Try the attached BIOS and see if that fixes it.

Flashed the BIOS from the attachment, but now it just hangs on the boot screen after detecting the CPU.

Oops, hope he didn't give you the SCSI version... Well I've hotflashed those P2B BIOSes on socket 7 and 440LX boards before no probs, so you should have a wide range of ~96-00ish boards to choose from to flash it back to a version it likes, IIRC 1011 wasn't bad, but if there's a different version of 1014 you can confirm is for your board revision and exact config, it is the one with all the latest CPUs.

edit: oh yah, don't forget to do a CMOS clear, check it's not just invalid settings now with new BIOS.

Update: The system seems to hang on boot now if a keyboard is plugged in. If powered on with no keyboard, boot proceeds to the error message 'no keyboard detected'. At this point the keyboard can be plugged in and works, which is strange. But..the hard drive is detected, so thanks for the file.

EpsilonP wrote on 2021-09-14, 01:18:

Update: The system seems to hang on boot now if a keyboard is plugged in. If powered on with no keyboard, boot proceeds to the error message 'no keyboard detected'. At this point the keyboard can be plugged in and works, which is strange. But..the hard drive is detected, so thanks for the file.

Bad idea. PS/2 is not hot-pluggable, repeatedly plugging in the keyboard when powered on is asking for a blown fuse and dead PS/2 port.

Flash a different BIOS that doesn't require this workaround ASAP.

You need to make sure the boot block is being flashed as well. Best way to do this is to physically flash the chip in an external programmer, but there's also a switch to do that in the command line flasher.

The BIOS posted is for the Asus P2B, specifically.

I have a P2B-S and I used this same patching tool for my BIOS and it is detecting my SSD (Intel 530) fine.

I patched everything now for you, including CPU microcodes. See if this version is any better.

11. New CPU Support           : -> fixed.
22. P3-detect error           : not found.
33. New Koeffs Support        :> -> fixed.
44. 32Gb-problem              : not found.
55. Some HDD detect-problem   : -> fixed.
66. "MB"/"GB" string search   : is not needed to be fixed.
79. Error display Freq>999MHz : not found.
810.Error display Koefs>9.5x  : not found.
911.New Stepping Support      : -> fixed.
1012.Tualatin L2-init error    : not found.
1113.New Freq in Setup open    : not found.

I have the same issue with the bios patcher, described here: Replacing BIOS Chips

Patching the bios with bios patcher leads to the POST process hanging when detecting CPU with PS2 devices plugged in. I had to buy a TL866 to play safely with flashing.

mihai wrote on 2021-09-14, 19:22:

I have the same issue with the bios patcher, described here: Replacing BIOS Chips

Patching the bios with bios patcher leads to the POST process hanging when detecting CPU with PS2 devices plugged in. I had to buy a TL866 to play safely with flashing.

I do not have this issue with my P2B-S and a fully patched BIOS.

I have also flashed two other boards (QDI and a generic BX), no issues.

I flashed it with a TL866. Maybe that's the solution.

I can reproduce the issue on two 440BX boards (ECS / Lucky star), with bios patcher (both 4.x / 6.x versions), flashed with awardflash 7.xx. Hanging on CPU detection if PS2 devices are connected; reverting to stock bios - no issues.

mockingbird wrote on 2021-09-14, 17:19:

I patched everything now for you, including CPU microcodes. See if this version is any better.

You have to make sure that the 8x8 ROM font isn't deleted when using that BIOS patcher utility, this affects certain DOS programs. I can tell this because I have used this program to patch a different BIOS for a Socket 7 motherboard.

Also it has a "dual-BIOS" option which executes the unpatched one in case when the keyboard doesn't respond or pressing the "-" key prior the system beep for the POST screen.

mihai wrote on 2021-09-14, 19:32:

I can reproduce the issue on two 440BX boards (ECS / Lucky star), with bios patcher (both 4.x / 6.x versions), flashed with awardflash 7.xx. Hanging on CPU detection if PS2 devices are connected; reverting to stock bios - no issues.

Send me a BIOS please, I would like to patch it myself for you to test.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-09-14, 19:34:

You have to make sure that the 8x8 ROM font isn't deleted when using that BIOS patcher utility, this affects certain DOS programs. I can tell this because I have used this program to patch a different BIOS for a Socket 7 motherboard.

Can you name an example of a program? I'd like to test that myself. Thanks

mockingbird wrote on 2021-09-15, 04:16:

Can you name an example of a program? I'd like to test that myself. Thanks

There's a Soleau Software game that uses it and it's Block-Man.

It's an old EGA game but it is the best example to test the 8x8 ROM font.

i thought that bios series had floppy boot block support but if i had it i'd try switching off the scsi in bios and add an ide adapter to boot into dos or a dos floppy

mockingbird wrote on 2021-09-15, 04:16:

Send me a BIOS please, I would like to patch it myself for you to test.

Here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/7czzwrot9hemqk … sample.zip/file
The 440bx bios is not working with >32GB hard drives. The VIA Appolo 133 bios needs the memory patch to enable 4way interleave.

I am having 100% error rates with patched bioses from Bios Patcher. Maybe there is an errror on my setup, wrong executables (cbrom, etc), unstable betas.
All patched bioses are hanging on all my mobos (various 440bx / via apollo 133 boards), even if I skip patches such as CPU support/ new coefficients, etc.

Gmlb256 gave some great advice, if I had it before maybe I would not have destroyed several bioses 😀

If you flashed a patched bios (with Bios Patcher) and the new bios is not working with your system, then keep pressing "-" (the minus key) during boot. The system will boot using the original bios, ignoring the patches.

This is why the system is working / booting when the PS2 keyboard is removed. Alternatively, one may enable USB keyboard support in the bios and hotplug an USB keyboard after the POST.

mockingbird wrote on 2021-09-14, 17:19:

You need to make sure the boot block is being flashed as well. Best way to do this is to physically flash the chip in an extern […]
Show full quote

You need to make sure the boot block is being flashed as well. Best way to do this is to physically flash the chip in an external programmer, but there's also a switch to do that in the command line flasher.

The BIOS posted is for the Asus P2B, specifically.

I have a P2B-S and I used this same patching tool for my BIOS and it is detecting my SSD (Intel 530) fine.

I patched everything now for you, including CPU microcodes. See if this version is any better.

Copy code to clipboard

11. New CPU Support           : -> fixed.
22. P3-detect error           : not found.
33. New Koeffs Support        :> -> fixed.
44. 32Gb-problem              : not found.
55. Some HDD detect-problem   : -> fixed.
66. "MB"/"GB" string search   : is not needed to be fixed.
79. Error display Freq>999MHz : not found.
810.Error display Koefs>9.5x  : not found.
911.New Stepping Support      : -> fixed.
1012.Tualatin L2-init error    : not found.
1113.New Freq in Setup open    : not found.

Hello, I have flashed the bios version from the above quote. Now the system will boot with a PS2 keyboard plugged in, however it hangs if both a PS2 keyboard and mouse are plugged in at the same time.

EpsilonP wrote on 2021-11-21, 23:24:

Hello, I have flashed the bios version from the above quote. Now the system will boot with a PS2 keyboard plugged in, however it hangs if both a PS2 keyboard and mouse are plugged in at the same time.

This board is still a WIP for me... I absolutely do not have that problem at all with this BIOS, but I am expecting a new clockgen chip because the system is completely unstable at 133Mhz FSB with the possibly counterfeit one I soldered in.

For SSD, I'm using a re-capped (important!) Ultra133 TX2 + Marvell Sata to IDE combo. This combination is stable and fast.

I will post my progress (no promises!) once I get further with this project.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-09-15, 04:25:

mockingbird wrote on 2021-09-15, 04:16:

Can you name an example of a program? I'd like to test that myself. Thanks

There's a Soleau Software game that uses it and it's Block-Man.

It's an old EGA game but it is the best example to test the 8x8 ROM font.

I just discovered yesterday that using BP with the /g switch disables the removal of CGA 8x8 (run with "/?" to see all switches). "/s" is also a worthwhile switch to use as it makes the mod permanent rather than an add-on module (should solve the problem on my Biostar M7VKD where the patched BIOS sometimes did not load but the original one did at random).

mockingbird wrote on 2022-07-03, 16:28:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-09-15, 04:25:

mockingbird wrote on 2021-09-15, 04:16:

Can you name an example of a program? I'd like to test that myself. Thanks

There's a Soleau Software game that uses it and it's Block-Man.

It's an old EGA game but it is the best example to test the 8x8 ROM font.

I just discovered yesterday that using BP with the /g switch disables the removal of CGA 8x8 (run with "/?" to see all switches). "/s" is also a worthwhile switch to use as it makes the mod permanent rather than an add-on module (should solve the problem on my Biostar M7VKD where the patched BIOS sometimes did not load but the original one did at random).

I recently found other examples involving this situation with MapEdit for Wolf3D (the OP on that thread was misled) and the first StarMines game by Jari Karjala. The "/g" command line switch helps but it won't solve entirely the problem around the CGA 8x8 ROM font. It should suffice in most cases though.

The other command line switch ("/s") must only be used when the patched BIOS is working correctly without any problem.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-07-03, 16:54:

I recently found other examples involving this situation with MapEdit for Wolf3D (the OP on that thread was misled) and the first StarMines game by Jari Karjala. The "/g" command line switch helps but it won't solve entirely the problem around the CGA 8x8 ROM font. It should suffice in most cases though.

Please elaborate... Is that related to BP or generally with hardware compatibility?

BP's switch description lists "/g" as having the following effect:

"skip delete BIOS CGA-font 8x8 (increase size of modul.tmp)".

So are you saying that it is still in fact modifying the module in some way that interferes with 8x8 support?