1884 replies to this topic

[pebcak]

Just toasted my board and it really does look bad...

[asstastic]

pebcak, on Mar 3 2008, 05:05 PM, said:

Just toasted my board and it really does look bad...

If the bios is on a removabe chip like some are you might be able to get them to ship you a replacement.

and Kabyl,
  A lot of us here are wondering about the specifics of the bios errors and how to fix it. Even a breif description or some links to info on the problem would be greatly appreciated by the community.

[gorg]

Kabyl, on Mar 3 2008, 11:00 AM, said:

http://rapidshare.co...10_mod.zip.html

Please, let us know how it goes...
  
Cool! and you're welcome

Thanks Kabyl. It didn't work. Actually, the board is not bootable anymore - no post, black screen. Either I've lost my money or (if I am lucky enough) I may get a replacement. Either way, what's the best (feature wise and hackintosh compatibility wise) to buy ?

[Kabyl]

pebcak, on Mar 3 2008, 11:05 PM, said:

Just toasted my board and it really does look bad...

I'm sorry to hear that.. (I sent you a PM.. I will try to help you).

asstastic, on Mar 3 2008, 11:43 PM, said:

If the bios is on a removabe chip like some are you might be able to get them to ship you a replacement.

and Kabyl,
  A lot of us here are wondering about the specifics of the bios errors and how to fix it. Even a breif description or some links to info on the problem would be greatly appreciated by the community.

Check the first post

gorg, on Mar 4 2008, 12:02 AM, said:

Thanks Kabyl. It didn't work. Actually, the board is not bootable anymore - no post, black screen. Either I've lost my money or (if I am lucky enough) I may get a replacement. Either way, what's the best (feature wise and hackintosh compatibility wise) to buy ?

Another bad flash
I have to use other tools for the MSI P35 boards (I will remove the links).

[tehmachacker]

gorg a good board to buy is the p5k lots of open box ones on newegg atm for under 100

[antaholics]

tehmachacker, on Mar 3 2008, 06:44 PM, said:

gorg a good board to buy is the p5k lots of open box ones on newegg atm for under 100

does the p5k have any compatibility problems? (sound, LAN, wifi, SATA, IDE, etc)

I was thinking of building a hackintosh in a few months (maybe june/july) and I was thinking about using this board... depending on if better ones come out or not

[gorg]

Thanks. All I know is that I'll never buy MSI again. They have become really lame, hackintosh or not.

[tehmachacker]

the p5k is kalyways ideal mobo. i dont think you'll have problems since hes about to own one. or now its one of the best =) cheers.

[jsl]

I think MSI PR600 is also a good choice for Hacintosh too.
Up to now the only imperfection is unable to activate duo cores which is due to interference by special Natit.kext for its X3100 Graphics.

[pebcak]

I'll try to recover my bios (found a good old floppy... ) and let you know how it goes. I ordered a biostar p35 mobo last week anyway, so it doesn't hurt so much. gorg look at the hcl, I did and then decided for the biostar.

[gorg]

pebcak, on Mar 4 2008, 07:21 AM, said:

I'll try to recover my bios (found a good old floppy... ) and let you know how it goes. I ordered a biostar p35 mobo last week anyway, so it doesn't hurt so much. gorg look at the hcl, I did and then decided for the biostar.

My BIOS seems dead since the Boot Block Recovery method via amiboot.rom doesn't work and the chip is soldered. It seems I was rather hasty making the decision to buy this MSI board AND trying to flash a patched rom. Not blaming anyone but myself, kabyl has been very helpful and clear. I even suspect now that there might be other issues that led to the corruption of the BIOS but I wouldn't try the patched BIOS if I were you  


I might need to do better research selecting the right components for building my hackintosh since I 'd like a strong machine rather than a cheap one. Relatively speaking, money is not an issue even though it hurts loosing 120euro if I can't RMA the board 

[antaholics]

tehmachacker, on Mar 3 2008, 10:00 PM, said:

the p5k is kalyways ideal mobo. i dont think you'll have problems since hes about to own one. or now its one of the best =) cheers.

how does the p5k do with other installs?

I will be building it for my brother, who has little or no experience with Macs.. so I want any updating procedures to be as simple as possible lol...  Is the LAN, Audio, and wifi the only kexts that need replacing?

The thing is though, I personally didn't really like all the apps that came preloaded with Kalyway's DVD (10.5.1)... how does p5k do with other DVD's (iATKOS comes to mind)

Thanks!
Ant

[Krazubu]

Here's trick I discovered a few years ago to reflash your chip if something goes wrong with your BIOS (and you don't have any restore function)
You need 2 computers with 2 removable chips of the same kind.
Be careful tho it's rather tricky and "unofficial" :

- Boot the working computer in DOS with the required flashing tool and ROM image available (image for the BIOS on the other computer).
- While in DOS with computer POWERED ON, remove the chip (be careful !!!)
- Put the corrupt chip (be careful again and watch out the chip orientation and alignement, it is very recommend that you do it right at the 1st time)
- Force flashing
- You can now power down
- Put the 2 chips back in their places

[pebcak]

The chips aren't removeable on those boards... if they were I would have simply taken the one on my board to the lab of my electronic engineering prof.

[kmcool]

this is bios file for asus f8sv seriesplease help me to modify it !i can use only one core now?and another request?please send it to me by email (8909171@qq.com)!thanks!http://dlsvr03.asus....v/F8SV300AS.zip

[gorg]

pebcak, on Mar 4 2008, 03:52 PM, said:

The chips aren't removeable on those boards... if they were I would have simply taken the one on my board to the lab of my electronic engineering prof.

You have to unsolder the chip then try the hot flashing method krazubu described. The problem is not only finding someone with the same board (maybe a similar board would also work ? ) but also persuading him to unsolder his board. Or, if  you brave enough, buy the same  motherboard, unsolder, use the trick, resolder and sell it (or preferably both) as used  (and buy a better motherboard for yourself). Or buy a programmed chip from a repair service such as bios-repair.co.uk and solder it yourself.

[Envying]

Pal, nice to see that you are making a lot of progress.  

I guess a kext might be a better way than this?  How's it going so far?

[pebcak]

gorg, on Mar 4 2008, 06:10 PM, said:

You have to unsolder the chip then try the hot flashing method krazubu described.

Unsoldering is not my understanding of "removeable", some time ago the e²proms sat on a socket so they were removeable... flashing an e²prom isn't really the problem. Burned an eprom with some assembler last week.

[alchark]

Kabyl, on Mar 3 2008, 09:00 AM, said:

http://rapidshare.co...05_mod.zip.html

  
Cool! and you're welcome

Wow, how quick! Thank you very much! Will try this asap. Currently, I have to boot with -x cpus=1 (and vanilla 9.1.0 kernel instead of 9.2.0 ones), will see what the modified DSDT brings me to:)

By the way, is there any sane way to flash BIOS from Linux on ASUS machines?

[hotcorez]

Hello Peeps,

I can see that this topic is a mixture of joy and pain. +
It looks like ASUS BIOS' are sussed but other mobo's are more hit an miss to be polite

I would like to thank Kabyl for all his hard work, research and sharing of his bios knowledge.
I haven't been able to test the bios he gave me yet and have been slightly put off by the recent bad flashes!

At the moment, all this bios knowledge is within one persons head and it is not fair to put all the pressure on Kabyl for getting this right.

Therfore, I think we have reached a critical point where we need to work together more closely and start a new topic to disucss the more tehcnical side of bios modding.

for instance, we need to understand the different vendor bios in more detail and also which tools (and versions) are needed to modify them. This will provide greater transparency (where have i heard that bull$%^" before!!!) for the blind flasher!

The result of this could mean that when a modded bios is posted, we could include more detail, so instead of just xyz mod.zip link, it could be more descriptive, and show the whole process in the order in which it was carried out.

hardware platform - motherboard name, revision info etc.
orignal bios = filename.rom + live link + checksum
modded bios = filename.rom + live link + checksum
changelog:-
ACPI (changed xyz to xzy using program x)
Sound ID (changed ddd to ggg using "")
Other mods done by .....
bios verified using.......

This way it would allow others to try the mod themselves and compare their results against others, double checking the mods in the process....
also, it would be good if checksums were included with archives as well.
Maybe we should implement a 2 person approval for any new bios!!
This way we are forced to learn all this stuff even if we dont like it!!!
I have finished ranting now. Please can you more mechanically minded individuals get to together to make bios modding more succesful