Bad Flash

[SufferWell1396]

Now im not expecting anything out of this, but i have a
Gateway
955MHz Athlon Processor
No RAM installed(not in use)
64meg Nvidia graphic card

its WAY better than my compaq, and i was trying to flash update the bios one day, and it failed, now i fear the bios is corrupt. What Are my Options??

[Fruss Tray Ted]

How are you managing to boot to even a floppy without any RAM installed? You shouldn't even be able to get past POST let alone boot to a floppy!?!?

More details as well, like, describing what you did in detail?

[SufferWell1396]

ofcorse i put in ram when try to boot it up........

ill shoot in a 64meg stick.

Nothing comes on screen

[SufferWell1396]

What i did in detail

Went to Gateway.com and looked up my model(Select K7-950) and put the latest bios update on a floppy, booted up, the update failed, i tried to reboot, and nothing happens

Everything starts though, like the hdds and cd drives

[kiosk]

You can try hotflashing the BIOS chip. The procedure boils down to the following:

1) Take out the BIOS chip from your failed mainboard.
2) Locate a working mainboard with a similar chip installed. (i.e. if your #1 board uses 128k EEPROMs, then you need a #2 board that uses a same chip type/density).
3) Loosen the BIOS chip in #2, so that you can easily remove it (it however needs to maintain an electrically sound connection)
4) Boot the mainboard #2 normally. When presented with a DOS prompt, run the flasher utility such as Uniflash.
5) Pry the #2's chip out of its socket (with the mainboard running!) and put #1's chip in its place. Be careful that you don't short out anything when doing this. If done properly, nothing will be damaged.
6) Flash the bios for mainboard #1 onto the #1's chip using mainboard #2.
7) Switch off #2, remove #1's chip, put #2's chip back where it belongs. Mainboard #2 is same as before.
8) Put #1's chip, which you just flashed, back into #1 mainboard. If the flash went okay, you will now have a fully functional mainboard again.

[mjc]

Have you tried a reset yet?

Pull the battery and/or the jumper.

Also, does it have onboard video?

If it does, and you are not using it, it may have defaulted to onboard after the failed update....

[SufferWell1396]

nope AGP, thats another perk about this computer

And no i havent tried a reset yet, the battery, Just the CMOS?? i just removed that, as ive never thought of it. what jumper???

as for Kiosk, what you are saying sounds too risky and i dont want to break any mobos+ i dont even have a saudering kit

[kiosk]

as for Kiosk, what you are saying sounds too risky and i dont want to break any mobos+ i dont even have a saudering kit

You don't need soldering iron to do this, just a (plastic) spoon and some dexterity in your fingers!

[SufferWell1396]

my BIOS is soldered on to my board, not in a slot.

Here is a picture of my bioshttp://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i107/SufferWell1396/BIOS.jpg

[SufferWell1396]

Can Someone Please Tell Me How To Fix This???

[kiosk]

my BIOS is soldered on to my board, not in a slot.

Oh I see. :(

The vast majority of mainboards come with socketed BIOS chips for the ease of repair. I'm afraid your board with a soldered-in chip would have to be factory repaired, which most certainly wouldn't pay off, being an elderly board and all.

Edit: try to reset CMOS memory (as suggested by an earlier response); if that doesn't help, there isn't anything else you can do and the board is pretty much trashworthy.

[SufferWell1396]

:( i have cleared CMOS, i guess its trash, ill just buy another, its only 25$ and it can handle 1.5gigs of ram

[mjc]

Before you trash it, if the drives spin up...you can try a 'blind' flash.

On a working machine, prepare your boot disk, but create an autoexec.bat to automatically run the flash program.

Pop in the floppy and then power on. Pay close attention to the drive lights and then wait several minutes after....about ten. Pop out the disk, power down, cross you fingers and then power back up.

[SufferWell1396]

a BIOS flash update??

Shoot it on a floppy, boot the gateway, wait ten mins, shut down, start back up, is that what i sould do?

[SufferWell1396]

Done, didnt work, the thing is toast

[mjc]

Dearly beloved we are gathered here today in memory of this mobo...