VOGONS


First post, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

If anyone has a Packard Bell PB450 motherboard with an FCC ID between 450 and 459, and are looking for the BIOS for the motherboard that has the Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 video chip and has an ISA riser card only, you're in luck!

BIOS chip required: Intel P28F001BX-T DIP-32 (notch should meet the notch on the socket itself)
BIOS file contains: Phoenix BIOS 4.03 v1.1a PnP (ISA), VGA BIOS 1.41 for the Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428
Program used to archive: MiniPro Programming tool
EEPROM Programmer used: Signstek TL866PLUS USB Programmer

Here's the BIOS if anyone's interested: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1P0uAcU2msT9 … yc_vI5QUEmjyb94

Moderators, admins, etc., feel free to move this topic if it's not on topic.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 3 of 54, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

You might want to change the file name to PB450M.bin since MS-DOS doesn't like file names longer than 8+3 character (8 for the file, 3 for the extension).

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 4 of 54, by ahtoh

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I confirm I flashed it successfully.
Unfortunately, it does not resolve the problem with Media Vision Pro audio Spectrum card.
The card is not compatible with this bios (but works fine with 4.05 version)
TLBMM also hangs with 4.03 but works with 4.05
Overall the 4.05 has better compatibility, supports bigger HDDs, but the bad thing about 4.05 version is it does not support DX4 chip with WB cache

Reply 5 of 54, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Wish there was a way to get the Micro Firmware for the motherboard, but, I can only find the upgrade version, sadly. I'm planning on dumping the BIOS contents later on as well.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 6 of 54, by ahtoh

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Here is another MicroFirmware BIOS P4HS10 for PB430 https://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?driverid=38
You can try the following:
1) flash P4HS10 BIN to a blank chip with a programmer.
2) boot off the PB450 motherboard with stock bios
3) hotswap the bios chip
4) try to run the P4HS20 Upgrade
5) If it does not work, replace all occurrences of "P4HS10" with "P4HS20" in the P4HS10 BIN and try again

Reply 7 of 54, by Roman555

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

In a hex editor I've compared UPDATE.BIN (extracted from p4hs1022.exe) and INSTALL.EXE (extracted from p4hs20up.exe) and somehow made a BIOS image for an eeprom programmer.
I've made it in Linux so the command looks like (just cut off a lump):

dd if=INSTALL.EXE of=p4hs20up.bin skip=34256 count=131072 bs=1

So you can try attached BIOS image if you'd like. Of course use it at your own risk.

Attachments

  • Filename
    p4hs20up.zip
    File size
    108.2 KiB
    Downloads
    102 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

[ MS6168/PII-350/YMF754/98SE ]
[ 775i65G/E5500/9800Pro/Vortex2/ME ]

Reply 8 of 54, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

I'll test the BIOS on my machine and see how it works. Good thing I still have the original BIOS in case it doesn't work out too well.

Also, I didn't realize that you can extract the BIOS BIN file using Linux. I haven't done Linux commands in a long time.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 9 of 54, by Roman555

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
bjwil1991 wrote:

I'll test the BIOS on my machine and see how it works. Good thing I still have the original BIOS in case it doesn't work out too well.
Also, I didn't realize that you can extract the BIOS BIN file using Linux. I haven't done Linux commands in a long time.

That's good. The backup is the most important thing in our business 😀
offtopic
In this case "dd" command gets an input file INSTALL.EXE, skips its 34256 bytes and then writes its 131072 bytes into an output file p4hs20up.bin.
So we just got last 128KB of the file INSTALL.EXE. No unpacking, no unzipping and so on.

[ MS6168/PII-350/YMF754/98SE ]
[ 775i65G/E5500/9800Pro/Vortex2/ME ]

Reply 11 of 54, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
Roman555 wrote:
That's good. The backup is the most important thing in our business :) offtopic In this case "dd" command gets an input file INS […]
Show full quote
bjwil1991 wrote:

I'll test the BIOS on my machine and see how it works. Good thing I still have the original BIOS in case it doesn't work out too well.
Also, I didn't realize that you can extract the BIOS BIN file using Linux. I haven't done Linux commands in a long time.

That's good. The backup is the most important thing in our business 😀
offtopic
In this case "dd" command gets an input file INSTALL.EXE, skips its 34256 bytes and then writes its 131072 bytes into an output file p4hs20up.bin.
So we just got last 128KB of the file INSTALL.EXE. No unpacking, no unzipping and so on.

Good news is, the BIOS successfully flashed and turned on the first try. The bad news is, it's reporting that my CMOS battery is "dead" no matter what, however, it's retaining the time and date, but, not the settings.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 13 of 54, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

I might as well attempt that later on tonight. Good thing I backed up the original BIOS months ago.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 14 of 54, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Here's the Micro Firmware P4HS20 BIOS (4.05.10) for the PB450 motherboard (FCC ID: 450-459) in case anyone is interested.

Also available on Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pWxmWpxn7FS … iMA60_yYICL0sEl in case you aren't a registered user.

Attachments

  • Filename
    Micro Firmware PB450.zip
    File size
    109.59 KiB
    Downloads
    103 downloads
    File comment
    Micro Firmware P4HS20 PB450
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 15 of 54, by 9646gt

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I am trying to flash the Micro Firmware so I can see if my system will finally boot properly with my 486 DX2 66MHz that has writeback cache (later model). But phflash is complaining it can't read the file phs420.bin. Do I need to use a specific version?

EDIT: I got it to work when I actually typed it right. But now it says Platform Signature not found in interface. Any ideas?

Reply 16 of 54, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Do you have a picture of that message? Also, run the upgrade floppy maybe that'll fix the issue:

Packard bell PB450 repair / mods / upgrade

https://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?driverid=39

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 17 of 54, by 9646gt

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I haven't tried that link. Do I even need a different BIOS to use a writeback version of the DX2 66mhz? Mine was originally a sx2 50mhz. I think my current BIOS may be 4.03 I'll have to recheck. Can I even flash the Micro Firmware version if I have Packard Bell branded firmware? I'm confused because there is so little information as to k ow what I am looking at, I just saw somewhere that the WB cache DX2 requires updated Firmware. And sorry I don't have a picture of the error screen. Been taking care of two sick kids 🤣. It's been a while since O messed with all this old technology haha.

Reply 18 of 54, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Yes, you can use phlash to flash the BIOS or an EEPROM programming tool.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser