Biostar TA785G3 BIOS Modifying & ACC Feature

[FlawleZ]

Alright, so I recently completed my inexpensive HTPC build a couple days ago (minus possibly a better Video card and I think I want to go with the Xonar D1, but irrelevant for now). The specs are as follows:

Biostar TA785G3
Sempron 140
2GB G Skill 1333 CL8
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB
Rosewill 400W
Lite-On Blu Ray Drive
Antec Veris (love this case)

After installing Windows 7, drivers, software, etc. I immediately tried unlocking the Sempron which was a success. It was even stable unlocked and overclocked to 3Ghz without any change in core voltage. I stopped playing there to focus on an aggravating access time issue with my HD. I happened to notice very poor access times from my Samsung 1TB F3. After several HD Tune tests I've concluded its averaging around 20ms which is atrocious. I know the drive is fine as I had it in another computer until now and the access times were around 12ms. Sustained reads and writes are roughly on par with average of ~100MB read, peakin at 145MB or so.Immediately I started pointing fingers at the SATA controller/Chipset, so I decided to update my BIOS in hopes there would be some performance gains.

So I updated my BIOS with the latest one from Biostar and disregarded backing up my original one. MAN did I make a big mistake.

Once I flashed the BIOS I lost my ACC function. Apparently Biostar removed it from showing in all their BIOSes. I tried all 3 BIOSes they have hosted for my board and NONE of them have ACC listed under the CPU feature. Now Biostar has 4+ revisions of the exact same board, 6.0-6.3. Now According to Biostar, ONLY the 6.3 Rev will unlock cores with ACC. However, I CLEARLY have the 6.0 Rev board AND successfully unlocked my Sempron with my original BIOS. Its obvious my board had a separate BIOS other than the 3 listed on their site to download.

The BIOS should look like this:



Biostar's page about the ACC:
http://www.biostar-usa.com/app/en-us...g/features.htm

[FlawleZ]

A simple Google search will yield a few others talking about the ACC function on the other Revisions of the board as well. Including this guy's post on a couple forums:

From the beginning, sorry for my poor English.

I bought a Biostar TA785G3 to be cheap and with enough resources and ddr3 slots I needed.
I knew I would not have the option of ACC in bios official, but in contact with the support of the Biostar, I received this response:

Question:
Hello friends. I wonder if the motherboard TA785G3 (simple, with only 2 slots for memory) features the ACC in their bios. Thanks
__________________________________________________ __________
Yeas it does support ACC, but you will have to dl a custom bios to enable it.
Thanks,
Nate
(626) 581-1055
Option #2 @ Menu

That is, the card is supported but the ACC has not officially a bios with the option.
Out of curiosity I tried data on changes in bios and found some information about the AMIBCP.exe, a viewer and "editor" of AMI bios.
Opening the official bios biostar, given this information:



Apparently the choice of ACC is present in the bios, and program brand that is able to appear. But when I access the bios on the motherboard, this option does not appear.
No error is the program that opens the bios, it had opened other bios that has acc and do not appear on this list. And the bios that have, typically appear as shown with the bios of this card.
I tested the card with the bios of the motherboard A785GE, which is very similar layout. But the bios besides being extremely weak for OC and is also very simple. The option of ACC appeared perfectly, but could not do the unlock the processor.
If someone can help me and unlock this option, I'll be extremely grateful. For what I could do with my knowledge, I already tried.

Tks all.

Link for bios:
http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/biosdl.php?BID=1675
http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/t-s...s.php?S_ID=436

Sources:

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/thr...appear-in-bios

and

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=112744

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

Thank you for the input. I bought the TA785G3 HD motherboard and luckily have not updated my bios and now, I don't plan on doing so.

Can you flash back to the bios the board came with on the driver disc?

If my bios will work with your board (I don't see why not), I can upload it and link you to it. Just let me know.

[FlawleZ]

Thank you for the input. I bought the TA785G3 HD motherboard and luckily have not updated my bios and now, I don't plan on doing so.

Can you flash back to the bios the board came with on the driver disc?

If my bios will work with your board (I don't see why not), I can upload it and link you to it. Just let me know.

Well, my motherboard isn't the "HD" model. At least it doesn't specify on the box or motherboard anywhere. However, my next step was seriously considering flashing it with the HD BIOS. This consideration was more out of frustration than anything else because there are some notable differences between the boards which could cause a problem. 4 DIMM vs 2 DIMM and SATA Ports, etc to name a couple obvious ones.

Here's my board, the Vanilla TA785G3:



And then of course your board, the TA785G3 HD:

(Thanks NameGT for the photo )


For some reason Biostar didn't find it necessary to include the BIOS on the Driver CD. I assume your BIOS has ACC and is functioning as should be? Is your BIOS the same as the BIOS from January on Biostar's site?

http://www.biostar-usa.com/app/en-us...s.php?S_ID=458

[FlawleZ]

After doing some lurking around The Rebel's Haven Forums, I ran across this post where someone with the exact same board down to the revision number also was able to unlock his CPU. He too comments about Biostar clearly claiming only the 6.3 Rev boards are capable of using the ACC. For some reason they have forum registrations disabled so I can't contact him for a copy of his BIOS.

http://www.rebelshavenforum.com/sis-...;f=45;t=000732

[namegt]

Hey, great job ~
BIOS tuning is amazing ... wow.

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

Yes, the HD version is different from yours. That is why I bought it. I needed 2 more dimm slots in case I wanted to add another 2gb ram since right now, I only need 2gb for server applications.


Anyways, I can't find the disc off hand, so I'll look.

Is there a way to check through software? I have to hook up a monitor to the computer before I can restart it and go into the bios and that could take some time.

Edit:

CPUZ states this info for the bios

Version: 08015
Date: 12/24/2009

I have not tried to update anything since mine will unlock. Both of those other bioses may providing unlocking, but I'd say the one from 1/12/10 should since it says unlocking, lol.

Would you want to try mine if I can find it or try the one from biostar's site?

[FlawleZ]

Yes, the HD version is different from yours. That is why I bought it. I needed 2 more dimm slots in case I wanted to add another 2gb ram since right now, I only need 2gb for server applications.


Anyways, I can't find the disc off hand, so I'll look.

Is there a way to check through software? I have to hook up a monitor to the computer before I can restart it and go into the bios and that could take some time.

Edit:

CPUZ states this info for the bios

Version: 08015
Date: 12/24/2009

I have not tried to update anything since mine will unlock. Both of those other bioses may providing unlocking, but I'd say the one from 1/12/10 should since it says unlocking, lol.

Would you want to try mine if I can find it or try the one from biostar's site?

I'm willing to try the HD bios either on the site or yours.

[richierich]

Man I got the 6.1rev board yesterday from Frys (along with 435, cheap combo and needed the mobo for a DIY Nas project) and was pissed that ACC option is unavailable to unlock my 550.

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

I found the disc, but I can't find the bios, just a bios manual. I'm probably in the same shape you're in.

Isn't there an option where you can back the bios up to a floppy or flash drive? If so, I can do that soon and send it to you.

[endlesszeal]

according to hardware secrets, you can:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/41

also, synthetic, did you try just browsing the cd and going through all the files? instead of opening or running it.

but man, that totally sucks op. hopefully you get that sorted out, if not, live with a single core sempron? or return the board for another one?

btw, thanks richierich, i was about to pick up that exact combo instead of a x4 635 with biostar a760g, but good thing i didnt.

[FlawleZ]

I found the disc, but I can't find the bios, just a bios manual. I'm probably in the same shape you're in.

Isn't there an option where you can back the bios up to a floppy or flash drive? If so, I can do that soon and send it to you.

Yeah like I said I looked through the disc and couldn't find the BIOS on the CD. But yeah I would really appreciate it if you could send me your BIOS. I didn't have any time yesterday to mess with it as I was about to flash it with the BIOS on their website.

You can use Biostar's BIOS Updater to back it up.

http://www.biostar-usa.com/upload/Dr...STAR_FLASH.zip

You can also backup your BIOS within your BIOS as a failsafe.

[FlawleZ]

Man I got the 6.1rev board yesterday from Frys (along with 435, cheap combo and needed the mobo for a DIY Nas project) and was pissed that ACC option is unavailable to unlock my 550.

Our boards are virtually the same, so if I can get this other BIOS working it should work for you too. I KNOW our boards are capable of flashing regardless of Biostar's site saying only 6.3 Rev boards are capable of ACC.

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

I tried to back up the file through the bios update program you linked me to. I save the file, but I cannot find it on my drive, nor does it show up as a file anywhere when I save to to a specific location.

Any ideas?

[richierich]

btw, thanks richierich, i was about to pick up that exact combo instead of a x4 635 with biostar a760g, but good thing i didnt.

Yeah but I went with an open box TA785G3, since that's all Frys had left...I figured someone returned the mobo after they saw no ACC.

[FlawleZ]

I tried to back up the file through the bios update program you linked me to. I save the file, but I cannot find it on my drive, nor does it show up as a file anywhere when I save to to a specific location.

Any ideas?

Hrm. Interesting. It didn't prompt you for the location?

I apologize, I didn't include the PDF instructions.

http://www.biostar-usa.com/app/en-us...ios_update.pdf

And you can find Biostar providing the tool at the bottom of the BIOS page:

http://www.biostar-usa.com/app/en-us...s.php?S_ID=457

[FlawleZ]

Well, I've finally figured it out. After many attempts with flashing and modifying various BIOSes for my board, and then attempting to flash with other BIOSes (doesn't work with Biostar Flash Utility), I finally found the correct BIOS my board needed to enable ACC functionality again. Ironically enough, A Google search on the matter of TA785G3 and ACC Unlock will return this page:

http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/eve...g/features.htm

Which is a basic explanation and overview of the ACC functionality. It also links to a secondary set of BIOSes specifically made for those looking to unlock.

http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/eve...king/model.htm

I ended up using the 88GAP112.BSS as that's what was listed for my board. After the flash I suddenly recognized my original BIOS. Now back to my Dual Core Sempron and couldn't be happier!

Thanks a lot to SyntheticKiller for taking extra time to help out. Thanks everyone else for your input.

[richierich]

I'll give that BIOS a try. I thought I had already tried it though, the one dated 1/12/10, but not the file listed on this page. I hope it works.

[richierich]

Don't know when this was released, but Biostar has updated the BIOS to a date of 4/21/10. So far the 1055T works with this version, whereas if you used 3/31/10 and modified the P-states it would only stay at 4x cpu multi.

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

Don't know when this was released, but Biostar has updated the BIOS to a date of 4/21/10. So far the 1055T works with this version, whereas if you used 3/31/10 and modified the P-states it would only stay at 4x cpu multi.

What OC & cooling are you getting / do you have?

I have no reason right now to play with my AM3 board right now, but in the future, I might.

[richierich]

lol I have it at a very mild 3.2GHz right now because as soon as I got it I started folding with it. And I hate Biostar's BIOS, it doesn't automatically calculate memory speed, so I haven't been able to quickly OC that high. I have a Xigmatek HDT-S1283 cooling it. I'll play around with it some more tomorrow.