system BIOS' hook" every time I run aflash, maybe because it's an HP Oem board? It is possible, but I've only seen this error message when he HP system had a Phoenix BIOS and you tried to flash a BIOS from another vendor. I had this once on a HP Pavillion 6640C with …

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Re: AMD-X5-133ADW jumper settings

Posted on 2021-08-09, 17:43

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Ceasar, Yes, any Am5x86-133 CPU can be run at 120Mhz by setting it to 3 x 40. But 133MHz (4 x 33) is of course the optimum setting. On the Chaintech 4SPM, I believe JP41 is the multiplier jumper and has to be set at 2&3 for Am5x86 x4 mode. All other Am5x86 jumpers settings are the same as for an …

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Re: ASUS P5S-VM PCI issues

Posted on 2021-08-09, 15:26

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For backing up and flashing an Award BIOS on an Asus board, you need to use Aflash instead of Awdflash. I have attached Aflash v2.02 to this message. Works here on every Asus socket 7 board I tried it on. What BIOS Revision do you have now? I believe Revision 1006 is the latest for the Asus P5S-VM/ …

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Re: Fixing up an broken 486 I got from a local radio.

Posted on 2021-08-09, 14:25

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi CalamityLime, Thanks for sharing your experiences with this 486 board in detail. I read the parts about the Willem Programmer and the BIOS with interest. Great to hear that the REV. J.1 BIOS works so well. :) Yes, a lot of the 1994/1995 Award BIOSes supported only one (primary) IDE channel, so …

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Re: MSI 4134 AL1 and AMD 5x86?

Posted on 2021-08-02, 19:33

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It looks like this BIOS image is a copy from shadow RAM. Did you make it via software on the AL1 board? The best way is to take the BIOS chip out of the motherboard and put it in your Eprom programmer. Then let the programmer dump the EPROM contents in a file. Also check if the BIOS EPROM chip is a …

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Re: MSI 4134 AL1 and AMD 5x86?

Posted on 2021-08-02, 13:50

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That AL1 is a nice looking 486VLB/PCI board indeed! But with CPU support that maxes out at 486DX2, I'm amazed it even runs a DX4. I assume you are running a 1993/1994 AMI BIOS now so yes, I agree that lack of Am5x86 support is a BIOS issue. I did a lot of BIOS patching back in the day, mainly adding …

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