[scraber1]

My friend BIOS wasn't working right and we both have the same motherboard (Abit IP Pro35)

I used the Bios updater and flasher that came with the board.
But suddenly Blue Screen of Death.......
Now his BIOS is messed up and we all know what that means, can't boot up now...........
Me trying something new and risk, turn on my computer and opened the BIOS updater and flasher.
Before starting I swap the BIOS chip. After is flashed everything seemed normal.
I tested both the BIOS chip they both work OK!!! (Test both chip on his computer)
But now my computer won't boot up????
It like the computer is Just on no POST no nothing....
I tried clearing the CMOS still nothing........
Anyone thing they can help?

[techie4fun]

Is there any way to revert back to the original BIOS that was previously installed before she croaked?

[scraber1]

Yes,
The original BIOS chip on this board was just taken out and unharmed. It was not flashed.

The original BIOS chip work i have tested on my friend motherboard. But either the original chip or my friend chip will work on my board....

[techie4fun]

Let's try to isolate the problem.

First, did you ground yourself before swapping out the BIOS chips?

Now since the machine isn't booting up, take out or reset the memory and unplug everything from the machine leaving JUST the motherboard and PSU connected, but keep your monitor connected. Let's see if there is any effect. Listen to see if your motherboard still beeps -- Maybe your BIOS will begin working again.

[scraber1]

I unpluged everything and just have the PSU and Motherboard connected. It still the same thing. If it helps that board come with a error display. It always shows C1 or C5 since the this probelm began.

And I did touch the case before taking our the BIOS chip. Also I worked on wooden floors.

[coastie65]

Usually, if your bios gets messed up for whatever reason, the best thing to do is, shut down the computer and take out the battery on the MOBO. Wait a couple of minutes and then replace the battery. When you restart your computer then the bios should have been reset to the default settings. coastie65

[mjd420nova]

I once encountered a similar problem. The BIOS boot was intermittent and was very difficult to trace the real fault. I tried replacing the CMOS battery and that solved the problem. Weak or dead CMOS battery will give some very strange faults that are difficult to nail down. One other fault I have run across was a bad plate-thru solder joint on the BIOS firmware chip socket that was very intermittent. The problem was caused by a heavy handed user who first forced the chip into the socket and bent a pin the first time and after straightening the pin applied too much force to seat the chip and broke the solder joint. It took two days of tracing the leads to find the bad connection. Application of a low wattage(23 watts) soldering iron was able to acheive a good connection again.

[coastie65]

Hi mjd, I failed to mention the possibility of a weak or dead battery. The other posibility, didn't even occur to me, as I'm not aware of anyone removing and then replacing those things. coastie

[mphenterprises]

Hi Scraber. Well, I think everyone pretty much covered your bases. In my opinion, in line with MJD's suggestion, the most likely suspect is the CMOS battery. Other than that, I would venture to say that your motherboard may be shot. This may be a stretch but, nonetheless, it is definitely a possibility.

You have not provided us with any information about the BSoD screen. This screen is present for a reason. If you can provide the STOP Error message that was presented to you within the BSoD screen, this will pinpoint what may be the cause of your issue. However, as mentioned, I concur with MJD that your CMOS battery may be dead or failing.

[scraber1]

I doubt it becasue of the CMOS battery. I have this board for less then a year. So, what are my reasonable option with this board? I already got a replacement comming in tomarrow.

[mphenterprises]

Do not overestimate the life expectancy of the CMOS battery. Like any electronic device, it can fail without notice. I do not recall if you mentioned whether this is a custom computer or a manufactured computer; however, in either regard, you have no idea how long that CMOS battery was sitting in that motherboard, what condition the CMOS battery was in before it was installed in the motherboard, or whether it was install properly.

The CMOS battery can be replaced every easily at most electronic stores such as Radio Shack or retailer such as Staples, Best Buy, etc. Since you already have a replacement motherboard on order, you might as well get a CMOS battery to cover yourself. If you replace the CMOS battery and all is good, you now have an extra motherboard. I presume the replacement motherboard would have to be returned but still, at least this would save you time.

If it turns out that the CMOS battery replacement does not solve your problem, you already have the replacement motherboard on its way. I am not sure what you mean by your reasonable option. If the replacement motherboard solves this problem, I would assume that you have to return the defective motherboard. Now, if it does not correct your situation, I would be at a loss. We can cross that bride if necessary.

[scraber1]

Yes, i build this computer myself.
And yes i did order another board.

I will test out the CMOS battery by switching with the new board tomarrow.

Also, if i return it to newegg, do you think they will accept it?

It been like 9 month. I doubt they would accept it if there is sign that i have messed with the BIO chip.

[mphenterprises]

OHHHHH...you ordered another motherboard. I figured this was a RMA situation. Well, in that case, I do not believe Newegg would accept the original motherboard after nine months. However, if the CMOS battery turns out to be the culprit, you know have a second motherboard for future endeavors. Keep us posted and good luck.

[scraber1]

Ok,
I got my new board and swapped the battery from the new board to the old. Still didn't work.

So i installed the new board (780i), had some trouble starting it becuase PCI slot 1 must be fill before PCI slot 2 i think. After changing some BIOS settings everything works fine.

Now my OS won't start . I get the blue screen of death saying that, there might be a virues in my hard drive(i'm sure if i reinstalling it will fix it). Is there way i can fix it without reinstalling my OS?

And what about my other hard drives. I got two other hard drives (OS not in either one of these). they were on RAID 0 using "Disk Management". Is there a way I can save those files too? This is more important then the OS hard drive.

[mphenterprises]

Hi Scraber. Okay, half the battle is over.

scraber1 said:

Now my OS won't start . I get the blue screen of death saying that, there might be a virues in my hard drive(i'm sure if i reinstalling it will fix it). Is there
way i can fix it without reinstalling my OS?

I have never seen a BSoD referring to a potentially viral infection....very odd. Can you provide the exact BSoD message? To answer your question, unless you can get that Operating System HDD to boot in Safe Mode, I do not believe there is a way to safely check that hard drive. I stress safely because you can obviously take that drive out and test it as a Slave Drive in another computer but I would only recommend that if you know exactly what you are doing and are using a computer that has no important data.

You could also connect it as an external drive using an enclosure. This would be less evasive and lessen the chance of harm to the other computer.

scraber1 said:

And what about my other hard drives. I got two other hard drives (OS not in either one of these). they were on RAID 0 using "Disk Management". Is
there a way I can save those files too? This is more important then the OS hard drive.

>
>


I do not believe there should be an issue with the other hard drives. Unless whatever malicious file that may be present in the Operating System drive trickled down into the other drives, I do not foresee that you should have a problem. If you can get the computer to boot in Safe Mode, a thorough scan of all drives would not hurt at all.

[scraber1]

Here a quote from anotherforum:
Component Upgrades/Replacements and
the System Builder End-User License
The motherboard is the component that determines whether or not a new
Windows license is required.
• Motherboard upgrades or replacements, for reasons other than a
defect replacement with an identical series motherboard, require a
new operating system license.
• If you are replacing a defective motherboard with an identical
motherboard, a new operating system license is not required.
• If transferring a refurbished PC to a new user, the software license,
media, COA and manuals must all be transferred together.

[smax013]

scraber1 said:

Now my OS won't start . I get the blue screen of death saying that, there might be a virues in my hard drive(i'm sure if i reinstalling it will fix it). Is there way i can fix it without reinstalling my OS?

Windoze does not like it when you change hardware. It makes it "mad". :) At a minimum, you usually have to re-activate the Windoze license, but it can cause BSOD. Is the new MoBo the exact same make and model? If not, then this definitely could the be issue. If it is, then it could be a different "version" of the board (my Gigabyte board that I bought for my computer build is version 2.0, but another forum member, [~22087], bought the same board when it was version 1 or so). If so, then that could be tripping the problem. Typically, the BSOD is due to incompatible drivers still being installed (in theory, if you were able to boot into the OS on the old board and remove all the drivers, then it should not happen, but you would still have to deal with the activation issue).

scraber1 said:

And what about my other hard drives. I got two other hard drives (OS not in either one of these). they were on RAID 0 using "Disk Management". Is there a way I can save those files too? This is more important then the OS hard drive.

Depends. There is a possibility that you might be SOL. It depends on if the new board has a RAID 0 setup and if the RAID 0 setup on the new board is "compatible" with the RAID 0 setup on the old board. If so, then you might be OK. If not, then this is where I could get "preachy" about the virtues of backing up your computer on a regular basis. I will spare you the long sermon and keep it short: backup good, no backup bad. ;)

[mphenterprises]

smax013 said:

I will spare you the long sermon and keep it short: backup good, no backup bad. ;)

Hi SMax. We should really write up a big billboard about this. LOL :D Can you count how many members have come in here specifically because they feel they have lost valuable information one way or another? LOL

(This is by no means a laughing matter for Scraber if he or she lost information but still...)

Scraber said:

Here a quote from another forum:

>

Quote

Component Upgrades/Replacements and
the System Builder End-User License
The motherboard is the component that determines whether or not a new
Windows license is required.
? Motherboard upgrades or replacements, for reasons other than a
defect replacement with an identical series motherboard, require a
new operating system license.
? If you are replacing a defective motherboard with an identical
motherboard, a new operating system license is not required.
? If transferring a refurbished PC to a new user, the software license,
media, COA and manuals must all be transferred together.

>
>



When it comes to licenses and activations, I defer to SMax and RGreen. However, from personal experience, I have never had to buy a new license for my existing computer. I found the exact forum post you referenced but you did not mention that the original poster referred to an OEM installation of Windows XP.

Here is the beginning of the post you referenced:

http://forums.cnet.c...ssageID=2689596

"...to clarify, if you build a computer you can use an OEM installation. If you sell or retire that computer the OEM OS goes with that computer. If you have to REPLACE the motherboard because of damage but can't get the same motherboard for replacement you can get a different one as long as it is essentially the same computer - if it had a P III processor you cannot change to a socket 775 board with a core 2 duo because that is NOT a repair it is a replacement or upgrade."

If you used an OEM version of the Windows Operating System, then I believe this would apply to you. I bought a retail version of both Windows XP and Windows Vista and have them both installed on my computer. As you can see by my signature, (which I should probably update) I finished a major upgrade, which included a new motherboard.

[Kilme]

Hmm, that's odd. When I upgraded from my 939 to my AM2 system, I reinstalled using the same OEM Windows XP I always had. Of course, it didn't like it; it said my activations were used up, and I had to phone Microsoft. I did, talked to a robot for about 5 minutes, and then I was done. It's been working fine ever since. Maybe I just got lucky that I didn't have to talk to a real person?

But really, I find that owning an OEM version of Windows is more hassle than it's worth. If you ever need to buy a new OS, I'd suggest finding a college student who can buy you a retail version for cheap through their school. I might have to pick up another copy of XP, install it on my new system, and then put the OEM version back onto my old system. But something tells me that Microsoft would start to get suspicious of me switching the installation around so much.

[smax013]

Kilme said:

Hmm, that's odd. When I upgraded from my 939 to my AM2 system, I reinstalled using the same OEM Windows XP I always had. Of course, it didn't like it; it said my activations were used up, and I had to phone Microsoft. I did, talked to a robot for about 5 minutes, and then I was done. It's been working fine ever since. Maybe I just got lucky that I didn't have to talk to a real person?

Just beause it is not permitted per the license does not mean it cannot be done. We just cannot talk about on this forum. Beyond that I will note that not all EULA provisions are actually enforceable. I don't know if that portion of the OEM license is enforceable or not (i.e. the license must stay with the computer). I do certainly know that installing on more than one computer at a time, whether Retail, OEM or Upgrade license, is not legal. I see nothing wrong with using the license on that computer if you upgrade your motherboard or processor (even if not due to failure and replacement) as long as you are not using the old motherboard or processor in another computer using the same OS license (i.e. on two computers).