NF4 Ultra -D Corrupted BIOS

[Frodin]

Hi,

I'm having trouble with my new Ultra -D. It booted and ran just fine upon first try, however I could not get it to install windows properly. It would hang on the "Setup is detecting your hardware"- screen, or even before that.

I tried a dozen of settings with timings and voltage on the different ram, and with loose timings and the right voltage on the OCZ TCCD I could get it a little further (Setup is detecting...).

I then concluded that the shipping BIOS probably did not like my ram very much, and decided to flash to the 310 BIOS from the DFI- website.

I ran through memtest from a bootable cd with no errors before proceeding to flash the BIOS.

I followed the advice from this post, and proceeded to flashing the BIOS.

The awdflash.exe loaded and started flashing the BIOS, and about 1/5 the way it suddenly stopped writing the new BIOS, and this cozy message appeared: "Flash procedure failed. The BIOS ROM is write protected". Nice! I then had to check the PDF-manual to see if there actually is a "BIOS ROM write protect" jumper on the board, but could not find any reference to one. I had no other way of shutting down the comp. than to do the reset button routine.

I then tried clearing the Cmos for about 10mins, restarted and immediately got this message:

BIOS ROM cheksum error

Detecting floppy drive A media.

INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

I tried inserting the bios- flash floppy (actually tried with 3 different floppys) and hitting enter, but I only got an evil sound from the floppy drive and the "INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" message. I then tried resetting the Cmos again for about an hour this time, but to no avail.

 

All the other components in the rig have been tested to work flawlessly in another rig.

So what do I do? RMA the board?

 

Bewildered first-time DFI customer

[RGone]

You can email me at my addy in my signature and I can give instructions to where to send bios for reflash if you are in USA or Canada.

 

Actually if you know how to hotflash you could flash that bios on nearly any other NFforce chipsetted motherboard. But like I said you can email me and will tell you where to send for reflash.

 

RGone...

[Frodin]

Hi,

thank you for the quick reply to my problem!

I am actually in Norway, so I guess sending the chip for reflash is out of the question?

I have two socket a Nforce2 motherboards, an Asus a7n8x E- Deluxe (with a defunct floppy port) and an Abit NF7 -S v2.0, and I guess I could try a hotflash.

However, I am not familiar with the method, but I am willing to learn, as long this will not void the warranty of my board.

 

EDIT: spelling

[Angry_Games]

in norway you will have to send to DFI-Europe, or find another member within your region (Norway, Sweden, etc) that can do the hotflash for you.

 

If you want dfi-eu's email to send it off for reflashing, just let me or Rgone know by email (link in our sigs) or by PM.

[Malaniken]

Hey guys, I've been reading about hotflashing (out of curiosity) so I figured I should post these links in case Frodin wants to give it a go:

 

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=314300

http://www.rainbow-software.org/hardware/hotflash.html

 

Although a guide by a DFI-Street overlord would top those two of course

 

cheers

[Frodin]

Ok, thanks guys!

I'll read up on hotflashing, and if it's not too intimidating, I'll check with a friend of mine who's got the NF4 SLI DR, and kindly ask if I can borrow his computer to do it, if I don't simply do it on my NF2- board.

Otherwise, I will contact one of you mod- guys via email.

 

Sincerely,

Frodin

[nordik]

When it asks for a system disk put in a MS-DOS bootdisk and from there flash your BIOS.