Can flashing a BIOS kill a motherboard?

[GearCat]

I recently tried flashing the BIOS on an old ABIT K7 motherboard (the AT7) which I was rebuilding, but rather than booting up on a floppy and using the DOS flash utility which I've always done successfully in the past, I used ABIT's Windows utility application. The utility reported that the flash was successful, but when I shut down and restarted the system, I got no post. After several attempts to restart I figured the BIOS was toast, so I ordered a new BIOS chip from ABIT for $11. I've installed the new BIOS chip, but still no post.

DOES ANYONE KNOW, can you kill a motherboard, not the BIOS, by doing what I did above?

If so, it's obvious a K7 socket A replacement board for $50-$70 will be a better option to fixing the board (e.g, the Asus A7N8X-X or ABIT NF7-S2G).

 

[ChicagoPCGuy]

Originally posted by: GearCat
I recently tried flashing the BIOS on an old ABIT K7 motherboard (the AT7) which I was rebuilding, but rather than booting up on a floppy and using the DOS flash utility which I've always done successfully in the past, I used ABIT's Windows utility application. The utility reported that the flash was successful, but when I shut down and restarted the system, I got no post. After several attempts to restart I figured the BIOS was toast, so I ordered a new BIOS chip from ABIT for $11. I've installed the new BIOS chip, but still no post.

DOES ANYONE KNOW, can you kill a motherboard, not the BIOS, by doing what I did above?

If so, it's obvious a K7 socket A replacement board for $50-$70 will be a better option to fixing the board (e.g, the Asus A7N8X-X or ABIT NF7-S2G).

Actually kill the motherboard? No. After inserting the new BIOS chip, did you clear the CMOS with the power unplugged?

 

[GearCat]

Good point. First time I've had to replace the BIOS chip, so didn't know I had to do that. I did do the removal and replacement of the chip with the power unplugged of course, but didn't clear the BIOS. Is there any reason this has to be done or is it just something to try?

 

[ChicagoPCGuy]

Originally posted by: GearCat
Good point. First time I've had to replace the BIOS chip, so didn't know I had to do that. I did do the removal and replacement of the chip with the power unplugged of course, but didn't clear the BIOS. Is there any reason this has to be done or is it just something to try?

It would be something more to try, and it is something that should be done regardless. Let us know the results. Again, the power should be unplugged.

 

[DJMiX]

remove the cmos battery for 15 mins with ac cord unplug

then try...

when bios versions differ from the older one stored in the cmos , pc will not work til you clear the cmos and new bios is loaded completely

 

[Budman]

When you ordered the chip did you actualy tell them to flash it to the latest bios?

Maybe they sent you a blank chip.


And no you cant kill conponents with a bad flash,you can corrupt the bios & render the board unusable but not kill it.

 

[grooge]

Have a visual inspection at the capacitors on your mobo.. If they looks like they have a rounded top or there is something that looks like leaked from, then it might be your problem. I did kill an old mobo that had bad cap in flashing the BIOS. The BIOS flash went successful, but no post after that.

 

[Peter]

You can't physically kill it in the procedure. But flashing a wrong or damaged file into the chip will make it a nogo - until you replace the chip with one that has the right contents.

 

[GearCat]

When I ordered the chip from ABIT, their parts web site where you order these says the BIOS chip "will be pre-programmed with the latest code". See http://www.abit-usa.com/abitparts/bios_chip.php.

I'm aware of the capicitor plague first reported (I believe) by IEEE Spectrum Online and I have subsequently read about this problem and how to identify bad or potentially defective capacitors while diagnosing problems with some MSI boards I've been trying with a new system I'm building. I didn't check this older ABIT board real close however, and I will do that if clearing the BIOS does not work.

 

[T101]

Might not be worth it when you are dealing with such an old motherboard. But I can highly recommend using an IOSS bios saviour. This way you have two bios-chips, that you can switch between. So, if your flash goes bad, you just switch to the other one that you have programmed with a bios-version of your choice.

 

[GearCat]

Well it worked. Cleared the new BIOS chip and the old ABIT board is posting. I wonder after I flashed the old BIOS chip whether all I had to do was clear it before powering back up. No need to test that now, but next time I flash a BIOS, I'll make sure to clear it before I power back up.

Now I just wonder if it's worth upgrading anyway to the Asus A7N8X-X board with the nForce2 chipset using the same Athlon XP 1900+ and DDR333 memory. The ABIT AT7 uses the VIA KT333 chipset, so I wonder how much I'll benefit. I'll post a seperate question on that.

THANKS FOR THE HELP !!!

 

[Peter]

You don't "clear the BIOS chip", you clear the BIOS settings which are stored in battery-backed CMOS RAM. When you flash a new BIOS, the settings for the old one are still there and might make the new BIOS a non-starter. So yes, this might have been all you missed.

Now you also know why most BIOS update tools have a feature to erase CMOS settings ...