Intel BIOS recovery on Dell Dimension 5150. BIOS Update Failed. Power button is solid amber.

i dont know if dell still has this feature, but ages ago the intel mobos has a recovery feature in case of bios write failure. the way this feature worked is the mobo itself would auto try to access the floppy, even tho the bios was bricked. if a properly loaded floppy was present it would load and execute the bios directly from the floppy instead of the bios ram
that emergency rescue feature is prob long gone, and unless that mobo has a plugin bios chip that u can replace, u are now the proud owner of a decorative dell doorstop

@CT
Yes I have tried that, multiple times, just not exactly like that. I will attempt that after this post.


The thing that concerns me is that the BIOS 3 pins near the CMOS battery do not have any jumpers on them and never did.
All of the information I have read regarding this mobo on Dell states that there is a jumper on pins 2-3 for normal operation.
--> http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim5150/en/sm/syssetup.htm#wp1100650
This is not so, there has never been a jumper on those pins.  However, I did try putting one across pins 1-2 and it did not fix the problem.


@evining
Through my research I have found that all recent Intel boards supposedly have that bios recovery feature.
As per the link from my initial post:
http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/CS-023360.htm

It appears that a floppy, cd or usb drive can be used to do this.

However, I have been unable to find any information referring to the Dell proprietary motherboard, W8403 with the Intel 945G express chip set, having this feature.

I did connect a floppy drive to the mobo to see if it would at least seek when powering on, but it did not.

The cd-rom how ever does look as though it may seek when powered on, but it could just be the powering on of the cd-rom, but it is worth the attempt. Also it does not seem to seek any of my USB thumb drives.

None of the chips on the board are in sockets, they are all soldered.
I am getting used to the paper weight idea...

I downloaded the bios update. Closed all programs and ran the utility, as I normally do.
It prompted me to proceed so I agreed, the utility shut down windows and appeared to reboot.
I walked away and came back to the pc and noticed that it was off.
Usually the power is restored, it reboots and starts windows.
I have done this enough times to my Dell workstations to know how it goes..

This computer appeared to be in suspend or hibernate mode, ass per the amber color of the power button.

I waited a few minutes and hit some keystrokes to see if it responded, it did not.

I left it for about 3 hours to see what would happen and nothing has changed thus far.

When powered on the fans come on and the power button is amber, and unless there is a solution for this, seems it will be that way forever..

Thanks.

i did not find a bios recovery method for that board, so my guess = yours : ba d mobo; replace it.
the only way to repair it is taking the bios chip from a working identical board, read it in an eprom programmer, and write that back to the chip. That is, if the chip is socketed.

Unfortunately, the chip is soldered..

Has anyone heard of a combination of keystrokes like Fn+B or Win+B to activate a Floppy drive recovery  mode?

Does anyone know if the Boot Block Path exists on this board?