What motherboard make and model, and where did you get the BIOS file ?
Is the BIOS chip socketed ? added: did you try to flash from a pure DOS boot or from Win9x DOS mode ?

Horun wrote on 2021-01-25, 03:45:

What motherboard and where did you get the BIOS file ?
Is the BIOS chip socketed ?

This, and did you backup the old BIOS before flashing the "new" one ?

darry wrote on 2021-01-25, 03:46:

Horun wrote on 2021-01-25, 03:45:

What motherboard and where did you get the BIOS file ?
Is the BIOS chip socketed ?

This, and did you backup the old BIOS before flashing the "new" one ?

yes

saved the bios and config and boot block

Horun wrote on 2021-01-25, 03:45:

What motherboard make and model, and where did you get the BIOS file ?
Is the BIOS chip socketed ? added: did you try to flash from a pure DOS boot or from Win9x DOS mode ?

booted to freedos it's a iwill p55xb2 updated to modded bios from jan's website for k6+ cpus

previously I used this bios on a different board of same model number and it worked fine

There are methods here that can work, but no guarantee that they will work. http://www.motherboards.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=76346
Chip programmer is the most certain method, but I've never had one of those. I've used other motherboards to do hotswap flashes before, but that's risky.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-01-25, 04:24:

There are methods here that can work, but no guarantee that they will work. http://www.motherboards.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=76346
Chip programmer is the most certain method, but I've never had one of those. I've used other motherboards to do hotswap flashes before, but that's risky.

IMHO, everybody who regularly deals with flashing motherboards and other devices should consider getting an (E)EPROM flasher such as a TL866II Plus (beware of counterfeits) http://www.autoelectric.cn/en/tl866_main.html . It took me over 20 years to finally decide to get one and I must admit that I should have gotten such a device many years ago as it would have made my life a lot simpler .

you know, I actually have needed a rom flashing tool many times maybe this is the last straw

I like to buy from ebay, which one should I get from ebay?

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-01-25, 04:24:

There are methods here that can work, but no guarantee that they will work. http://www.motherboards.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=76346
Chip programmer is the most certain method, but I've never had one of those. I've used other motherboards to do hotswap flashes before, but that's risky.

gonna read that in a second. looks dicy 🤣 do you think it's new enough of a bios to work?

I have a tyan tomcat dual socket 7 coming which I can use for hot flash should be here in a few days

which option should I use?

flash programmer
pin trick
hot flash

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-25, 04:42:

you know, I actually have needed a rom flashing tool many times maybe this is the last straw

I like to buy from ebay, which one should I get from ebay?

Do not buy the cheapest ones ! Get a real TL866ii plus direct from XGecu: http://www.xgecu.com/en/
Ebay: search for: xgecu then make sure: xgecupro is the seller. They have shipping from either China or USA , if in US pick the US shipped.
Can vouch that mine works as it is supposed too and can update the software any time I need. A fake Xgecu TL866ii will not work/allow with the software updates.

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-25, 04:46:

I have a tyan tomcat dual socket 7 coming which I can use for hot flash should be here in a few days […]
Show full quote

I have a tyan tomcat dual socket 7 coming which I can use for hot flash should be here in a few days

which option should I use?

flash programmer
pin trick
hot flash

You can try that but are you willing to risk ruining the Tomcat ? Hotflashing is tricky and can ruin a good board... just my opinion.

Horun wrote on 2021-01-25, 05:00:

Do not buy the cheapest ones ! Get a real TL866ii plus direct from XGecu: http://www.xgecu.com/en/ Ebay: search for: xgecu then […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-25, 04:42:

you know, I actually have needed a rom flashing tool many times maybe this is the last straw

I like to buy from ebay, which one should I get from ebay?

Do not buy the cheapest ones ! Get a real TL866ii plus direct from XGecu: http://www.xgecu.com/en/
Ebay: search for: xgecu then make sure: xgecupro is the seller. They have shipping from either China or USA , if in US pick the US shipped.
Can vouch that mine works as it is supposed too and can update the software any time I need. A fake Xgecu TL866ii will not work/allow with the software updates.

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-25, 04:46:

I have a tyan tomcat dual socket 7 coming which I can use for hot flash should be here in a few days […]
Show full quote

I have a tyan tomcat dual socket 7 coming which I can use for hot flash should be here in a few days

which option should I use?

flash programmer
pin trick
hot flash

You can try that but are you willing to risk ruining the Tomcat ? Hotflashing is tricky and can ruin a good board... just my opinion.

I agree, better be safe than sorry.

To quote Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon whatever: "I'm too old for this shit!" . That is my take on hotflashing. I have done it successfully many times, but I am through with it . There are proper tools for safely and easily programming (E)EPROMs and they are quite affordable now, so I have decided to use them . That is my 2 cents worth of an opinion .

I picked up a few boards a couple of weeks ago, and I was just testing this one out this evening. I flashed the BIOS , and looking through the settings, I saw something I've never seen before. Credits?

Horun wrote on 2021-01-25, 05:00:

Do not buy the cheapest ones ! Get a real TL866ii plus direct from XGecu: http://www.xgecu.com/en/
Ebay: search for: xgecu then make sure: xgecupro is the seller. They have shipping from either China or USA , if in US pick the US shipped.

Thanks for this advice. Located them on ebay AU (item: 192725987183) and to my surprise, they're not the most expensive seller!

Horun wrote on 2021-01-25, 05:00:

Do not buy the cheapest ones ! Get a real TL866ii plus direct from XGecu: http://www.xgecu.com/en/ Ebay: search for: xgecu then […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-25, 04:42:

you know, I actually have needed a rom flashing tool many times maybe this is the last straw

I like to buy from ebay, which one should I get from ebay?

Do not buy the cheapest ones ! Get a real TL866ii plus direct from XGecu: http://www.xgecu.com/en/
Ebay: search for: xgecu then make sure: xgecupro is the seller. They have shipping from either China or USA , if in US pick the US shipped.
Can vouch that mine works as it is supposed too and can update the software any time I need. A fake Xgecu TL866ii will not work/allow with the software updates.

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-25, 04:46:

I have a tyan tomcat dual socket 7 coming which I can use for hot flash should be here in a few days […]
Show full quote

I have a tyan tomcat dual socket 7 coming which I can use for hot flash should be here in a few days

which option should I use?

flash programmer
pin trick
hot flash

You can try that but are you willing to risk ruining the Tomcat ? Hotflashing is tricky and can ruin a good board... just my opinion.

does this look right?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/XGecu-High-Speed-Pro … csAAOSwmehf~FwJ

I'm actually pretty comfortable working on things live so long as I know what I'm doing but yeah 🤣 I'm definitely with ya with not wanting to risk the tomcat

I think I can justify 50$ but if it's in the 100s I need to look into other options.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-01-25, 05:42:

I picked up a few boards a couple of weeks ago, and I was just testing this one out this evening. I flashed the BIOS , and looking through the settings, I saw something I've never seen before. Credits?

I love that! it would be cool to get ahold of the designers of this board and show em the fun project I'm making of it

Pierre32 wrote on 2021-01-25, 06:25:

Horun wrote on 2021-01-25, 05:00:

Do not buy the cheapest ones ! Get a real TL866ii plus direct from XGecu: http://www.xgecu.com/en/
Ebay: search for: xgecu then make sure: xgecupro is the seller. They have shipping from either China or USA , if in US pick the US shipped.

Thanks for this advice. Located them on ebay AU (item: 192725987183) and to my surprise, they're not the most expensive seller!

that one is coming from china. that's a long wait 🙁

Horun wrote on 2021-01-25, 05:00:

[...]

You can try that but are you willing to risk ruining the Tomcat ? Hotflashing is tricky and can ruin a good board... just my opinion.

That's a bit FUDdy... I fully agree with darry (and others) that a programmer is a far, far better solution, and could kick myself I waited so long to buy one. But... if you don't have a programmer and need to recover BIOS *NOW*, hotflashing is a perfectly valid alternative.

I've done it literally hundreds of times and only once killed a board. How? By putting the EEPROM in the wrong way round. Stupid, but could have happened just as easily with a proper programmer as you're still pulling and plugging the things. Whether you do it with power on or off doesn't make much difference here, with the EEPROM the wrong way round, magic smoke is going to be released. As a matter of fact I messed up replacing the EEPROM after flashing, so the board wasn't even on at the time.

That said, in this case I'm not too optimistic:
- apparently Uniflash doesn't work with the IWill board+EEPROM combo.
- Tyan boards can be a bit unusual when it comes to flashing. I've tried and failed to use UniFlash on quite a few. Not ones this old, so maybe that Tomcat might work, but I wouldn't count on it.

Question is if this is still that obscure Intel EEPROM that didn't look right in the board in the first place. If so, I'd say that - and not the IWill board itself - is the limiting factor. Getting another more normal EEPROM could go a long way to getting this working.

dionb wrote on 2021-01-25, 08:57:

That's a bit FUDdy... I fully agree with darry (and others) that a programmer is a far, far better solution, and could kick myse […]
Show full quote

Horun wrote on 2021-01-25, 05:00:

[...]

You can try that but are you willing to risk ruining the Tomcat ? Hotflashing is tricky and can ruin a good board... just my opinion.

That's a bit FUDdy... I fully agree with darry (and others) that a programmer is a far, far better solution, and could kick myself I waited so long to buy one. But... if you don't have a programmer and need to recover BIOS *NOW*, hotflashing is a perfectly valid alternative.

I've done it literally hundreds of times and only once killed a board. How? By putting the EEPROM in the wrong way round. Stupid, but could have happened just as easily with a proper programmer as you're still pulling and plugging the things. Whether you do it with power on or off doesn't make much difference here, with the EEPROM the wrong way round, magic smoke is going to be released. As a matter of fact I messed up replacing the EEPROM after flashing, so the board wasn't even on at the time.

That said, in this case I'm not too optimistic:
- apparently Uniflash doesn't work with the IWill board+EEPROM combo.
- Tyan boards can be a bit unusual when it comes to flashing. I've tried and failed to use UniFlash on quite a few. Not ones this old, so maybe that Tomcat might work, but I wouldn't count on it.

Question is if this is still that obscure Intel EEPROM that didn't look right int the board in the first place. If so, I'd say that - and not the IWill board itself - is the limiting factor. Getting another more normal EEPROM could go a long way to getting this working.

I'm wondering if when i reset the bios to defaults earlier that it may have enabled virus protection which I think write protects the boot block I think I recall having to change a setting when I did this 15 years ago to allow it to flash. I still don't see a bios write protect jumper on this board

though to be fair jumper(header) 17 remains unexplained

never the less uniflash did something when awdflash refused to. i should have just stuck to awdflash but I decided to try uniflash after reading rainbows testimony in the uniflash readme

none of you guys happen to have a old chip layin around you could flash for me do ya?

btw, off topic I have a extra switch on my "case" can I use it as a cmos reset switch?

I tried putting it betweenthe NO positions of the clear jumper but the board acted weird until I put it back does this mean it needs to be a nc switch on the NC pins? or does it need to actually be a 3 pin momentary switch?

i'm guessing from my experiences so far that the switch can't work for this function but I thought I'd ask

Here is this incase it’s of any use.

So apparently, you can use a nic with a socket as a programmer.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ENCORE-Gigabit-Ether … 7Cclp%3A2334524