nForce2 BIOS Hot Flashing Guide

[Tin]

Well you just flashed your BIOS on your motherboard with that latest BIOS. "Crap. All it does is boot to a black screen.", is what happens to some people, particularly when flashing to a beta or modded BIOS. Welcome to the world of BIOS hot flashing. Boy does it sound like some very serious surgery, just thinking of inserting a flash rom into a hot socket makes most everybody cringe. The truth of the matter is, it's relatively harmless. Follow along here as I guide you through the procedures of a successful hot flash.

First and foremost, you will need another working nForce2 motherboard which uses a 32-pin PLCC BIOS flash rom. Any nForce2 motherboard will work as long as it meets the above criteria. For instance, you can hot flash an Abit BIOS with an A7N8X motherboard. One of the only exceptions I can think of is the Gigabyte motherboards, as their BIOS chips are soldered directly to the PCB. Next, you will need a PLCC chip puller, which will be used to extract the BIOS chip from the motherboard.

Ok, now on to step two. Take your PLCC extractor and pull the bad flash rom from your downed motherboard. Note the shape of the flash rom, one of the corners is notched so you put it in the socket the right way, although it is still easy to put it in the wrong way. Just pay close attention to which corner is notched and how it fits in the socket and you have overcome the only dangerous aspect of the procedure. For step three, you have to remove the good BIOS from the working motherboard while it is turned off. After you remove the flash rom, you will need a piece of dental floss. Position the dental floss in the flash rom socket so as it doesnt block any of the leads from contacting the flash rom leads. after your floss is in place, take the good flash rom and place it about 1/2 way in the socket. You only want it in there enough to just make contact with socket pins, as you will be removing it shortly.

The next phase of our operation will complete the hot flash procedure. With your good flash rom loosely in the socket, start up your computer with a bootable floppy. The floppy disk should have AWDflash.exe and your bios.bin file. Once you are booted, bring up your A:\. After you have made it to A:\, give the dental floss under your flash rom a yank to eject the good chip. Once your good chip is ejected, insert the bad flash rom into the socket (remember to pay attention to where the notch is in the corner of the flash rom). Now that the bad flash rom is installed, proceed to flash your BIOS as you normally would. After the BIOS is flashed, power down your computer and use the PLCC extractor to remove your newly resurrected flash rom. Now you can add the original BIOS back to your helper board. Congrats, you have just hot flashed your BIOS.

[HAL9000]

LOL... I posted this as one of my first PCMech posts over 4 years ago.... and Toaster thought I was insane untill he tried it himself.

[Tin]

youre very right about that, it sure does frighten alot of people.

[HAL9000]

But you're right... it's not that hard to do.... I still don't know whether I read about it somewhere, or just thought it up when I did it because after I did it and it worked, I was never able to find where I read it.