Hi Kordanor,

Checking which flashchip and BIOS size you have, can simply be done with a flash tool like Awdflash.exe.
If you don’t have the flasher for this 5ALI61 board, you can use Awdflash v7.95. This flasher works fine here on any non-Asus socket 7 board with an Award BIOS.
You can download Awdflash v7.95 from my website at:
http://www.steunebrink.info/AWD795.zip

At a clean boot DOS prompt (no EMM386 or Windows), enter the command:

AWDFLASH /pn /sy

The /pn switch stands for “Program No” and /sy means “Save Yes”.
Leaving out a filename avoids the risk of flashing an incorrect BIOS.

After this command you should see this:

The Awdflash program shows you the flashchip partnumber. Please tell us what it says.
In the second “File Name to Save” box you can enter a filename of your choice. I used “BACKUP1.BIN” as example.
After pressing the Enter key, the flashchip contents will be saved in the file you specified. Checking the size of this file will tell you if the BIOS is 128 or 256KB.
Please post this BIOS file here, so I can help you decide which BIOS update is the right one for your board. 😀

Jan

Edit: updated the link to my website

Chkcpu wrote on 2023-04-03, 15:33:

Hi Kordanor, […]
Show full quote

Hi Kordanor,

Checking which flashchip and BIOS size you have, can simply be done with a flash tool like Awdflash.exe.
If you don’t have the flasher for this 5ALI61 board, you can use Awdflash v7.95. This flasher works fine here on any non-Asus socket 7 board with an Award BIOS.
You can download Awdflash v7.95 from my website at:
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/AWD795.zip

At a clean boot DOS prompt (no EMM386 or Windows), enter the command:

AWDFLASH /pn /sy

The /pn switch stands for “Program No” and /sy means “Save Yes”.
Leaving out a filename avoids the risk of flashing an incorrect BIOS.

After this command you should see this:

IMG_20230403_140339.jpg

The Awdflash program shows you the flashchip partnumber. Please tell us what it says.
In the second “File Name to Save” box you can enter a filename of your choice. I used “BACKUP1.BIN” as example.
After pressing the Enter key, the flashchip contents will be saved in the file you specified. Checking the size of this file will tell you if the BIOS is 128 or 256KB.
Please post this BIOS file here, so I can help you decide which BIOS update is the right one for your board. 😀

Jan

Thank you!

Here is a screenshot of what the program shows:

And the BIN can be found here, as I cant upload it on the forum (it's 128KB): https://drive.google.com/file/d/10k_V32fQKnZB … iew?usp=sharing

Thanks for the BIOS file. It is the original version 1.2 BIOS from 11/24/1998 and indeed has the 32GB HDD limit bug.
This BIOS is 128KB and your Winbond 29EE011 is an 1Mbit flash memory, so for the BIOS update you are limited to a 128KB version as well.

You can now choose between the VER:1.4 patch J.1, and the VER:1.5 BETA BIOS.
They both support HDDs up to 128 GiB and the K6plus CPUs.
I have no experience with the VER:1.5 BETA, but the VER:1.4 patch J.1 was extensively tested by a number of 5ALI61 users before I published it on my Unofficial K6-2+ / K6-III+ page.
So my choice would be the VER:1.4 patch J.1 BIOS. 😉

Boot again to a clean DOS-prompt and flashing the new BIOS can be done with the command:

AWDFLASH ALI_J1.BIN /py /sn /cc

The /cc switch will erase the CMOS content so that data from the old BIOS will not interfere with the functions of the new BIOS version.
After flashing and reboot, you will see a ‘CMOS checksum error, defaults loaded’ message and from there you can proceed normally with your preferred BIOS Setup settings.

Cheers, Jan

Thanks a lot! This worked!

Haven't had time to install a OS on the drive yet, but it's detected now and doesn't freeze anymore, so I am sure it will work. Thanks again! 😀

You're welcome.
If you have a K6-2+ or K6-III+ CPU, you can now even use that on this board. 😉

Greetings, Jan

Thanks, nah, going for a DIY solution there with a 500Mhz K6 3 500Mhz, also enabling the turbo button ^^

Chkcpu wrote on 2023-04-03, 15:33:

Hi Kordanor, […]
Show full quote

Hi Kordanor,

Checking which flashchip and BIOS size you have, can simply be done with a flash tool like Awdflash.exe.
If you don’t have the flasher for this 5ALI61 board, you can use Awdflash v7.95. This flasher works fine here on any non-Asus socket 7 board with an Award BIOS.
You can download Awdflash v7.95 from my website at:
http://www.steunebrink.info/AWD795.zip

At a clean boot DOS prompt (no EMM386 or Windows), enter the command:

AWDFLASH /pn /sy

The /pn switch stands for “Program No” and /sy means “Save Yes”.
Leaving out a filename avoids the risk of flashing an incorrect BIOS.

After this command you should see this:

IMG_20230403_140339.jpg

The Awdflash program shows you the flashchip partnumber. Please tell us what it says.
In the second “File Name to Save” box you can enter a filename of your choice. I used “BACKUP1.BIN” as example.
After pressing the Enter key, the flashchip contents will be saved in the file you specified. Checking the size of this file will tell you if the BIOS is 128 or 256KB.
Please post this BIOS file here, so I can help you decide which BIOS update is the right one for your board. 😀

Jan

Edit: updated the link to my website

Do you know if the BIOS Update might also have changed some of the available BIOS options?
I looked into using the slowdown tool discussed here: Re: CpuSpd - A Hardware Based CPU Speed Control Utility for DOS/Win9X Retro Gaming
But it does not work. As my BIOS Options also don't exactly match what I can find in the manual I am wondering if the BIOS Update has anything to do with it.

In particular I mean the "Throttle Duty Cycle", which is shown in the manual, but is not present in the BIOS. Instead I got "Wake Up on LAN Use". Ofc this might also be down to a different board revision or anything similar.

Kordanor wrote on 2024-01-22, 09:34:

Do you know if the BIOS Update might also have changed some of the available BIOS options? I looked into using the slowdown tool […]
Show full quote

Do you know if the BIOS Update might also have changed some of the available BIOS options?
I looked into using the slowdown tool discussed here: Re: CpuSpd - A Hardware Based CPU Speed Control Utility for DOS/Win9X Retro Gaming
But it does not work. As my BIOS Options also don't exactly match what I can find in the manual I am wondering if the BIOS Update has anything to do with it.

In particular I mean the "Throttle Duty Cycle", which is shown in the manual, but is not present in the BIOS. Instead I got "Wake Up on LAN Use". Ofc this might also be down to a different board revision or anything similar.

Hi Kordanor,

Yes, it is quite normal for the available BIOS Setup options to change after a BIOS update.

About the “Throttle Duty Cycle” option in your 5ALI61 manual, I looked in the v1.2, v1.4, and v1.5 Beta BIOSes for this board but this option isn’t present in any of them. So the manual is simply wrong or this option was only present in an even earlier v1.0 or v1.1 BIOS, if they existed. 😉

I don’t know why the CpuSpd tool doesn’t work on your 5ALI61 system, but the “Throttle Duty Cycle” option has nothing to do with slowing the CPU down in normal operation. This option in the Award BIOS allows you to set how far the CPU will throttle back when in Doze mode. That’s why the option is part of the Power Management Setup.
So this option doesn’t do anything when the CPU is working, but controls how cool the system will run when the CPU has nothing to do.

Without this option, the BIOS will probably throttle back to a fixed percentage, like 62.5%, when in Doze mode, or let the OS have full control of Power Management via the ACPI interface.

Cheers, Jan

Alright! Thanks a lot for the clarification! 😀