P5AD2 Dlx to P5AD2-E Dlx Bios flash?What flash?

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02-07-2005, 06:41 AM
Gabriel7

P5AD2 Dlx to P5AD2-E Dlx Bios flash?What flash?

Good evening,
Since the 925X and 925XE Chipset are the same (The Stepping only defines if a chipset is 925X or 925XE) and the boards are identical (they wear the same on board devices),can an experiment like that have effect?
The problem is that i haven't found a utility capable of hotflashing those boards:
1)I've tried Uniflash 1.38 but doesn't seem to read correctly the 8Mbit ROM.
2)Afudos refuses me to do it...
3)Older afudos doesn't recognise rom...
4)Amiflash finds the rom chip locked...
5)WinSFI doesn't recognise the chip
6)asus flash for windows doesn't allow flashing due to different boards.
7)Awardflash-couldn't find award bios

Do you have any idea?I think that is possible to be happen...
Thanks for any help provided!!
02-07-2005, 08:16 AM
OneyedK

If your board has an "old" revision of the 925x, you will not have any benefit from using another bios... But if the chip is actually an 925xe, the trick might work.

I'll try it myself tomorrow, I'll fash the bios in an external flash-programmer, so I will not have problems with the flashing itself...

Will post results later.

Anyone knows of a way of determining what kind of northbridge chip is on the board without takeing the cooler off???
And what bios should I use??? Latest beta or latest final?
02-07-2005, 01:03 PM
Gabriel7

Τhe revision of my 925X Chipset is B1.
I will wait for your results of flashing.
I hope it will work!
02-07-2005, 01:04 PM
Gabriel7

I would recommend the latest one.
02-07-2005, 02:53 PM
Charles Wirth

If you have a deluxe board you can flash with Premium 925x bios and it will work but. The deluxe is missing the second onboard nic (disable in bios) and you will not be able to go back to deluxe bios again.

I found out when Asus sent me beta bios for premium instead of deluxe and I force flashed it.
02-07-2005, 09:29 PM
Gabriel7

Why should I do something like that?
The Premium version of P5AD2 is identical to Deluxe but still wears the same featured bios:No PCI-E Lock,Probably not SATA Lock etc.
With a 925XE bios it might be possible to gain those advantages that our board lacks...

Except if premium's bios,really locks PCI-E clock...
02-08-2005, 11:14 AM
OneyedK

It seems to work ;-)

OK gentlemen, just flashed P5AD2 Premium to P5AD2 E Premium.

I didn't manage to do it on the board itself, so Fugger, can you tell us how you force flashed it??? Would be nice for future experiments...

So I took the bios-chip off the board and put it in a Galep4 programmer.
The chip is an SST 49LF008A (don't know what ASUS means by "FWH").
I tried to read it, but the programmer refused... Guess some stupid trick to prevent people to flash it I guess...
So I simply erased it.
And flashed it with bios 1004.003beta.
Verified it a few times...
Then I put it back into the P5AD2 Premium.
Replaced the CMOS-battery (you never know).
Cleared CMOS (you never know).
And put the power back on...

No problem whatsoever:
http://users.pandora.be/kastaar/HO/i560/E-flash.JPG

I didn't have time to check the functionality of the extra bios-options, nor the overclocking capabilities. So I'll just leave it folding (2 instances) on stockspeed to see if nothing weird will happen... No time to do more testing today, but I'll keep you posted if I find real benefit from this flash-thing.
At least it works and as you can see, it is a 925x rev B1 northbridge chip.
02-08-2005, 02:24 PM
Gabriel7

We are waiting to see your results...
Well,I do have B1 Northbridge chip also and I am very curious to see if this board can really takes advantage of 925XE NB features...
Another solution is to flash the 8mbit rom on a P5AD2-E Board,but this will happen only if we have a friend having this board...
I have tried a trick but it failed:I ran asus winflash and when i feed the program with the normal bios (p5ad2.ami),and the splash screen with bios info appears,i rename it with the p5ad2-e bios file and expected to fool winflash.
But is smarter:It loads the *.ami file in memory...
Maybe a hack on Winflash or Afudos will do...

OneyedK,thanks in advance...
02-08-2005, 03:12 PM
OneyedK

Some info on existing revisions:

http://users.pandora.be/kastaar/HO/i560/revisions.JPG
02-08-2005, 09:22 PM
Gabriel7

Ι've already read those stuff from Intel's Datasheet,they are very useful indeed .
It is very curious thing whlie B1 seems to have has more features,cannot lock the damn PCIe bus...
Please notify us when you have results about overclockability and PCIe/SATA lock.
02-09-2005, 12:28 PM
OneyedK

X seems to be really different from XE

:mad: Bad news, overclocking is even worse! :mad:

So it's not the bios, but I guess some undocumented changes between x and xe northbridge chips, thanks Intel :D

Bweurk, have to go the entire procedure backwards again...

--> Fugger, could you give some information about the way you "force-flashed" it please???
02-09-2005, 01:15 PM
Charles Wirth

-f option iirc

I have a P5AD2-Premium that I am about to flash to -E bios.

Ill let you know if I have any success.
02-10-2005, 04:43 AM
Gabriel7

Fugger can you please explain what do you mean by "-f option iirc"?
Forceflashing seems to be impossible and the first results that oneyedK kindly presented,seems dissapointing...
02-10-2005, 06:56 AM
Gabriel7

http://www.lostcircuits.com/cpu/P4-373e/8.shtml
this link shows the Clock generator of P5AD2-E.
There is an issue says that the clock gen of P5AD2 and P5AD2-E is different.
I checked mine and is the same (ICS 954123BF).
Oneyedk,can you check your Clockgen?What type and number is?
02-10-2005, 07:06 AM
OneyedK

Will check the number 2night... (rather late)

I'm @work atm and will have to pay the lady some attention before I end up with a broken motherboard and a sore head because she hit me with it :D

But it's indeed possible that I have a different chip, wich would explain why the locks are malfunctionning, even with an E-bios...
02-10-2005, 05:28 PM
OneyedK

ICS 954123BF is the number...

So the difference must really be in the northbridge chip :(
02-19-2005, 06:25 AM
Gabriel7

Τhere is a new official bios for P5AD2 Deluxe.
Still PCIe Lock,as i checked it with clockgen,still not work
02-19-2005, 10:12 AM
boshuter

Quote:

Originally Posted by FUGGER

-f option iirc

I have a P5AD2-Premium that I am about to flash to -E bios.

Ill let you know if I have any success.

Any new on this? I have the same board and would like to know how it turned out :)
02-20-2005, 05:51 AM
Apocalipsis

Fugger !! what means that -f option iirc.

AFUDOS -f"biosfile.rom" ??? or what?

Regards from Spain,
Apocalipsis.
02-20-2005, 08:41 AM
Gabriel7

Guys,I managed to do the flash but is totally useless...
The new bios will not boot with a single megahertz overclocked...
Try the latest Afudos with:
afudos /ibios.rom /n
I recommend it to you only if you have B2 revision 925x chipset beacuse with B1 there is no luck...
02-20-2005, 09:39 AM
Apocalipsis

Thx Gabriel, I'll try it.