update your bios

[tbernstein]

Cost of new computer £400 0r $600 at least.
New media player, cost.... probably $0 or £0 - whichever.

 

[tz frantic]

here is my bios screen since i can't change hardly any settings would that make it
safe

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Let me be totally honest with you.


For the reason you want to do this, it is not worth the risk, not to mention that everyone has told you it won't solve the issue.


If you've decided to do this I hope you've done your homework as you're on your own with this.

 

[raylyd]

my motherboard is a packard bell ipower motherboard name is asus p5n-e
i cant update as packard bell removed all bioses i have phoned packard bell
they want me to pay for a reapair as all it needs is the bios reflashing thanks hope someone can help me take care

 

[Tews]

The last BIOS for your motherboard is August 2007 .... get it -=> here Hope this helps..

 

[raylyd]

tryed to download it but it does not download hope you can find other site thanks for this mate the packard bell tower cost me £899 would be good if i can fix it take care

 

[R4dul]

It works!

Packard Bell PB-Vegas2 IS identical to Asus P5N-E SLI and bios updates from asus work perfectly. Can't believe nobody has tried doing this in all this time. But you may want to reset the bios before flashing or after that you may not be able to enter setup, and will have to reset it anyway. At first when this bug happened i thought the flashing had failed and the pc dead but no... bios reset made it ok. Soooo many more settings that the crappy Packard Bell bios. But can someone tell me what my LDT must be? It is default at 5X multiplier and FSB is 200 (as should be). So is the LDT correct?

 

[wakko]

R4dul how did you go about this?

As i have recently purchased a Sapphire 6870 and didnt realise this issue. Previously when i have gone to update to the asus bios it has always failed I didn;t even get to the thinking the pc was dead option.

 

[R4dul]

R4dul how did you go about this?

As i have recently purchased a Sapphire 6870 and didnt realise this issue. Previously when i have gone to update to the asus bios it has always failed I didn;t even get to the thinking the pc was dead option.

I used the latest bios version from asus, in my case was 1406.bin file. Also used the DOS flasher program, since i could not use the asus update program to flash the bios (because board was recognized as packard bell). I copied the bios file to main HDD, on the drive root for ease of access and also the awdflash.exe file. Then i booted from a CD (i used hiren's boot cd) and loaded NTFS4DOS to have access to my HDD. Then i simply ran awdflash.exe program. Downside for me was, i was unable to backup the current bios to a file since awdflash program can't write to the HDD through the NTFS4DOS environment, or maybe packard bell did some copy protecting on their bios. It made sense that the board work with the asus bios since they're practically identical... except the packard bell has fewer connectors It was a huge risk though...

 

[wakko]

R4dul how did you go about this?

As i have recently purchased a Sapphire 6870 and didnt realise this issue. Previously when i have gone to update to the asus bios it has always failed I didn;t even get to the thinking the pc was dead option.

I used the latest bios version from asus, in my case was 1406.bin file. Also used the DOS flasher program, since i could not use the asus update program to flash the bios (because board was recognized as packard bell). I copied the bios file to main HDD, on the drive root for ease of access and also the awdflash.exe file. Then i booted from a CD (i used hiren's boot cd) and loaded NTFS4DOS to have access to my HDD. Then i simply ran awdflash.exe program. Downside for me was, i was unable to backup the current bios to a file since awdflash program can't write to the HDD through the NTFS4DOS environment, or maybe packard bell did some copy protecting on their bios. It made sense that the board work with the asus bios since they're practically identical... except the packard bell has fewer connectors It was a huge risk though...

I think i just about get the idea

1.) copy bios and awdflsh.exe to C:
2.) set bios to boot from CD
3.) Run hirens disc and use NTFS4DOS
4.) go to C: in dos
5.) in DOS type "awdflash.exe newbios.bin
6.) sit back and cross fingers?

Is that it or is there more to it? A simple tutorial would be really nice. As i have a sapphire ATI 6870 sat next to me that i can't use in my pc .

Thanks for your help in advance.

 

[R4dul]

Yes that pretty much covers it Of course yu can just run the awdflash then it will automatically ask you what's the file name. After you select it you'll notice it will display the name of your BIOS chip, for me it was Winbond. You can try making a backup of the current BIOS but at least for me that did not work, it could not read it. I also noticed, when writing the new BIOS that there were 2 blocks that could not be written, but since it works flawlessly ever since i suppose those are ROM blocks and it's normal that they stay that way. The upside of this new BIOS is that (except the occasional and well known "cannot enter setup" bug) it's far more stable than the packard bell version.
Anyway, good luck! And hope it works out for you. But i'm curious why you would want to use ATI graphics on Nvidia motherboard. There are many rumours of stability problems when doing that. As you can see yourself it doesn't even work at all with your current BIOS.

 

[wakko]

Yes that pretty much covers it Of course yu can just run the awdflash then it will automatically ask you what's the file name. After you select it you'll notice it will display the name of your BIOS chip, for me it was Winbond. You can try making a backup of the current BIOS but at least for me that did not work, it could not read it. I also noticed, when writing the new BIOS that there were 2 blocks that could not be written, but since it works flawlessly ever since i suppose those are ROM blocks and it's normal that they stay that way. The upside of this new BIOS is that (except the occasional and well known "cannot enter setup" bug) it's far more stable than the packard bell version.
Anyway, good luck! And hope it works out for you. But i'm curious why you would want to use ATI graphics on Nvidia motherboard. There are many rumours of stability problems when doing that. As you can see yourself it doesn't even work at all with your current BIOS.

Cost is the biggest issue for choosing the 6870 ati card, when the equivalent Nvidia card is aproximately £40 more expensive. Something that at present i cannot afford. I will get the chance this weekend to flash the bios so fingers crossed it all works out well. Thanks for your help. The only problem i have found is on hirens website is finding the actual download link to his boot cd. Any help would be gratefully received.

 

[R4dul]

That's because you probably went to hiren.info No link there. This one should work though:
http://www.hirensbootcd.org/files/Hirens.BootCD.15.1.zip
There should be the iso in that zip.

 

[wakko]

One last question for you did you do just awdflash.exe newbios.bin or did you have anything after it like /sn /cc /cd /wb??

Cheers

 

[R4dul]

No, i just ran the awdflash and then typed the file name in the prompt box it displayed.

Cheers and good luck

 

[wakko]

Well i just tried it and i got Invalid Windows Licence.

Any ideas?

 

[R4dul]

what? wait a minute i don't get it, what does the awdflash dos program got to do with windows?

 

[wakko]

found version 1403 over at my digital life forums and that worked. now to test the ati card in that version.....

Still get the same error when trying to flash 1406 over 1403.

 

[R4dul]

So just to understand better... is there a windows flasher that can be used? If so please tell me, it wold be much simpler (but less safe) than the DOS version

 

[wakko]

well i got it to update using the Asus Update utility that i got from Download ASUS Update 7.18.03 Free - An utility that allows you to save, manage and update the motherboard BIOS - Softpedia in the end that made my bios 1406 down side is the ati card still doesnt work........