# I am having fun trying to flash a P4C800 BIOS



## T&N (Oct 9, 2003)

I am having fun trying to flash a P4C800 BIOS. I have tried both updates from ASUS and I am positive that I have the correct BIOS Versions P4CB1011.ROM and P4CB1010.ROM. I have tried the EZ-FLASH and the DOS BOOT WAY. The EZ-Flash tells me that the BIOS Version on the disk does not match the M/B bios. It is not going to be the exact BIOS because it is an update but it does not recognize it as one for this M/B. I got this M/B because of the 648 Chipset but it seems to have issues this time on this M/B. I have my own computer company so this is not my first time doing this procedure. But this motherboard is kicking my @$$. I use ASUS and prefer to put ASUS M/B in every system that I build. This one is even showing two processors on boot up. VERY STRANGE HUH? 

Has anyone installed a 160 gig. Western Digital Hard drive yet? I am having a HE11 of a time getting a P4C800 ASUS M/B to recognize my new H/D. I have even installed the PCI Card that came with the H/D but when I partition the H/D it does not show up correctly in the BIOS. . I also have a post in the Motherboard and BIOS section about the BIOS problem. 

IF ANYONE CAN HELP ME PLEASE RESPOND ASAP.
:compute: :upset:


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

> I have tried the EZ-FLASH and the DOS BOOT WAY. The EZ-Flash tells me that the BIOS Version on the disk does not match the M/B bios.


Do NOT use EZFlash to update this BIOS!! For this mobo series, use AFUDOS. 

Complete instructions may be found here, in Asus P4P800/P4C800 Series: How to Update BIOS

Hope this helps,

-clintfan


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

> Has anyone installed a 160 gig. Western Digital Hard drive yet? I am having a HE11 of a time getting a P4C800 ASUS M/B to recognize my new H/D. I have even installed the PCI Card that came with the H/D,,,


What PCI card? You should not need any such add-ons to attach to the P4C800. What is the drive model number?

-clintfan


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## T&N (Oct 9, 2003)

I have tried the EZ-FLASH and the DOS BOOT WAY. This came from my original post. When I try the DOS way it gives me a strange reply. This reply is just basically telling me the same thing that I type in. It does not go through the update steps like it should. I printed out the instructions about the AFUDOS and put the switches in exactly like it told me to do. That is what made me try the EZ-FLASH.

The Hard drive is a Western Digital S/N WD1600JB-00DUA3 0 
The PCI CARD ( IDE 1 AND 2) came with the Hard Drive and is to be used with the hard drive because of the size that it is. Western Digital HAS SOFTWARE on their site to partition and set up the hard drive. 

Have you installed one of these hard drives on one of these motherboards? 

The Video card is a 128 mb ASUS 8X video card. ASUS FX5200 128M W/TV 8X 


Have you flashed this motherboard?

I need help from someone that has used this hard drive or this motherboard.


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## twobucks (Sep 19, 2003)

I'm just taking a long shot at this one but does the bios have a setting to stop bios updates from taking place?


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## T&N (Oct 9, 2003)

I KNOW ABOUT THAT AND HAVE ALREADY CHECKED. THANKS


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

> Have you flashed this motherboard?


Well I have flashed the P4C800-E Deluxe, and it worked fine. I'm not exactly clear what mobo you have. It sounds like you have "P4C800 Deluxe", right? Except for 2 major chips and a different BIOS, it's the same mobo. Be absolutely sure you are pulling the correct BIOS file, as every variant of mobo has a different one, for some reason. You seem to have the right one, only......



> I am positive that I have the correct BIOS Versions P4CB1011.ROM and P4CB1010.ROM....The EZ-Flash tells me that the BIOS Version on the disk does not match the M/B bios.


That's supposed to be an "8" not a "B". So "P4C81011.ROM" is the filename. Could that be your problem or is it just a typo in this post?.



> When I try the DOS way it gives me a strange reply. This reply is just basically telling me the same thing that I type in.


By "the DOS way" do you mean using the AFUDOS tool? This sounds like a syntax problem. My instructions weren't clear that there has to be a blank between .exe and the switch, though that's standard DOS syntax-- I've now clarified this in the instructions. And no blank between the switch and the filename. 

In the instructions I linked you to, the first thing to do was build a boot floppy to save your current BIOS. This is a pretty harmless thing to do. Let's start over from there. You are telling me that you followed the instructions.
To me this means you put AFUDOS onto a DOS boot floppy, as instructed. Then you booted the floppy to the A: prompt in DOS. Then at that prompt you typed,


```
afudos.exe   /oP4C800.ROM
```
and hit Enter,... 
and exactly _what_ happens then....??
What messages do you see?

-clintfan


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

> The Hard drive is a Western Digital S/N WD1600JB-00DUA3 0. The PCI CARD ( IDE 1 AND 2) came with the Hard Drive and is to be used with the hard drive because of the size that it is.


That is very strange. It sounds like they sent you an IDE bus adapter card. I looked up your drive model WD1600JB on the WD site and it said nothing about including an extra IDE card, only a cable. Maybe it's a packaging option. 

But your P4C800 Deluxe already has everything you need for connecting the drive. You especially do not want to use a PCI card for this, because the ports on your ICH5 chip onboard your mobo have a way faster pipeline to memory (266MByte/s) than any PCI card can give you (less than 133MByte/s). 

Don't use this extra card. The only way you would need it is if you were installing into a very OLD PC which has only ATA/33 capability; then you might need this PCI card. Your mobo supports ATA/100 in the PRI_IDE and SEC_IDE ports (and ATA/133 on the Promise PRI_RAID, though you have the PCI constraint there) so don't use the card.

As far as the size is concerned, all you will need to do is apply the Big Drive Enabler patch, assuming you use XP, which is available various places including Maxtor. A search of these forums with the term "Big and Drive and Enabler" will turn up several copies of the link. This is important because XP, exen with SP1a, still has problems out-of-the-box when talking to drives >137GB, and this patch fixes it.

I'll save you some grief too and tell you to strap the drive for what they call "Dual Master" (one jumper across the center two pins, 5 & 6). Attach to the far connector on the short end of an 80-cond. IDE cable that came with your mobo, and connect the long end to the PRI_IDE connector on your mobo. If this is your only HDD, you should be good to go.

-clintfan


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## T&N (Oct 9, 2003)

MY ERROR IS: BIOS has no flash information available.

ASF Signature not found

AMI Firmware Update Utility - Version 1.16b2

I know for a fact that this is an ASUS P4C800 (ONLY) THIS IS NOT THE DELUXE........ :no: 

code:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------afudos.exe /oP4C800.ROM

Why are you telling me to use this code above?


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

Well Clintfan has made a big bunch of booboos here.....



> code:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------afudos.exe /oP4C800.ROM
> 
> Why are you telling me to use this code above?


I'm not. I was only looking for a non-proportional spacing font, which would show the blanks better. So I've been using the "code" directive, but bad side-effect is that it prints the word "code" at the top. Sorry that confused you. I'll find another way. I used the wrong d**n filename anyway.


-clintfan


> I know for a fact that this is an ASUS P4C800 (ONLY) THIS IS NOT THE DELUXE........


Here, I was an idiot. Or Asus was. I was trusting the Asus main web page for motherboard models --silly me-- but it fails to list the non-Deluxe model. So my mistake, and you have a mobo I had forgotten about. The support downloads area has all the proper info even if the main page doesn't. This error caused me to mislead you on the next thing too...



> That's supposed to be an "8" not a "B". So "P4C81011.ROM" is the filename. _-clintfan_


Because I didn't realize about the non-Deluxe, I gave the wrong filename. The filename you grabbed from the Asus site is the right _download_ filename for your non-Deluxe mobo.



> I have tried the EZ-FLASH and the DOS BOOT WAY. This came from my original post. _-T&N_
> Do NOT use EZFlash to update this BIOS!! For this mobo series, use AFUDOS. _-clintfan_


Here's another apology. Again I got confused between EZ Flash and Aflash.exe. I forgot that EZ Flash is what they call their BIOS recovery thing, while Aflash is the thing that we are not supposed to use for this series, using AFUDOS instead. You appear to be using the correct AFUDOS utility, latest version. 

But I may have found one problem. I looked in the manual and the filename they show in the BIOS recovery example screens is P4C800B.ROM (that's a "Bee" at the end). 

So if you want to try EZ Flash again in auto-recovery mode (ALT+F2 at powerup), you need to copy the downloaded BIOS to _that_ magic filename, *P4C800B.ROM*. I will update the BIOS instructions to add your model and filename. 



> MY ERROR IS: BIOS has no flash information available.
> 
> ASF Signature not found
> 
> AMI Firmware Update Utility - Version 1.16b2


Clearly there is something really wrong here. It's not just pilot error. Regardless of whether the filename is P4CB1010.ROM, P4C800B.ROM, or whatever, the AFUDOS utility's "/i" switch _should_ work with _any_ filename, PROVIDING the file is in the _correct format_.

??Which brings me to ask a dumb question... did you remember to unzip the BIOS file that you downloaded, then copy the resulting unzipped file onto the update floppy?


If you did unzip, and if the EZ Flash recovery thing doesn't work, I think you have a valid case for contacting Asus, that their P4C800 non-Deluxe download files may not have been correctly built.


Hey T&N, REALLY sorry about all these screwups!! I'm usually a LOT more careful, as most of my other posts will show. I guess I was trying to do too many things at once today, and got carried away.

-clintfan


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