Flashing BIOS? Vendor...or Mainboard Bios?

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abudhu

[H]ard|Gawd
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Oct 28, 2004
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So I am trying to help a friend out, who has an Old Compaq Presario S3300NX computer. Now, Windows is not picking up his RAM correctly (reading 512 instead of 1GB) and I know usually this is a problem due to an old bios. Hell even if it won't fix it,it probably needs to be updated. Anyways, I went on a long search and found the MSI BIOS update for his motherboard.

So my question is, CAN I flash the BIOS using the MAINBOARDS website supplied Flash? Will it screw anything up/will he computer f* up? Or should I try incredibly hard to find the compaq supplied bios update instead? It should also be noted, he does not have the original bios on hand anywhere, though I know resetting the cmos would work just as well.

So once again? If I flash using the mainboards bios will I be fine, or will I be better off finding the vendor supplied bios?
 
On any OEM PC always go with the maker's BIOS. Very seldomly to large PC makers use standard motherboards. While a standard ROM may work, often times they have a board taylored to their specs and as such require a specific BIOS image to work right. Also if you put a regular BIOS on it (assuming it works) his restore CD's will most likely stop working since they look for the Compaq BIOS.

Alienware, Voodoo, Falcon and a few others most likely use standard off the shelf boards but Compaq, Dell, HP, Gateway, eMachine, and Sony almost never do.
 
The_Mage18 said:
On any OEM PC always go with the maker's BIOS. Very seldomly to large PC makers use standard motherboards. While a standard ROM may work, often times they have a board taylored to their specs and as such require a specific BIOS image to work right. Also if you put a regular BIOS on it (assuming it works) his restore CD's will most likely stop working since they look for the Compaq BIOS.

Alienware, Voodoo, Falcon and a few others most likely use standard off the shelf boards but Compaq, Dell, HP, Gateway, eMachine, and Sony almost never do.
Click to expand...
Hmm pretty interesting concept, maybe would explain why a few friend's PCs dont see the extra 512mb ram added.
 
I think the problem lies with the type of ram you installed. Older motherboards can't detect higher density ram, usually only able to utilize half of the ram capacity.

There's a full blown explanation for this but I'm not going to confuse you with my cloudy understanding.
 
tommo said:
I think the problem lies with the type of ram you installed. Older motherboards can't detect higher density ram, usually only able to utilize half of the ram capacity.

There's a full blown explanation for this but I'm not going to confuse you with my cloudy understanding.
Click to expand...

This is most likely the issue.

On some very old Compaq system you can find bios updates. (I have personally flash a few to enable native large HD support.) Try googling for it.
 
He put in a PC2700 in it. The Current Ram card was a PC2100. In anycase did some searching for a BIOS update for his model and find a big fat NOTHING. :(
 
tommo said:
I think the problem lies with the type of ram you installed. Older motherboards can't detect higher density ram, usually only able to utilize half of the ram capacity.

There's a full blown explanation for this but I'm not going to confuse you with my cloudy understanding.
Click to expand...

That's true for Simm and SDRAM but generally not for DDR.

abudhu, what's the machine?
 
The Machine is:

Compaq Presario S3300NX

As I already mentioned in the first post ;) :D

Poor guy...all he wants it for programs to be snappier...and he is having such a hard time. *Tear*
 
Does CMOS setup show the correct memory sizes for each memory bank? I'm betting it doesn't.

You might as well go with the MSI BIOS upgrade anyways since HP never made an updated BIOS available for the S3300NX.
 
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