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corrupt system block on BIOS?

N

neach

n00b
Joined
Apr 2, 2003
Messages
26
New MSI nForce2 motherboard - after all the hardware is installed, and i try my first boot, i get this.

Award BootBlock BIOS v1.0

BIOS ROM checksum error

Detecting Floppy drive A media...

Drive media is : 1.44MB
Starting...

---------------------------------------

And thats as far as I can get.

If i have no bootable floppy in A:, it says the usual "no system disc found, press enter to continue"

I'm assuming the system block of the bios is missing or corrupt, but any and all attempts i have made at reflashing have failed.

it is hanging when i try a bootable floppy, even with an autoexec.bat file modified to automatically run the flash utility.

the floppy sounds like it reads for a few seconds, then the seek noises stop, and the light stays on.

the d-LED bracket that came with the motherboard gets as far as the bios being loaded to RAM, where it hangs.

MSI K7N2-Delta L
Athlon 2500+
2x 256MB Crucial DDR333
WD 800JB
LiteOn DVD/CDRW Combo

It is an Award/Phoenix bios chip, btw.

I "do" have access to the same board, and can do a hot-swap, but i would really prefer to avoid it, because i don't want to have to go out and buy two new motherboards if i screw up.. lol

Thanks in advance for any help you might have.
 
Sounds like you need to reset the bios. Move the jumper over and back to reset stuff. If this doesnt work, your motherboard is probably messed up.
 
The BIOS is checking the compressed BIOS image before it downloads that image to memory and executes it. The checksum for that download is not matching up with the checksum calculated at runtime. This is not the same kind of error as a CMOS checksum error, and the clear CMOS jumper won't have any effect. There are several possible reasons:

1. BIOS image is messed up. Do some googling and you'll probably find a tutorial on what you need on a boot disk to re-flash the BIOS. I'm not sure what the bootblock program (the 'starting....' thing) is expecting.

2. Bad/overclocked memory - BIOS writes a value into memory, tries to read it back and gets something other than the original, correct value. Pretty unlikely in your case, since you are getting to the bootblock.

3. Bad/overclocked CPU - Pretty much same as bad memory, BIOS code is executing incorrect, variables get messed up, etc. Again, pretty unlikely since you are getting to the bootblock.

I'd try to minimize the stuff in the box. Install just your video, memory, and CPU and try to boot it. If you get the same error, attach the floppy drive, and try to flash the BIOS. If that doesn't work, RMA...
 
My NForce2 board, with the same bios IIRC, can be corrected by putting the original copy of your bios on there.

Goto another PC with your System Disc (CD that shipped with the bios). You should find a file, bios.bin, on there. Format a floppy with only the BIOS.BIN file on there. Pop that in there, and when the machine reboots, it will look for that file, find it, and reflash the bios.
 
can't find any bios.bin on the system CD - any chance a downloaded bios, renamed would work?
 
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