flashing bios

[George Georgalis]

On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 01:17:44AM +0100, Raphael Marmier wrote:
>right,
>
>I would definitely go for a real copy of msdos to run that prog. It is 
>most certainly totally untested on anything else and if fails in the 
>middle your mainboard can become fubar. If getting a real msdos boot 
>disk proves impossible, I would go for a freedos (www.freedos.org) bootdisk.
>
>You don't necessarily need a floppy drive though. As long as you have a 
>floppy disk image, I think there are ways to mount it, copy the file to 
>it, and then burn it to a cdrom as a bootdisk image. When it boots you 
>get an a: drive like it was a real floppy.
>
>Raphael
>
>George Georgalis wrote:
>>On Sun, Jan 16, 2005 at 09:57:31AM +0100, Raphael Marmier wrote:
>>
>>>George Georgalis wrote:
>>>
>>>>I have a "fx83s032.bin" file that I need to run in dos to flash bios
>>>
>>>Are you sure you need to run it?
>>>
>>>I wouldn't be surprise if this fx83s032.bin file is just a boot disk 
>>>image.
>>
>>
>>Yes, the instructions say run it from a lightweight boot floppy.
>>Also, without it I must go through a hands on 10 second circus
>>to reboot. cf "cool and quiet" 2004/06/28 on
>>
>>http://www.shuttle.com/share/fae/hq/download/bios_rdm/readmefx83.htm
>>
>>If I'm lucky that will fix what may be an he IRQ routing issue too,
>>cf recent thread about vr0 interface on bugs list.
>>
>>BTW this is for a Shuttle SK83G, with an AMD64 
>> http://global.shuttle.com/Download/Download_File.asp?Item=SK83G
>> Shuttle XPC SK83G AMD 64 Barbone System
>> AMD Athlon 64 3400+ Processor Socket 754, 1MB Cache



I made a few different starts on my attempt to flash the SK83G
bios

* bootable usb with dos and the bios flash program... too much to do
* freedos.iso on a HD partition, booted with grub... couldn't add the
bios file and make the partition bootable at at the same time, though I
understand this process has been successful.
* the dell bios flash boot disk... makes a bootdisk with bios programs
on it for booting whatever way.

After various degrees of attempt on those fronts, I found a program
"awardbios" or something similar on the driver disk that came with 
the SK83G, and I wimped out, borrowed a w2000 cd, added a pata drive
and installed windows on it. the awardbios program worked as expected,
asked for the bios file, I gave it fx83s032.bin and it recognized it
checksumed it and installed it okay.

But the problems persisted, certain bios settings (esp smart fan option
in the power settings) caused the bios to lockup during reboot, and
with a windows invoked reboot too. Crap.

It would seem that despite the bios upgrade for this specific cpu
(AMD64 3400+), the problem persists on my machine.

http://www.shuttle.com/share/fae/hq/download/bios_rdm/readmefx83.htm
Support Cool'n'Quiet function for 3400+ and 3700+ CPU
http://global.shuttle.com/Download/Download_File.asp?Item=SK83G
Downloads for SK83G


The following links have varying degrees of relevance, maybe they will
help someone...


http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix03/tech/freenix03/agnew/agnew_html/index.html
http://www.openbios.info/project/index.html
http://www.linuxbios.org/
http://www.missl.cs.umd.edu/Projects/sebos/main.shtml
open source bios

http://www.sysresccd.org/
SystemRescueCd is a linux system on a bootable cdrom for repairing your
system and your data after a crash. It also aims to provide an easy way
to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing
the partitions of the hard disk.

http://linux.dell.com/biosdisk
bootable to flash bios on dell systems

http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootfromusbstick.php
WeetHet - Boot from USB Flash drive

http://nu2.nu/mkbt/
MKBT, Make Bootable
Create any boot- floppy/image from any win32 platform with any media size...

http://www.bootdisk.com/
BootDisks - PC Support - Essential Utilities

http://sourceforge.net/projects/openflash/
Open source utility to (re)program flash BIOS chips. Initial support
will be for the i-opener network appliance under Qnx since there is an
immediate need.


After the bios upgrade the vr0 interface is still unable to sense
media...  I'll followup those details on the "problem with vr0" thread I
started 1/15/05 on the bugs list.

// George



-- 
George Georgalis, systems architect, administrator Linux BSD IXOYE
http://galis.org/george/ cell:646-331-2027 mailto:george at xxxxxxxxx