Bios upgrade failing - really ned to upgrade!

[wheat3000]

Hello,

I'm trying to flash a newer Bios to my Asus P4C800-Deluxe motherboard. If I use their windows utility it gives a 'verify EEPROM failed' and if I use the DOS boot disk method it fails on the double-checking part of the flash. What should I be doing? A new BIOS chip or something? I've never been able to upgrade the Bios on this mobo. I'm totally lost here, this shouldn't be as much of a headache as it is.

(I do really need to upgrade the Bios - I've got a Prescott chip and can't go to XP-sp2 without a newer Bios. I'm hoping the upgrade might help with the freque nt blue screens I've been getting.)

Thanks for any help!

[dohray]

Hi wheat3000,

See this previous post for information on how to update the BIOS.

You don't need a BIOS update to install XP SP2 and it probably wont fix your BSOD's either.

However, many years ago, I built a machine with the P4C800 mobo (with XP SP2) and it's now showing its age. It could be your motherboard or your hardware that's causing the Blue Screens.

[wheat3000]

Thanks for the link and tip, however, I guess I'm hoping I don't need a new $$$$ystem or motherboard (or needing to install everything again!).

Also, I guess I didn't totally explain myself properly; the BIOS update doesn't give me a failed checksum when i reboot, it gives an error while the BIOS is flashing; it reads, 'flashes', and then does some sort of hexadecimal thing that doesn't match. Then (again: haven't done this in a while while searching for another solution, so as far as I remember) it goes back to the DOS prompt. Still at BIOS 1010.

The reason I suspect that an SP2 upgrade would help is that the specific error code I'm getting (0x0000008e) is supposedly resolved by upgrading the OS... now I'm a skeptical person, but it's worth a shot, no?

Now, Prescott processors and SP2 don't get along, as far as I've read in various forums, without a BIOS upgrade, or, says Microsoft, a patch that resolves the issue with Prescott and SP2.

Has anyone had experience with using this patch? Did they need a BIOS upgrade anyway, or does the patch completely resolve the issue?

[l337_GuY]

Try updating your Motherboard drivers, If you have not done so already. Another member on this forum had the 0x0000008e error and the final resolve was upgrading motherboard drivers.

You shouldn't need a BIOS update for SP2, as said.

[wheat3000]

Hello again, see this link: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=885626

This is why i want to upgrade my BIOS before trying to go to sp2. There's a lot on the web about this problem, just google "prescott sp2"...

Whatever the reasons for doing so, I *should* be able to upgrade my BIOS, so why can't I? I even tried flashing the same BIOS I have running - and it failed when verifying the flash!

Thanks again for your time and thoughts.

[wheat3000]

oh, and when you say update the motherboard drivers I'm guessing you mean whatever drivers are on the Asus download site for my mobo? Yeah, tried that already unfortunately... as well as chipset drivers, video card drivers, new video card...