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#1
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BIOS Savior for A8N-SLI
Asus' Crash-Free BIOS notwithstanding, the most elegant protection against BIOS-flashing disasters is the BIOS Savior by IOSS in Taiwan. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have updated their Web site and compatibility list for about four years. Nevertheless, the BIOS Savior is still for sale. Mwave has a 4MB version, http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec....iteria=BA09803 but there's no compatibility table there, either. Is it possible that this version would work with the 4MB BIOS on the A8N-SLI? Ron |
#3
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Indeed, I have the same question. This kit sounds like good insurance for
about $25. Please post if you find out more. "milleron" wrote in message ... Asus' Crash-Free BIOS notwithstanding, the most elegant protection against BIOS-flashing disasters is the BIOS Savior by IOSS in Taiwan. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have updated their Web site and compatibility list for about four years. Nevertheless, the BIOS Savior is still for sale. Mwave has a 4MB version, http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec....iteria=BA09803 but there's no compatibility table there, either. Is it possible that this version would work with the 4MB BIOS on the A8N-SLI? Ron |
#4
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There are complete kits he
http://www.frozencpu.com/scan/se=Ele...nu_search.html for about $25 but again, it's difficult to know which, if any, is compatible with the A8N-SLI or A8N-SLI Deluxe. "milleron" wrote in message ... Asus' Crash-Free BIOS notwithstanding, the most elegant protection against BIOS-flashing disasters is the BIOS Savior by IOSS in Taiwan. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have updated their Web site and compatibility list for about four years. Nevertheless, the BIOS Savior is still for sale. Mwave has a 4MB version, http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec....iteria=BA09803 but there's no compatibility table there, either. Is it possible that this version would work with the 4MB BIOS on the A8N-SLI? Ron |
#5
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On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 23:34:50 -0400, (Paul) wrote:
In article , wrote: Asus' Crash-Free BIOS notwithstanding, the most elegant protection against BIOS-flashing disasters is the BIOS Savior by IOSS in Taiwan. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have updated their Web site and compatibility list for about four years. Nevertheless, the BIOS Savior is still for sale. Mwave has a 4MB version, http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec....iteria=BA09803 but there's no compatibility table there, either. Is it possible that this version would work with the 4MB BIOS on the A8N-SLI? Ron Updates stopped here with the A7N8X. http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/R...List/ASUS.html This chart is based on the user identifying the part number on the BIOS chip itself: http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/R...tionSheet.html See if your chip part number matches something in the chart. Hey, thanks. The second table is one I had not yet seen at IOSS. Unfortunately, I can't tell anything about the BIOS because I haven't purchased the board yet. I'd like to install a BIOS Savior as I'm building, so I wanted to purchase it at the same time I bought the motherboard. Perhaps someone who already has an A8N-SLI could tell us if the Award BIOS matches any part number on the list. I'm hoping. BTW, I can't remember ever reading a post about a bad flash where the CrashFree BIOS did anyone any good. Why doesn't it seem to work as advertised? Ron |
#6
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On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 05:38:46 -0400, "J&SB" wrote:
Indeed, I have the same question. This kit sounds like good insurance for about $25. Please post if you find out more. Do you already have an Asus NForce 4 board? If so, can you report on the part number? Like you say, for $25, it's a good solution, so good that if I can't ascertain compatibility for certain, I'm probably going to buy a RD1-PCM4 and try it. I don't think it could damage the original BIOS because I believe that there's no electrical connection between the two. it appears that the most one would have to lose is $25. "milleron" wrote in message .. . Asus' Crash-Free BIOS notwithstanding, the most elegant protection against BIOS-flashing disasters is the BIOS Savior by IOSS in Taiwan. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have updated their Web site and compatibility list for about four years. Nevertheless, the BIOS Savior is still for sale. Mwave has a 4MB version, http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec....iteria=BA09803 but there's no compatibility table there, either. Is it possible that this version would work with the 4MB BIOS on the A8N-SLI? Ron Ron |
#7
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In article ,
wrote: On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 23:34:50 -0400, (Paul) wrote: In article , wrote: Asus' Crash-Free BIOS notwithstanding, the most elegant protection against BIOS-flashing disasters is the BIOS Savior by IOSS in Taiwan. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have updated their Web site and compatibility list for about four years. Nevertheless, the BIOS Savior is still for sale. Mwave has a 4MB version, http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec....iteria=BA09803 but there's no compatibility table there, either. Is it possible that this version would work with the 4MB BIOS on the A8N-SLI? Ron Updates stopped here with the A7N8X. http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/R...List/ASUS.html This chart is based on the user identifying the part number on the BIOS chip itself: http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/R...tionSheet.html See if your chip part number matches something in the chart. Hey, thanks. The second table is one I had not yet seen at IOSS. Unfortunately, I can't tell anything about the BIOS because I haven't purchased the board yet. I'd like to install a BIOS Savior as I'm building, so I wanted to purchase it at the same time I bought the motherboard. Perhaps someone who already has an A8N-SLI could tell us if the Award BIOS matches any part number on the list. I'm hoping. BTW, I can't remember ever reading a post about a bad flash where the CrashFree BIOS did anyone any good. Why doesn't it seem to work as advertised? Ron The Crashfree concept is to take a single physical flash chip and partition it into two separate virtual flash chips. For this to work properly, the "boot block" should never be erased. I suspect the people who report here, that their upgrade failed, and Crashfree didn't help them, probably are using the flash tool to erase the boot block as well as the main code block. That could account for the failure rate. The tools and instructions don't make it clear what options to use, to make Crashfree a useful feature. If Asus wants to use Crashfree as a beneficial concept, they should ship the first BIOS with a well tested boot block. Then, erasing and reprogramming the boot block would not be necessary. And Crashfree would stand a better chance of working, as it lives inside the boot block. Paul Paul |
#8
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On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 04:05:20 -0400, (Paul) wrote:
In article , wrote: On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 23:34:50 -0400, (Paul) wrote: In article , wrote: Asus' Crash-Free BIOS notwithstanding, the most elegant protection against BIOS-flashing disasters is the BIOS Savior by IOSS in Taiwan. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have updated their Web site and compatibility list for about four years. Nevertheless, the BIOS Savior is still for sale. Mwave has a 4MB version, http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec....iteria=BA09803 but there's no compatibility table there, either. Is it possible that this version would work with the 4MB BIOS on the A8N-SLI? Ron Updates stopped here with the A7N8X. http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/R...List/ASUS.html This chart is based on the user identifying the part number on the BIOS chip itself: http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/R...tionSheet.html See if your chip part number matches something in the chart. Hey, thanks. The second table is one I had not yet seen at IOSS. Unfortunately, I can't tell anything about the BIOS because I haven't purchased the board yet. I'd like to install a BIOS Savior as I'm building, so I wanted to purchase it at the same time I bought the motherboard. Perhaps someone who already has an A8N-SLI could tell us if the Award BIOS matches any part number on the list. I'm hoping. BTW, I can't remember ever reading a post about a bad flash where the CrashFree BIOS did anyone any good. Why doesn't it seem to work as advertised? Ron The Crashfree concept is to take a single physical flash chip and partition it into two separate virtual flash chips. For this to work properly, the "boot block" should never be erased. I suspect the people who report here, that their upgrade failed, and Crashfree didn't help them, probably are using the flash tool to erase the boot block as well as the main code block. That could account for the failure rate. The tools and instructions don't make it clear what options to use, to make Crashfree a useful feature. If Asus wants to use Crashfree as a beneficial concept, they should ship the first BIOS with a well tested boot block. Then, erasing and reprogramming the boot block would not be necessary. And Crashfree would stand a better chance of working, as it lives inside the boot block. Paul The DOS flashing utilities don't give the option of leaving the boot block intact. How does one flash a BIOS without including the boot block? Ron |
#9
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In article ,
wrote: On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 04:05:20 -0400, (Paul) wrote: If Asus wants to use Crashfree as a beneficial concept, they should ship the first BIOS with a well tested boot block. Then, erasing and reprogramming the boot block would not be necessary. And Crashfree would stand a better chance of working, as it lives inside the boot block. Paul The DOS flashing utilities don't give the option of leaving the boot block intact. How does one flash a BIOS without including the boot block? Ron Hmmm. There used to be command line switches for that stuff. /sb used to stand for "skip bootblock". http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...502ac080bedea1 http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...f32644968bdb0d Now, when I test the program, the command line options are not offered. There is still evidence of them inside the program, but I guess they've been turned off somehow. It looks to me, like awdflash got rewritten at some point, and judging by the English used, by people for whom English was a second language. To quote a text string inside the program: "Please to confirm input correct file" I guess this is progress. This is an older version of the flash program. I don't think there is any reason for you to want to download or look at this, because it will undoubtedly reject any new BIOS file you feed it. This is a sample of what the program used to look like. It is about 4KB smaller than the new version, so perhaps the new version has just tacked a shell onto the front of the program. ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/so...e/awdflash.zip In any case, it looks like the user has no control any more with this program. Either this means Asus is not updating the boot block, or they are paying lip service to the concept of CrashFree (i.e. it is updated every time). Paul |
#10
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On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 00:49:01 -0400, (Paul) wrote:
In article , wrote: On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 04:05:20 -0400, (Paul) wrote: If Asus wants to use Crashfree as a beneficial concept, they should ship the first BIOS with a well tested boot block. Then, erasing and reprogramming the boot block would not be necessary. And Crashfree would stand a better chance of working, as it lives inside the boot block. Paul The DOS flashing utilities don't give the option of leaving the boot block intact. How does one flash a BIOS without including the boot block? Ron Hmmm. There used to be command line switches for that stuff. /sb used to stand for "skip bootblock". http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...502ac080bedea1 http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...f32644968bdb0d Now, when I test the program, the command line options are not offered. There is still evidence of them inside the program, but I guess they've been turned off somehow. It looks to me, like awdflash got rewritten at some point, and judging by the English used, by people for whom English was a second language. To quote a text string inside the program: "Please to confirm input correct file" I guess this is progress. This is an older version of the flash program. I don't think there is any reason for you to want to download or look at this, because it will undoubtedly reject any new BIOS file you feed it. This is a sample of what the program used to look like. It is about 4KB smaller than the new version, so perhaps the new version has just tacked a shell onto the front of the program. ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/so...e/awdflash.zip In any case, it looks like the user has no control any more with this program. Either this means Asus is not updating the boot block, or they are paying lip service to the concept of CrashFree (i.e. it is updated every time). Paul Do you think they're actually overwriting the boot block with every flash? If so, I presume that this means that the boot block has the potential to become corrupted with each flash, and, as soon as it does, then bye-bye CrashFree. I'm still going to buy the only BIOS Savior that IOSS makes and see if it works. If it doesn't, then it should be a fairly simple matter to remove it and plug the original BIOS back into its original slot. I've never done this before, though, so I'm wondering how great a likelihood there is of damaging the mobo or BIOS chip using the chip-extracting device supplied with the BIOS Savior. Anybody know? Ron |
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