How to upgrade Chaintech SMBIOS?
 

I have a 9JCS Chaintech MOBO.

I downloaded the latest BIOS from Chaintech's site. version 6.0, date 2/25/04. I clicked the icon and it extracted to 9jcs0225.bin file. Now I don't know what to do.

Tip please

I presently have the BIOS that came with MOBO's CD.

Thanks,

Kerry

http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw/Downl.../engBIOSv2.doc

edit:
By the way, don't you mean 9CJS?
And flashing is at your own risk :) I can't be held responsible :D

That's great, thanks,

yes, it's 9CJS.

Kerry

Seems as though this thread is a fast way to talk about 9CJS things. If I should be posting a new question please let me know.

Two bios related problems:

1) I have my bios set so that when I turn on the powerstrip I'm able to press "Any key" (usually I press the space bar) and the computer starts up. But lately it hasn't been working consistently. I'll go into bios and I discover that the setting has changed. I then change it back to "Any key" and it will work for a few starts and then not.

2) Twice lately in the past week I've started, either by pressing the space bar or the power on button on the case and it hangs up on the bios, and it reads, Press F1 to continue. I press F1 and it works as it should thereafter.

Any idea what's causing these problems? Are they related?

Thanks,

Kerry

Is there a way to print out all of my bios settings?
Is there a way to print out all of my driver information?

Thank you,

Kerry

did you overclock you rams or CPU ?
it takes the default settings when you hit F1.

if you press F1 it will use default setting for that bootup. Clear the CMOS, redo the BIOS settings, quit & save.

power down completely and try to boot. If the problem of changing BIOS settings persists contact support, might be a faulty CMOS battery problem

I jmke:

It's constant now, so it must be the batt.

I've posted a trouble ticket to Chaintech but I expect it will take them a week to reply.

Where is the batt located? I never saw one when I was assembling the rig.

Thank you,

Kerry

It's a 3v battery, would be really strange if it's dead already, but you try to swap it.

it's located near PATA IDE controllers
http://www.madshrimps.be/articles/Ch...-jmke-2328.jpg

small round battery next to the speaker

Thanks so much.

I'll wait till I hear from Chaintech (four days since I wrote them) and see what they say. Then I'll open it up and locate the batt and get one at Radio Shack.

On my Mac there was a feature that recorded when it was first started and how many times it had been booted. Is there anything like that with our 9CJS? The reason I ask is that I'd guess I've booted this bugga at least 500 times in the past 10 months. Could that drain the batt quicker?

Kerry

Chaintech's reply:

"Kerrith,

By going into your bios, select Load to Optimized Default, which may work to solve your problem.

Chaintech Tech Support"

Strange that there's no mention of the batt possibly being the problem.

Anyway, I did as they instructed, I selected "Load to Optimized Default," but then I looked in Wake Up Event, Power on Function, and it had changed the setting from "Any Key" to "Button Only." In other words the Any Key option isn't available with "Load to Optimzed" selected.

Is the ID number for the batt in any publication you know of or are all 3.v batts the same? Looking at Chaintech's foldout colored schematic the batt looks to be about the size of a quarter. Am I looking at the right thing? My PC is located under the table so it's a bit of a pain to open it to fetch the batt.

Thanks,

Kerry

Hi jmke:

I finally got around to upgrading the BIOS using your AWDFlash instructions.

Got stuck at a message on the AwardBIOS Flash Utility V823G.

At the bottom it read: "AWD Flash No Support WinNT/2000/XP OS"

The AWD version af824g is Chaintech's most recent.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Kerry

I deleted and completely edited/rewrote this post.

Chaintech's been great today. They immediately emailed me both the newest AWD Flash and BIOS. The English instructions are so correct that such that I think it must be from an English speaking tech.

So, I created a bootable floppy and dragged af829e.exe and 9cjs511.bin to it.

But when I rebooted and inserted at the prompt

A:>af829e.exe 9cjs511.bin I got, "Cannot be run in DOS mode."

So I tried boot, Alt + F2 and voila, it automatically found the 511 version on the floppy.

My BIOS now reads 6.00PG 05/11/2004

Whew, thanks,

Kerry

PS. The turn on using "Any Key" is working again. Must have been the BIOS.

Hi jmke:

Did you ever sell your 9cjs?

I'm thinking of making an emergency backup PC and think it would be smart to have as many duplicate parts as possible. I have a nice old Compaq Presario 5716 case.

One concern I have is that I'd have to buy another set of memory chips. Would a 9cjs take some older memory chips? Obviously I'm not concerned about speed.

Thanks,

Kerry

as long as they are JDEC complaint they should work with the P4 boards, haven't heard of many problems with I875 chipset & memory compatibility.

I sold my 9CJS to Bicker@madshrimps.be this summer

Too bad about the 9cjs.

Thanks for the chip info.

Kerry

biCker is a member of Madshrimps.be ; you can still ask questions here :)

Thanks,

Update on the press Any Key boots:

It worked for about two weeks after upgrading the bios but it now requires me to use the power button on the case. Chaintech replied that it's probably my power supply. Ugh. The 400 watt PS came with the inexpensive case. Do you think they might be right? I checked the batt and it's still good.

Thanks,

Kerry

Update:

BIOS upgrade for Chaintech's 9cjs MOBO, Version 8 (12/29/04), http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw/eng/D...No=4&PISNo=144

Kerry