asked on

Flashing the BIOS, Help Needed if Possible

Hi I'm not an expert as such however im comfortable with the software side of things but im still learning with hardware hence my question... I'm looking to flash my bios, I have a ms-6579 (microstar international - msi) motherboard with what seems to be an i845 chipset, bios gives me this when I pause - 07/25/2002-i845-GA69VM4XC-00, I have read and followed the Flash Bios For Non Fat Users, on the msi site however low and behold out of all the bios's available mine doesnt seem to be available, is this bad luck or does my model fit under another etc, any help would be gratefully appreciated,

Wayne

P.S. - Ignore the username, I was annoyed once trying to put in usernames, and it accepted by Jeremy Beadle name ¬_¬ lol

rid

The standard return question is: Why do you want to flash the BIOS? Are you experiencing a problem and you know a newer BIOS will cure it? Perhaps there isn't an upgrade available.
/RID

Jemery_Beadle

ASKER

Hey, well in general im kinda a tweak fanatic trying to get the best from my pc etc it started when I asked my m8 who seems to know a lot about how I could overclock my 2.8 to a 3.2 (intel pentium 4) and he said find ur fbs out in bios, well my bios seems to let me do next to nothing other than enable and disable af ew things, iv explored everything I can find and there's next to nothing and this being a manufactured pc a few years old now im guessing there will be a new upgrade, what ya think? - cheers for fast reply btw

Wayne =o)

Callandor

I would say if you are looking to tweak, you should get an Abit or Asus motherboard, because they have more settings than you can shake a stick at. I have an Abit IC7-G with a P4 2.8c that I have bumped the bus up to 225 and now I have a P4 3.15, for free. If the MSI motherboard didn't have FSB settings that you could change before, flashing the BIOS (which I couldn't find, either) is not likely to change that.

Jemery_Beadle

ASKER

Hey, thanks...

Take it my motherboards pretty old then, and yea your probably right I might just have the cheapest motherboard known to man stuck in with my manufactured pc a few years ago hence seemingly no bios updates... Anyway just for future reference, I was thinking of a new motherboard to go with my rig specs: -

2.8ghz intel pentium 4
512ddr (soon to be a gig, maybe 2)
120gig/partitoned
9600xt w/256mb onboard ram

Any suggestions, thanks for the help... so whats with the whole accepting thing (new to experts exchange, I would have graded ya both sayin thx for the replying etc but I didnt want to close the topic)

Cheers again,
Wayne

barcelona_blom

Although I have to agree with rid,

The only way to learn is to do it first hand, therefore if you realy want to flash your bios then go ahead, just make sure you are using the correct file for your mainboard and backup the old bios file. and follow the flashing instructions to the letter.
If you are just wanting to know how to do it, I would see if you cant get hold of an old system to practise on.

As for your mainboard, does it look like the one in this link ?

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=37

use aida32 to see if it tells you its that model number. download it from here,

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download181.html

barcelona_blom

lol

It seems there was quite a bit going on while I was typing my answer, (mental note, I must try to type faster)

Callandor

Abit has the nice IC7-MAX3 - if you don't need the integrated extras, the IC7-G (which I have) is also very nice, and it's not too expensive ($120 at www.newegg.com).

barcelona_blom, it happens to all of us at some point (but especially if you're a slow typer, like me).

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

gonzal13

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ispeed-jeremy

If you want to flash your MSI board, firstly take a look at the board, every MSI mainboard has the model and revision number clearly printed on the board in between the PCI slots normally, it's will read something in the format of "MS-6748" and if it is a second or third revision mainbaord it may say something like "MS-6748 ver2". You then use this information and search the msi website http://www.msi.com.tw and from here you search for the bios update in the download section and you should find clear concise instructions on how to flash your bios. Always remember when flashing your bios to boot from a dos boot disk, which doesn't load any programs into memory, i'd suggest download a boot disk image from http://www.bootdisk.com. Once you make your boot disk, copy your flash files to the disk, reboot your system and follow the instructions !

Jemery_Beadle

ASKER

Hey, yea thanks I'v allready got the model number etc, and checked the webtsite out however they typically dont seem to have my board model out of endless models they do... lol, cheers anyway!

ispeed-jeremy

Hrmm ... that's odd, I often use the Australian website http://www.msicomputer.com.au which is sometimes a little better maintained, otherwise try a goole search for your board model and you may have a little more luck ..

slimfady

If the password is all what's troubling you, u don't need to flash. Simply just remove the CMOS battery from the motherboard and leave it out for at least ten seconds. The BIOS will reset to default.

Goodluck....

gonzal13

To make sure, just put a bare wire across the connections with the battery out.

gonzal13(Joe)