bios problem?

[Tom]

I was mucking around changing CPU settings on my Asus A7N8X deluxe, and it refused to reboot. Thats not normally a problem, disconnect the power for a few seconds and it boots up in a bog-standard cpu setup, a bit like windows safe mode.

This time, it didn't reboot, so I wiped the bios with the jumper on the board.

Unfortunately, in my haste, I didn't unplug the battery before shorting the pins. Its the only thing I can think I did wrong, although I can't really see it causing a massive problem.

Now when I turn the computer on I get a copyright bios message like you do, and a BIOS CHECKSUM ERROR with some number I can't remember (at a mates house now typing this), a low frequency beep, and a message telling me to insert a system disc into A:

Sods law my mates computer doesn't have a floppy drive that I can copy the flashing software onto. Is it likely I need to reflash the bios (I thought wiping it just cleared all the settings in the bios?), or is the bios chip buggered?

Or is the whole board buggered?

 

[Cask]

You might already have checked here but there's good info on the A7N8X over on the nForcers HQ Forum so is worth a look. Was particularly reminded of the corrupt bios fixes listed in this thread but they all sound pretty extreme to me.

 

[old.user4556]

Interesting Tom,

I have bad news on this subject, vaguely similar problem I had when I installed this exact same board for my mate. To cut a very long story short, the A7N8X suffers (or suffered) from BIOS corruption whenever the user changed settings and "saved changes" to the BIOS.

After digging on the web, I found dozens of forum threads where people had tweaked the settings for this board and when they tried to reboot all they got was nothing. Clearing the settings with the jumper did nothing for me, or these people. After he RMA'd the board, another one arrived that suffered the same fate.

I did a quick google just now and found this about the A7N8X:

The result of 225MHz FSB may be acceptable, though, if it were not for another problem. After working with the overclocked FSB for some time, the mainboard’s BIOS crashed. It was damaged completely, and the boot block too, leaving no hope for a simple restoration. The reanimation process was not very easy. We had to search for another mainboard like the crashed one and simply replace its BIOS chip. Then we installed the chip into the damaged mainboard and made sure that the problem was really in the damaged BIOS. Then we had to reflash the BIOS chip on the operational mainboard, using the well-known guidelines. I should confess that the corruption of the BIOS code is an often-reported problem for mainboards on nForce2 chipset. Anyway, such a problem can discourage any user, especially a beginner, from any overclocking experiments.

 

[Tom]

Well, panic over. I read on a google search that what you need to do is disconnect the battery, and then disconnect the mains, and walk away for a while (presumably for the caps in the psu to discharge). Anyway, I did that, left it for an hour, and it booted up straight away.

Thats the end of my overclocking adventures then

 

[Xavier]

Just sounds like having reset the bios it's not aware of your harddisc at present and is trying to boot from an inacessible device. Btw you're meant to leave the battery in when you reset the CMOS.

Can you enter the bios at all with the checksum error as it is? It *should* let you - it's something I see all the time on ASUS boards and is generally rectified by going back into the BIOS interface, setting everything appropriately and saving the new correct settings back into the CMOS.

 

[Xavier]

Heh, talk about timing. Glad it's working though.

 

[Tom]

Nah it didn't want to let me do anything, it just *wanted* that system floppy

The manual does say to remove the battery and then short the jumper btw

 

[TdC]

lol I've never disconnected a battery in my life


*wonders at the potential havoc I've barely excaped*