Bios Update Failure

[Ryden123]

Hi everyone,

I recently tried to update my bios because for a while when my computer started up i would see no writing what so ever, just a blank screen untill the windows loading screen came up. Although if i pressed the button to enter the bios it would work fine.

Anyway, i looked on the asus website for my motherboard (Asus A8N32-SLI deluxe) and the latest bios. I flashed it with the bios update tool as i dont have a floppy drive.

The update finnished successfuly and i restarted my computer.

My computer on reboot, would start up, fans on, lights on, but nothing on the screen what so ever.

I dont know where to go from here at all. I've searched about a lot but cant seem to find what my options are.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Upon reading a bit about the motherboard i found this

"and also supports Crashfree BIOS 2 technology whose point is to restore the contents of a corrupted BIOS chip by means of a special image from a CD or diskette. This solution is much simpler than the additional chip other mainboard makers use as it doesn’t require hardware modification of the mainboard, but it won’t help if the BIOS chip is physically damaged."

But, i cant seem to find any instructions on ... doing it.

 

[donkey42]

try restoring the BIOS with the original BIOS file you backed up before you did the BIOS flash

Edit: as something obviously is not right, did you flash the BIOS successfully ?

please don't say you didn't backup your BIOS first

and also supports Crashfree BIOS 2 technology whose point is to restore the contents of a corrupted BIOS chip by means of a special image from a CD or diskette. This solution is much simpler than the additional chip other mainboard makers use as it doesn’t require hardware modification of the mainboard, but it won’t help if the BIOS chip is physically damaged

i've never used an Asus board, however, you could try taking a look at Asus's site here

Edit:

Asus

ASUS CrashFree BIOS2
The CrashFree BIOS2 feature now includes the BIOS auto-recovery function in a support CD. Users can reboot their system through the support CD when a bootable disk is not available and go through the simple BIOS auto-recovery process. ASUS motherboards now enable users to enjoy this protection feature without the need to pay for an optional ROM.

try booting the CD that came with you motherboard

 

[Ryden123]

Alright, i found the motherboard cd and bunged it in. But, i cant actually see anything. Still nothing comes up, just a blank screen. The disk spins and stuff, but i cant tell if im actually doing anything. Ugghh, this seems hopeless.

Edit:

I just found out how to, and reset the CMOS with the jumper setting. That, did nothing at all. I really dont want to have to send my motherboard away. Is there really nothing i can do?

 

[donkey42]

go through the simple BIOS auto-recovery process

i would suggest you take this option, as a failed BIOS / CMOS upgrade usually means either buying a new motherboard or buying a new ROM chip for your existing motherboard, thats why flashing the BIOS is not a good idea unless you are 200% sure you need to flash the BIOS to support things like larger HDDs on an old motherboard

failing the simple auto-recovery basically you now have 2 options (i think)

• replace your motherboard (probably the best option)
• replace the BIOS chip on your existing motherboard (usually nearly as expensive as a new motherboard, depending on the motherboard you choose)

however, you may have luck at Badflash

BTW: i've never used an Asus board, so i don't know how to do a simple auto recovery & i've personally never heard of a "simple" BIOS recovery

Edit:

Is there really nothing i can do?

yes, learn from bitter experience, don't even attempt flashing the BIOS next time, come to HWF for advice first

 

[rimmer]

Ryden, I am having a minor version of your problem. Ever since I bought a new motherboard, I will turn my PC on, and after the screen which tells you how much RAM is installed and detects all my hard drives and DVD writers and CPu info etc. it will go black screen, and the only way to fix this is by hitting the reset button, then it will get past where it "black screened" on me last time and go to the "verifying DMI Pool DATA, boot from CD / Floppy etc." and then will start to load windows fine.

I wonder if there is a way to sort mine too, plus I am not sure about the background of my motherboard, as I bought it 2nd hand off ebay, and the latest BIOS was already installed.

 

[kazgirl]

Hi there,

The Asus Crash free BIOS method involves booting from the mobo CD, if there is a fault with the existing BIOS it will detect the BIOS on the CD and automatically flash it....

If you've tried this method...the other way to try is to download the BIOS file ans AWDFLASH utility from the Asus website and save both to a bootable floppy.

Boot from the floppy and use type awdflash.exe at the Cmd prompt this will start the falshing utility so you can flash the BIOS again...

Alternatively it could be a problem with your display settings, the BIOS default settings may be set to use a different display adapter, say if you have onboard vga but also have a gfx card, if this is the case try plugging your monitor into the other vga port, to see if this helps with the whole display issue....!!!

Hope some of this helps...

Thanks

Kaz

 

[donkey42]

The Asus Crash free BIOS method involves booting from the mobo CD, if there is a fault with the existing BIOS it will detect the BIOS on the CD and automatically flash it....

i'll take your word for it, because i've never used an Asus board & couldn't find any info on the problem

hope kaz helped you fix your problem