hot swap

Hi, just about to get my long awaited first hot swap under orders. I will of course read all the stuff I got off Ruslan b4 going ahead, I havnt gone thru it for a while. My question is that my first target for repair is a Soltek board based on 133 chipset. When the board went down the pc would stall during post and sit for a very long time b4 booting or being turned off. Is it likly that flashing the boot block of the same chip will solve problem or is it likly the chip will need to be replaed with a new one? Lastly I treid a flash or 2 on the mobo back along and got the pc to boot fine for a while b4 the old problem reoccured.

sounds like you need a new chip (or second hand known good one) Goodluck, I'm still waiting for my hotswap tool..

The latest my posts regarding hot-swaps were:
http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin...light=HotSwaps

and

http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin...light=HotSwaps

But in Your case it may be not needed,though - read my the most recent posts here:
http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin...threadid=43109

May be, that problem can be solved easily enough... ;)
Good luck!

Thanks again for all your help Ruslan, the flash went fine, useing aflash util on the p2b I have. I never got that ziff soket on the board thou as I never found the confidence to start soldering on the asus board and really struggled on all the practice I tried.

Anyway the chip for the Soltek board is flashed and pc has booted many times with no probs but I know from other experience of working on this board that it could take a day or 2 for the old problem 2 reemerge. I used the old chip because I have only 1 other 2meg chip and it has a backup p2b bios on it!! Is there any way of testing this chip and is it the case that the more reboots I do the more likly I will be to more quickly get the prob back if it is gonna return???

Congratulations! ;)

But actually, soldering is not needed for modification of the motherboard...
I use just only 2-3 additional DIP32 sockets (the same ones as it used for holding the BIOS chip on the motherboard).
It is needed for convenience of using mentioned ZIF socket,as
shown on pictures in my posts. (that free-hosting site may be working badly,though - if so, I can e-mail these pictures to You, if You want...)
I have bought them separately (costed me just only something 10-15 US cents each :) ).
But these DIP32 sockets can be soldered out from faulty or outdated motherboards as well...I did it also using a "heat gun"...


About the BIOS chip - what exactly the flash IC type?
(that type is shown usually by flash utility on the top of the screen).
I think, what the problem could be connected with viruses,what can erase the BIOS chip (like Win95.CIH) on the client's computer. Check it, if possible... ;)

Thats worreying about the virus possibility, have you suggested it because of the nature of the original fault? Is it unlikly for a chip to go faulty like that?

Anyway the Flash Type aording to awdflash is
EN EN29F002 NT /5V

I will have a surf around for info on such virus' but any info is much appreciated.

That particular chip type isn't reliable enough... I remember I was having some problem with these chips either...mostly because an older flash utilites worked incorrectly with that particular chip... I have seen also few times bad EON EN29F002 chips...

About Win95.CIH - it was very famous virus, - very fisrt virus, what could destroy the hardware (can erase unprotected BIOS chip). Works only for Win9X and activates only on every 26 of April (some of modifications - every month, but always 26th day).
So, You can ask the customer,what date it happened... ;)

Every modern anti-virus software can detect that virus... at least, must do it...

Cheers Ruslan, the board is actually a friends and it went down almost a year ago, I just replaced mobo for them with ecs k7s5a as the company they got pc from had disappeared and at time I was unaware of bios flashing tips you have provided me. I take it that the virus will trasfere itself normally between floppys etc? If so then I think it is not caused by virus as it would have reinfected the pc and probobly one of mine but have never found this virus.

I presume faulty chip then, but pc contiues to boot no problems...

Have anyone found cheapest place to buy fresh chips in UK?
Edit: badflash want $10 plus postage!!

If the motherboard is working well now, leave it as it is.

There is no point to buy only one chip, IMHO. You can get good price buying it directly from the chip manufacturer, especially in case of the bulk order (it is not nesessary looking for exactly the same chip either).

So, I would rather recommend to buy faulty motherboard for couple - five bucks max. Just only make sure flash chip is still good (at least recognizable by flash utility, and better, if it will be 2 Mbit chip). Sometimes You even can get it for free...

Then bit later You can try to repair that motherboard as well, and so on... :D

By the way, mentioned virus erases not only BIOS chip, but also first 2 megabytes one the harddrive (so, partition tables also), i.e. killing itself...:D

As for spare chip, I would recommend (as less problematic):
Winbond 29EE020 (or 29C020),
Atmel 29C020,
SST 29EE020.
These 2 Mbit chips are having no hardware boot blocks and can be used in any of modern motherboards...

Besides that, You can built mentioned in my posts PLCC-to-DIP converter for reflashing chips in PLCC package.

Thanks, I have already put ads in local paper for defunct boards ;) but would like a few spares that I know for sure are fine! Thanks for details on chips to buy, I will try and get these if poss.

Would you say that continued survival of the Soltek mobo in question is due to the reflashing of boot block? I know that when I flashed the chip in its original board useing awdflash then the boot block would have been left unflashed, and now it has had this flashed. But does that explain why after a flash in the original board the unit appeared to behave normally for a lot longer than it had done b4? To me it dosnt, perhaps I must expect it to fail again. I will boot a lot of times b4 I try to sell it I guess :)

Quote:

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Originally posted by vapd
Would you say that continued survival of the Soltek mobo in question is due to the reflashing of boot block? I know that when I flashed the chip in its original board useing awdflash then the boot block would have been left unflashed, and now it has had this flashed. But does that explain why after a flash in the original board the unit appeared to behave normally for a lot longer than it had done b4?

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Yesss, exactly!! The old boot-block could be not 100% compatible with rest of new BIOS' content.
That's the main reason,IMHO, why after seemed to sucsessfully finished BIOS update (especially using awdflash :uke: ) motherboard can refuse to boot at all!
I could say even more - I have personally seen it quite a few times! Fortunately for me, I know, how to return it back...:) ...and now You also know... ;)