Upgrading an Award BIOS

First youll need the make and model of the motherboard. Then you can usually go to the manufactures site and look for the upgrade. If its an OEM system (dell, hp, gateway, etc) then you just need the model of the system and you should be able to find the latest bios from thier support site.

jamie, it appears to be a foxconn board - where do I find the model number ?

Use Everest (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html) it should give you the model name for the motherboard.

system is non-booting

Is it a home built system or built by a compoany like dell or hp?

its a home built one I'm aftraid

ok here is the BIOS string

02/10/1999-i440LX(EX)-2A69JF09C-00

hope this helps!

An FIC motherboard with an Intel 440LX chipset.  Couldn't pin it down exactly, but probably a VL601 or VL603.

Reference    http://www.wimsbios.com/HTML1/fic.html

Someone else can look and see if I missed anything.

will - thanks , where do I get the BIOS upgrade download for the VL601 or VL603 ?

FIC motherboards usually have the model number silk screened between PCI slots.  Take a look and see if that's where it is.

You have to positively identify motherboard first.  An incorrect BIOS can render your motherboard inoperable.

BIOS updates are available on FIC web site.

will, finally found it - silkscreen between the PCI slots in tiny tiny print - its the VL-603

now I am looking for the BIOS upgrade on the FIC site

will- thats great - but what do I do now ? I've downloaded and unzipped the file - now what?

after unzipping the file I've got a

.bin file
.exe file
.txt file X 3

Does anybody look for directions anymore?

http://www.fic.com.tw/support/motherboard/doc/procedure.aspx

And if you want to buy an upgrade with self installing floppy disk

http://www.unicore.com/

problem solved - thank you jamie & will .

your help was much appreciated.  

You're welcome.

"... Does anybody look for directions anymore? " => I often wonder about the same thing :-)
(Reading ... or for that matter even "glancing at" ... manuals seems to be in the same category)


jetsonx =>  Updating the BIOS won't hurt anything (as long as you do it correctly => a bad flash will destroy the motherboard);  but there is NO indication in the release notes that support for 48-bit logical block addressing was added.   So it seems unlikely that updating the BIOS is going to resolve the problem you're having.   I'd suggest you add a 48-bit LBA controller card -- this is a good one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816102007

... I guess the BIOS update DID add 48-bit support  (I'm surprised it wasn't in the release notes) :-)

Gary, you're no more surprised than I.  All we could do was give him latest BIOS, how to flash, and see what happened.

Ok, as I;ve said the BIOS upgrade worked fine and YES the problem of the pc rejecting the
larger hdd was still there even the BIOS upgrade.

As you have seen, I have still awarded the points as key kernel of my question was how
to upgrade the BIOS - this was answered sucessfully.

I got a 20GB drive onto the system which has done the trick.

Thanks again for all the input.

ps: gary - no it was not in the release notes ;)