Need basic guidance on flashing a BIOS

[Kentucky Fisherman]

I realize this is kindergarten stuff, folks, but it's my first time, so be gentle, OK? <G>

About three years ago I built a system with an FIC PA-2013 mobo and an AMD K6-2/350 CPU with 128 meg of PC100 memory, a nice system at the time. This is my home system and it handles most of my needs quite nicely, so I decided rather than spending several hundred bucks for a chip/mobo upgrade, I'd just bump the CPU to a K6-2/500, which only cost me about $50.

Before I swap the chips I'd like to flash the BIOS to the latest version, but I don't want to screw things up. I'm sure there are BIOS flash instructions on the FIC website, but I'm turning to you folks for a pointer to the BEST instructions. Can you give me a hand?

Thanks!
PS. If anyone is interested in buying the old K6-2/350, it's a STEP unit with their proprietary Peltier cooler/fan bonded on. I'll price it right and make it available as soon as the new chip proves stable.

 

[SuperSix]

This is how *I* do it, don;t get mad at me if you hose your system. 🙂
Some people put them on bootable foppies, I flash from the HDD.


Download latest BIOS and flash programs (AWDFLASH.EXE or something along those lines) All of these files should be available from the manufacturer's website.

Unzip/uncompress them to a temp folder. (I put them in a folder called BIOS off my utility directory, eg C:\UTILS\BIOS)

WRITE DOWN THE NAME OF THE NEW BIOS FILE! When you go to flash, you will need the name of this file.

Reboot the system, feverishly pressing the F8 key, and select &quot;Safe Mode, COMMAND PROMPT ONLY&quot;, I think it's either the last or next-to-last choice on the Boot Menu that should pop up.

Change to the directory you put the BIOS flash and binary files in.
Run the flash program, when prompted to save your old BIOS file, select &quot;Yes&quot;. I always make a backup (never needed it, but hey..) and call it &quot;OLDBIOS.BIN&quot;. Piece of mind I guess.

When it's done, put in the name of the new BIOS file, DO NOT RESET OR TURN OFF THE SYSTEM UNTIL INSTRUCTED TO DO SO!

Reboot when told to, go into the BIOS and make any changes you need to..

All should be well.

DISCLAIMER:
This is how *I* do it, It may not work for you, may cause your motherboard to simply explode. (j/k)

 

[ManuTOmanU]

Yep that is all right...

What I usually do before is checking the bios and set it to default...

Another thing that could be is a little jumper on the board, that enables flashing... I never had a Mb that needed a jumper to flash...

well good luck...

make sure you backup ur data... happents to me that i had to reformat... so better make sure....

l8r