Nvidia board, BIOS erased, what to do?

I have an Nvidia board from a Dell Dimension desktop.

Basically what happened, I was working on this computer for this guy, I left the BIOS update on the desktop. He mistakenly clicked on it. He didn't know what was going on and stopped the process before it finished. His screen went black and the machine would not boot again.

Anyway, he ended up buying another motherboard and I replaced it and I now have this old motherboard.

I have spoke to DELL about getting this thing reflashed, but they didn't offer up any real help other than using a disk, which does not work now.

So, I'm left with, how can I get this BIOS chip re-flashed? Where would I send it? Where could I get another BIOS chip, if I had to go that route.

I would hate to trash it. Maybe I could get the BIOS issue handled and sell it off or build another computer with it?

Troy

All you have to do is pull the CMOS. It's a little thing on the motherboard. You pull that out, move it to the left for 10 seconds, then put it right back. Make sure the power is off when you do this.

reply to post by Techsnow


That depends on the motherboard, many older ones do not have bios that can be recovered in situations like the OP described. In which case you're screwed unless ya ship the board back to the manufacurer.

I'm not so sure that pulling the CMOS battery will fix the problem. The BIOS is gone, or severely messed up to the point that the machine will not boot up. No POST. Not much of anything happened when you tried to power the machine on. It's a shame that a little piece of firmware can cause so many problems.

Seems like a BIOS backup system could be designed into the board somewhere in case something like this happens. Then it could at least revert back to the original BIOS.

That tiny mistake costed this guy over $200 to get a new motherboard form DELL.

I mean, if a virus hoses your hard machine, all you have to do is reformat and re-install, and your back in business. Why shouldn't the BIOS system be the same?

Would I contact Nvidia? It is an Nvidia board. The Nvidia site is terrible. Where is the "contact us" or "support" link? I just don't see it on the home page.

Troy

Do you know the model number of the board? If not you can dig around on dell's website and probably find that info in their site..i Know gateway has area's on thier site that list's technical information on computer parts.

I suggest you get as much information as you can on the motherboard before contacting Nvida... This issue and one similar always makes me wonder though..because i know dell uses some propritairy parts, and when you buy from dell or gateway..i know they want you to go to thier sites to download updates for things like bios...so i'm not sure if there is any difference in the bios for a motherboard made for a dell computer..and the comparable model motherboard sold by the manufacturer direct. So get as much technical info as ya can on the board part number, model number etc.. before ya try contacting Nvida and/or dell..and see if they can help.
www.nvidia.com...

I would call Dell parts depot and see if the bios chip is something you can order. If it comes out of the socket then it should. If it is soldered to the mobo then you are out of luck. You could always see about ebay to pick up a damaged board with an intact bios chip.

Its crazy that the guy freaked because he was presented with enough warnings to scare even the computer techs from doing the flash or stopping it.

reply to post by staple


Staple, is probably correct that you're gonna have to go through dell. Which i know is lame, some their tech support people leave much to be desired. But it doesnt mean, you can't try talking to Nvida and see what they say about it, if you get frustrated trying to deal with dell. It's going to cost you something to get it fixed though, if they give you that option at all. At which point you'll have to decide if it's cost effective to do.

He meant to click on something else, and I think he was pre-occupied with something else at the time, and so wasn't paying attention.

I will not leave that file on anyone's desktop again.

If I am not mistaken, this BIOS may be integrated, from what I gathered from DELL. Meaning, the board perhaps could be more trouble than it's worth.

I have not dug deep into the BIOS of a motherboard, what would the BIOS chip look like?

I would hate to have the board go to waste, it's better than my E-machines board. 4 SATA slots, PCI-E, more goodies than I currently have. I don't have to get it to work, but it would just be nice.

Off topic, how do you guys get your avatar not repeat itself? My image is a little big, and all didn't fit, but the effect worked pretty well anyway. So, that part is fine, just the repeating part is not what I would really want.

Troy

[edit on 24-10-2008 by cybertroy]

I have a feeling what this guy did is the same thing that would happen from a bad flash. A bad flash could in essence turn the motherboard into a useless piece of plastic.

I doubt removing the cmos battery would fix this problem. Using a piece of metal to reset it would probably not fix it either.

Were you in the middle of upgrading the bios by using a program that flashes it? If this guy clicked something on that program he could have permanently f'ed up the system.

Flashing a bios is a risky enough thing to do when you know what you are doing. Not only can a bad flash completely destroy a motherboard but flashing a bios is probably one of the riskiest things you can do to a computer as it can render the computer useless if the flash fails.

I don't think there is much to do with that motherboard other then throw it out.

Check this site out.

www.bioschip.com...

This may be what I'm looking for.

But it looks like the chip may be soldered in. I'll see what they say.

Troy

usually if the bios is erased before completion it might be permanetly screwed. try and contact the manufacturers of the motherboard. your not usually supposed to update the motherboard period.

On some boards the BIOS chip can be pulled out and re-flashed. As cheap as motherboards are nowadays, I don't even know if I'm going to put any more time in on this motherboard. I think the chip may be integrated into the board. That's what I understood when I talked to DELL some time ago about it.

This board costs something around $200 from DELL, more or less. I'm thinking I could buy a board as good or better than this for much less, without the DELL logo on it.

I may see if I can get this thing shipped off to a place that recycles this stuff.

Troy