Upon looking on the Asus website, the motherboard will accommodate 1333 Core 2 Quad processors with a bios update, so I started my research. Several message boards produced tales of woe whereby people had destroyed their bios during an update. Now previously I've never had a problem, and I suspect many of these disasters were simply a matter of Darwin rising from his grave to smite those who were less than careful.
Having decided that this was going to work, I went shopping for a Core 2 Quad processor, only to find that they were no longer available, however one shop I've dealt with in the past suggested that they had a Q8400 processor in an older machine that they would be happy to sell me - I bought it and since it was not very old, I still had a couple of years warranty left. I wouldn't have worried anyway, since I've never had a cpu fail on me.
Now ... to update the BIOS.
- I documented every setting I had in the BIOS. Very Important.
- I read what I could about using the EZFLASH utility INCLUDED IN THE BIOS.
- I copied the downloaded, unzipped bios (1901) to a standard FAT formatted USB stick
- With the USB stick still inserted, I rebooted and pressed "DEL" to enter the BIOS Setup.
- I Entered EZFLASH and backed up the BIOS to the USB stick. (it appeared as the C drive)
- I highlighted the new BIOS and updated.
- When the update had finished, it rebooted and I removed the USB stick before it restarted.
- I re-entered the BIOS and entered my previously documented settings.
- After exiting the BIOS, I turned the machine OFF and removed the power cord for a couple of minutes.
- Boot - all was wonderfully well.
Later ........
PS
I find it rewarding that this post gets a hit one or two days and that I may have been able to help someone find their way through the maze ...
:)
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI recently purchased some 800Mhz ddr2 for this wonderful motherboard. It seemed to not accept more than 2 sticks. Something i read suggested that i needed a bios update as i run on original 2007 instal or bios. I downloaded the 1901 version at asus site. EZFLASH tool seems frozen and the cd utility (motherboard disc) seems to confict with installed win7 version. Am unsure how to proceed knowing that errors are dangerous concerning bios installs. Can you help?
sincerely
Hi Glenn,
ReplyDeleteI've been away for a few days, hence the delay ..
It is always difficult giving advice without detailed information - and even then, I'm no expert so as all things in life you have to evaluate what people tell you. I certainly approach BIOS updates very, very carefully - become too adventurous and your motherboard may be toast.
With that in mind, you always proceed incrementally from a known position. In this case what you had. It sounds as if you have a working system that simply refuses to start the process, so that is good, rather than having it frozen or dead.
It MAY be that you do not even need a bios update, since the reason I updated the BIOS was to use a faster processor. Your problem may be something other than this .. type of memory or which memory position you have used (it is a while since I did surgery on my motherboard). I would look at that angle rather than leap into the bios update straight away.
A final thought - have you carefully understood what I did?
Hope it works, and like Elmer Fudd said .. "We will be Vewwy, Vewwy, careful".
Geoff.
thank you so much for your reply. i am trying to collect council and knowledge from a multitude of councilors... Here some more details. Yes your explain is wonderfully clear. I carefully researched compatablilty at the Corsair website before purchaseing cm2x2048-6400c5's 800mhz 5-5-5-18. My rig with commando mobo has run perfectly since the 2007 install of the 702 version of the bios, so i hoped to upgrade from the 2 one gig sticks of mem to continue with this solid mobo gaming for a while yet. Permit me to recount things i have tried? a simple install of the ddr2 2 gig dimms wouldnt work so, i tried the 2 one gigs in one channel and one of the 2 gig sticks in the 2nd channel and ran like that nicely for some time. i started reading what might be the reason why the full load of memory sticks failed to run. one suggestion was to run at a slower setting 633 instead of 800mhz. didnt seem to help. then i carefully documented my bios settings on paper and set default. also no change in ability to run 3 or 4 sticks.
ReplyDeletei noted that at that point i checked the ezflash program and it read my asus factory cd!!!! unfortuneatley this was befor i had downloaded my version of the 1901 update onto a flash, yes a fat32 flash. another note is that my specy in win7 shows my mem running at 400mhz. but those sorts of programs display something different from what the bios displays anyway. i ran through the proceedure of setting defaults several times, several combinations of memsticks installs... just occurred to me perhaps to try lowering the mhz to 333 in the bios? My next idea was to try formating hd to remove os, and flashing from another utility on a bootable usb... I am convinced that i would benefit from 8gigs of ddr2 so am ready to try anything that is reasonable to persuade this wascally wabbit to cooperate.
for your satisfaction, updated bios on this beloved mobo at the freedos prompt, using the software cd asus provided (usually worthless). command was /bupdate i(COMMANDO.ROM) or somesuch. i forget already. Now that i don't need it the ezflash works again and received a speed increase from the bios update alone. Now, on to getting 8gigs of mem working. thanks indeed for the clues.
ReplyDeleteGlad something I said was of help.
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