OT: Success in reflashing a crippled OEM bios
Hi,
FYI. Some time ago I bought a cheap $150 Linspire box
from Frys. (Great Quality PC, it says on the box.)
I bought it because I knew Linspire did not ship
binary-only drivers, so I knew the box would work
with all distros. Sadly, Linspire has changed their
policy and buying a box with their OS is no longer
a guarentee of anything. For that and other
reasons I can no longer recommend buying a pre-loaded
Linspire box.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall when these people are talking
about how they want to sell a crippled box, and what
features they want to pay extra money to rip out.
It comes with a ECS 741GX-M2 motherboard.
(10/18/2005-741GX-M2-6A7I8E19C-00, says the boot screen.)
Turns out this is a ECS 741GX-M motherboard that's been
fitted with a crippled BIOS, as far as I can tell.
It turns out that you can flash the bios with the latest 741GX-M bios
from www.ecs.com.tw. This gives you the option of
booting at power-up, so you know your box will come
up after a power failure, and lots more.
YMMV. Don't blame me if you turn your box into a brick.
Here's my notes:
Installed the 41GXMA13.bin bios from:
http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Downloads/ProductsDetail_Download.aspx?detailid=422&DetailName=New&DetailDesc=741GX-M%20%20(V1.0)&CategoryID=1&MenuID=82&LanID=9
Used the AWD865.exe program to do it.
This makes a backup of the old bios:
AWD865 backup.bin /pn/sy
This installs and clears the cmos:
AWD865 41gxma13.bin /py/sn/cc
Then told the bios to install the optimized settings, not the safe
ones. And then told it to boot at power-up, etc.
The BIOS chip is a:
EN29F002ANT-70JC
You have to rip 2 layers of stickers off to get see the
part number printed on the chip.
Note that the bios protect jumper is documented backwards.
Pins 1 & 2 need to be jumpered to allow the bois to be updated.
Karl <kop@meme.com>
Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
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