Bios flashing w/fed4_64

[Gilboa Davara]

On Sun, 2006-01-22 at 17:26 +0000, Ian Malone wrote:
> Gilboa Davara wrote:
> > On Sun, 2006-01-22 at 16:13 +0000, Ian Malone wrote:
> > 
> >>John Summerfied wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Gilboa Davara wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>I doubt it. I've yet to see a Linux flash utility. (Being tied to a
> >>>>certain BIOS/MB combo, I doubt that we will ever see one)
> >>>>Most flash utilities either use DOS (99%) or both Windows and DOS (~1%).
> >>>>
> >>>>Gilboa
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>I've got one or to mobos that can read direcly from floppy. (I'm not 
> >>>sure they actually have floppy drives attached, several of my machines 
> >>>haven't).
> >>>
> >>>Sometimes (often?) freedos will do the job; I think Dell and/or HP 
> >>>uses Freedos regardless of what their actual instructions say.
> >>>
> >>
> >>AOL: my last two Gigabyte MBs have been able to update the bios directly 
> >>from
> >>a file on a floppy without Win / DOS (and save the current bios directly 
> >>too). One
> >>of the reasons my next MB will be a Gigabyte.
> >>
> 
> > 
> > 
> > HUH?
> > I just updated my new K8NS BIOS and it requires the same old (Free)DOS
> > boot.
> > They just help you by giving you a default autoexec.bat file, saving you
> > the need to remember the flash command line options. (And BIOS image
> > name).
> > 
> > Gilboa
> > 
> > 
> Well, it's on my now elderly GA7 DXE (socket A), a bios based update
> called Q-Flash. From the manual:
> 
> A. What is Q-Flash Utility?
> Q-Flash utility is a pre-O.S BIOS flash utility enables users to
> update its BIOS within BIOS mode, no more fooling around any OS.
> (sic)
> 
> The previous motherboard to that was an almost identical GA7 DX+,
> which had to be replaced after attempting to remove a northbridge
> heatsink which I thought was bounded with epoxy but was actually
> thermal tape[1]. Maybe they've stopped using it?
> 
> [1] For anyone thinking of trying this; if it's thermal tape,
> twisting will get it off. Try that /first/.
> -- 
> imalone ♘
> 

Umm...

I just checked my GA7N400L and it uses the same DOS aflash utility.
It's logical to assume that the flash utility depends on the maker of
the BIOS.
All newer Gigabyte boards seem to use Award BIOS' which forces them to
use the same flash.exe DOS utility for BIOS upgrades.

Cheers.