Bios update?

"lurker" wrote in message
...
I have an Asus a7v133 board with bios date 1001c, and the latest is
1009.

I've d/l'd the updated bios and the flash utility, and the instructions
say to boot from a floppy to perform the update.

What do I have to do to get system to boot from floppy? I enter present
BIOS setting and there is no choice for a floppy under "boot" section.

it's in there somewhere
although it may be hard to find...
look for "boot order" or something like that



Another setting in BIOS is set to swap A/B. I presume cable hookup is
reason for this????

I'm still with Win98se, and "Help" says to boot in MsDos, do it through
restart, etc. Is this a "pure" Dos setting in which it safe to try
the update?

Or, is there any real advantage to do the update at all?


You probably should not bother to update unless there is a specific
new feature you need...
if the flash does not work...you could end up with a totally unusable
machine


btw: if you do flash the bios...just make absolutely certain
you have the right one...and be sure your machine is on a UPS
....just in case of a power failure

Bios can be dangerous to work with. I wouldn't recommend to flash bios
if you are certain you will benefit.

to flash a bios. insert a 3 and 1/2 floppy into the your computer.
open my computer and right click on 3 1/2 floppy and select format.
Select the option that says ms-dos system disk. I would recommand you
download ramdisk. This lets you create a upper memory to copy over your
bios and flash your bios which makes it faster. Copy of the bios onto
the floppy and the flash bios utility. Insert the floppy and most likly
if will boot from your floppy if it does not. Either hit f2 or del key
to go into your bios. From there look for boot options. Select floppy
as your first item to boot from. Most likely you will use + or - to
select certain option. Save your setting and restart with the floppy in
the drive.
run the proper command and restart. You may need to reset your cmos.

good luck

lurker wrote:

I have an Asus a7v133 board with bios date 1001c, and the latest is
1009.

I've d/l'd the updated bios and the flash utility, and the instructions
say to boot from a floppy to perform the update.

What do I have to do to get system to boot from floppy? I enter present
BIOS setting and there is no choice for a floppy under "boot" section.
Another setting in BIOS is set to swap A/B. I presume cable hookup is
reason for this????

I'm still with Win98se, and "Help" says to boot in MsDos, do it through
restart, etc. Is this a "pure" Dos setting in which it safe to try
the update?

Or, is there any real advantage to do the update at all?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Lurker

snip

His question was about how to set the boot order in his particular BIOS,
John. He knows the rest.

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

Sooky Grumper wrote:
snip

His question was about how to set the boot order in his particular BIOS,
John. He knows the rest.


Sorry John, that was rudely phrased.

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

Thanks guys,

Just a little verbal reinforcement helped a lot. Switched cable
connections to flopply so I did not have to reverse A/B. Further
inspection showed a choice of "Legacy device" which was not selected.
I selected it, and then used the + and - keys to "rotate" it to the
number one(1) position.

Sure enough, restart used the floppy to boot from.

Now that I have the mechanics of the situation figured out, what
will I gain by updating the motherboard bios?

Lurker

Sooky Grumper wrote:

Sooky Grumper wrote:
snip

His question was about how to set the boot order in his particular BIOS,
John. He knows the rest.


Sorry John, that was rudely phrased.

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

lurker wrote:
Thanks guys,

Just a little verbal reinforcement helped a lot. Switched cable
connections to flopply so I did not have to reverse A/B. Further
inspection showed a choice of "Legacy device" which was not selected.
I selected it, and then used the + and - keys to "rotate" it to the
number one(1) position.

Sure enough, restart used the floppy to boot from.

Now that I have the mechanics of the situation figured out, what
will I gain by updating the motherboard bios?

That's where John and philo's responses contain a very valuable gem of
information: unless you're having problems, you may gain nothering but
stand to lose everything. Does the website tell you what was improved in
that version of the BIOS? What about the README file that came with the
BIOS update?


Lurker

Sooky Grumper wrote:

Sooky Grumper wrote:

snip

His question was about how to set the boot order in his particular BIOS,
John. He knows the rest.


Sorry John, that was rudely phrased.

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo


--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

WHY do you want to update your BIOS? If you attempt the update and it fails
for any reason you will be left with an unuseable motherboard. (People
update their BIOS's to fix specific problems that they are having.)

--
DaveW



"lurker" wrote in message
...
I have an Asus a7v133 board with bios date 1001c, and the latest is
1009.

I've d/l'd the updated bios and the flash utility, and the instructions
say to boot from a floppy to perform the update.

What do I have to do to get system to boot from floppy? I enter present
BIOS setting and there is no choice for a floppy under "boot" section.
Another setting in BIOS is set to swap A/B. I presume cable hookup is
reason for this????

I'm still with Win98se, and "Help" says to boot in MsDos, do it through
restart, etc. Is this a "pure" Dos setting in which it safe to try
the update?

Or, is there any real advantage to do the update at all?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Lurker

Sooky Grumper wrote:

lurker wrote:
Thanks guys,

Just a little verbal reinforcement helped a lot. Switched cable
connections to flopply so I did not have to reverse A/B. Further
inspection showed a choice of "Legacy device" which was not selected.
I selected it, and then used the + and - keys to "rotate" it to the
number one(1) position.

Sure enough, restart used the floppy to boot from.

Now that I have the mechanics of the situation figured out, what
will I gain by updating the motherboard bios?

That's where John and philo's responses contain a very valuable gem of
information: unless you're having problems, you may gain nothering but
stand to lose everything. Does the website tell you what was improved in
that version of the BIOS? What about the README file that came with the
BIOS update?


Lurker

Sooky Grumper wrote:

Sooky Grumper wrote:

snip

His question was about how to set the boot order in his particular BIOS,
John. He knows the rest.


Sorry John, that was rudely phrased.

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo


I downloaded the files from the Asus site but did not see any history
or explanations. Oh well, since I'm not having any great difficulties
I'll leave well enough alone.

Thanks again,
Lurker

on Thu January 15 2004 7:17 pm, DaveW decided to enlighten us with:

WHY do you want to update your BIOS? If you attempt the update and it
fails
for any reason you will be left with an unuseable motherboard. (People
update their BIOS's to fix specific problems that they are having.)

Or to get new features. I remember my board had a BIOS update that allowed
booting from the RAID controller, which wasn't available with earlier
BIOS's.


--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
8:50pm up 39 days 5:36, 2 users, load average: 1.19, 0.50, 0.18

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

I suggest you do an update. Here's the bios history of your board.
http://www.a7vtroubleshooting.com/in.../index.htm#133
Here are some flashing tips-
Download Dr. Dos for making the boot disk, it's quick, easy, and you don't
have to worry about running low on memory while you are flashing due to
extraneous drivers.
http://www.hellasystems.de/ftp/Utili...0/drdflash.exe
Use the German version flash utility 2.21 because it has two useful dos
programs that allows you to save your existing bios settings to a text file
and it allows you to clear the CMOS without having to short the solder pads.

ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIO.../aflash221.zip
Save your current bios file to the floppy when you run Aflash just in case
you may need it. Also if you want you can save your current bios settings to
a text file using the CMOS program. After flashing to the new file, you can
clear the cmos with the clrcmos program . When you re-Boot to bios the first
time load setup defaults.



"lurker" wrote in message
...


Sooky Grumper wrote:

lurker wrote:
Thanks guys,

Just a little verbal reinforcement helped a lot. Switched cable
connections to flopply so I did not have to reverse A/B. Further
inspection showed a choice of "Legacy device" which was not selected.
I selected it, and then used the + and - keys to "rotate" it to the
number one(1) position.

Sure enough, restart used the floppy to boot from.

Now that I have the mechanics of the situation figured out, what
will I gain by updating the motherboard bios?

That's where John and philo's responses contain a very valuable gem of
information: unless you're having problems, you may gain nothering but
stand to lose everything. Does the website tell you what was improved in
that version of the BIOS? What about the README file that came with the
BIOS update?


Lurker

Sooky Grumper wrote:

Sooky Grumper wrote:

snip

His question was about how to set the boot order in his particular
BIOS,
John. He knows the rest.


Sorry John, that was rudely phrased.

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo


I downloaded the files from the Asus site but did not see any history
or explanations. Oh well, since I'm not having any great difficulties
I'll leave well enough alone.

Thanks again,
Lurker