TheModDoctor

I have the Asus M4A79 Deluxe mobo, and have just tried to update my BIOS with a modded version of v1901. But the update failed and now I have a bit of a problem... When I switch on the board, it only give one beep, and nothing else happens. The screen is black.
I have tried to force an update by inserting a floppy with the BIOS file renamed as AMIBOOT.ROM and pressing ctrl+home, but for some reason no floppy drive access occurs, its light doesn't come on or flash. But it is strange, because the first time ive plugged in a PS/2 keyboard and pressed crtl+home, something worked and text appeared on the screen. Unfortunately I think the bios file wasn't named right, so I had to restart because I got the message that no BIOS file was found on the floppy. But now if I press crtl+home, I dont get text anymore, and the stiffy drive isnt accessing.

Does anyone have any ideas why the floppy doesnt work anymore, and why ctrl+home doesnt do anything?

Thanks.

DarkNite

I was just having a look at your Motherboard's manual (which you can download here).

Check out page 66 (section 3.2.4):


Does your PC not even check for a floppy?

EDIT: Also checked out the beep codes for your particular BIOS:

http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/sys/beep/ami.htm

One beep is a memory issue, maybe try alternating sticks of ram. Then if that works you should be able to update the BIOS (hopefully).

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Lorna DEREK. Rich-a-la-la - Sarahhh. VI-KY.

TheModDoctor

Ok, I replugged everything, and now the floppy drive's light comes on at least, but the PC still does not read from it. I also switched RAM.

wallyworld96

reset your bios, and start over.

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001001011

DarkNite

Yeah remove the battery from the mobo, wait ten minutes, put it in, start her up ;P

__________________
Lorna DEREK. Rich-a-la-la - Sarahhh. VI-KY.

TheModDoctor

Ok, I sent my board to a friend who is like the Einstein of computers, and he said that the whole BIOS is corrupt, the boot block including. He got the floppy drive to read, but he said that half way it stops reading.
So I have 2 options, send it back to Asus and ask them to simply reprogram the BIOS EEPROM, or find a 8-pin EEPROM PCI programmer card to do it myself, which I would prefer as it would be much quicker.
Does anyone know where I can find such a card without paying a fortune?

TheModDoctor

Hi again. When I fixed this problem a week ago, I forgot to mention it here. Maybe my solution can help someone in the future.

I searched online for a SPI programmer diagram, and eventually found one in a funny language which had a simple diagram and some nice software here: http://rayer.ic.cz/elektro/spipgm.htm
This programmer works through the LPT parallel port.
After modifying the circuit a bit to be better, I soldered it. Since my original ROM died, I had to find a new one. After some searching I found a similar chip with the same pinout, but in a different package (about half the size). I then soldered the smaller chip into a DIP8 socket. With everything ready I programmed my new chip with another pc, and it worked perfectly!

So I was able to rescue my M4A79 Deluxe without RMA, or a complete replace. Btw, the replacement chip was like R20 (Dont know in $...[about R7.50/1$] ) for 4, so it was a huge bargain :-)