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BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

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I have a Panacer 6LX mb, Award BIOS, v4.51 made in 1998, 433 MMX Intel. Got a 20gb WD hd and can only see 8.4 gb (all as doc and tech says). Panacer doesn’t do BIOS upgrades (yes, it may be an expensive lesson). Unicore.com, BIOS for Award, Phoenix, AMI, + says a replacement is $60 chip or flash upgrade. Anyone know of anyother (LEGAL) way to upgrade other than getting a new mb and/or processor? thx, lo

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BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

In reply to BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

You will have to check the internet for sites the offer updates and if I am not mistaken flash bios are free to upgrade and I have did updates to my bios.Check these sites
http://www.drivers.com
http://www.johnshardware.com
http://www.c/net.com
Also check message boards in computer sites,some of them have forums that will give you the info and update to bios info.
Find a computer store with the bord and,see if the bios disks are for sale.

BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

In reply to BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

http://www.drivers.com – about cars, driversguide?
http://www.johnshardware.com – bad url, http://www.c/net.com – …cnet… – by mb and didn’t have Panacer.

BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

In reply to BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

Very strange thing – as I read your note, I thought the numbers sounded familiar. I have a similar motherboard with an AWARD BIOS, v4.51 made in 1997 and running an Intel P233/MMX. I had no trouble getting it to see all of a Western Digital 13.6gig drive when I upgraded recently. Hmmm….
are you sure that LBA is enabled and you’re not trying to use the CHS addressing mode?
It could be that BIOS release numbers are like sock sizes and don’t really mean anything, but it IS curious.

Checking out the sites listed for a free BIOS upgrade is worthwhile but if it came down to spending $60 for a BIOS upgrade versus $80 for a whole new motherboard, I’d definitely go with the latter.

regards!

paul

BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

In reply to BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

Not Sure, I think LBA yes. DriveImage v2 sees 19gb, PQM3 8.4, NT 8.4 WHat is CHS? Decided hell with it, got a PIII today, will use existing for another system. Thx,lo

BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

In reply to BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

When you flash an Award bios you are prompted to save your old bios so that if the flash doesn’t work you can go back. You may be able to do a workaround by finding a manufacturer whose board uses the same chipset and has same physical characteristics (pci, isa, agp, cpu support, cache type) and flashing your board with the other v4.51 update. If it doesn’t work you can always go back to your old configuration.

BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

In reply to BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

Yup, Knew this. Several sites also said if you do it wrong, you smoke the chip & get $60 anyhow. lo

BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

In reply to BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

For a flash upgrade take a look at WINS BIOS site, http://www.ping.be/bios/
Another alternative may be to use a disk manager such as EZ-Drive (New name is DATA LIFEGUARD), check WD’s site for this info,
http://www.westerndigital.com/service/ftp/drives.html
this should be a free download from WD.
Good luck,
Larry (QCM)

BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

In reply to BIOS Upgrade – Sanity Check

Yup, knew this. Had probs with *DRIVE* WD and Max and NT in past, don’t want to get into that again. Thanks anyhow.

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