10 Step "No Post" BIOS Recovery Guide

[sswilson]

Originally Posted by Jim

great work wilson , as usual nothin but the best from you

Glad you liked it.

Originally Posted by 3.0charlie

All the way to number 6 tonight on the little rig that could - culprit was bad ram.

Time for a new stick?

John

Is this the same ram that you had on the board you RMA'd?

Is it still under warranty?

[3.0charlie]

Nope, different stick. Same Crucial Renditions, but set #2. Set #1 is fine and dandy.

[sswilson]

Well if it's failing memtest, or won't post the board when the other one will... all you can really do is RMA it (if it's worth it....)

[3.0charlie]

That stick is already in the "burnt, failed, non-functional" bin. Usually, I clean up every 3 months... and usually the whole bin ends up at the local recycling center.

RIP.

John

[Synth]

Here's a way to possibly recover that last 5% of dead boards, especially those with soldered on bios chips that do not allow for a hotflash or replacement chip:

1. Make a bootable floppy (with a working computer, obviously !).

2. copy your motherboard manufacturer's recommended version of a bios flashing program (ie. awdflash.exe for Award bioses) on the floppy.

3. create a file call "autoexec.bat" on the floppy and insert the following text:

@@echo off

awdflash [bios filename].bin [switches] --------- ie. awdflash 123abc.bin -f -c -a

4. Try to boot the dead PC with the floppy. If the bootlock section of the bios is not corrupted, you will see activity from your floppy drive.

5. Once the floppy activity stops, reboot the PC (without the floppy) and it should POST normally.

I've saved 2 bricked motherboard's with this trick, without having to RMA, Hotflash or use third party software like Uniflash.

Cheers!

[3.0charlie]

Good to know, but I hope never have to use that trick...

John