On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:57:57 +0100 "Peter A. Braun" peter.braun@pab-braun.de wrote:
Hi Stefan,
thank you very much for your kind reply. Wow. I really appreciate the level of detail. I were glad flashrom-community would evaluate my humble report as useful. Thank you very much.
Now coming back to your points:
- Next mails will not come in HTML but plain text. I hope changes in my mail setup/initialization file work well. Otherwise I need a hint to correct mail systems' features.
- Your assumptions concerning the meaning of "works fine" and the interpretation of update information are correct.
- Following your proposal to reset the CMOS chip I used a jumper on my MB as stated in the MSI manual. Analyzing the BIOS afterwards I found most of parameters were reset to default, but e.g. internal BIOS time hadn't been affected. What does your experience recommend? Do you think this behavior is correct or should I remove the battery additionally?
sounds normal, and removing the battery would most probably reset the real time clock too. if there is other data retained by the battery... i dont know. trying if it help/change anything, wont hurt, even if i doubt it.
- Using MSI tools to flash BIOS is not a good idea, because e.g. MSIHQ set off virus alarms (12 of 40 findings by virustotal.com analyzing the unpacked MSIHQ tool).
might still be a false positive... i deem AV products to be snake oil. maybe the bios can update itself from USB? f9 at startup on my intel/ami bios.
- Going back to the old version is not such a good idea. You need to know -sorry for not mentioning it earlier- I had some trouble with the USB 3.0 ports. Removing or adding HD hot plugged led sometimes to blue screens (W7). That's what I want to improve by using a newer BIOS.
your choice what is more important to you...
- I had not generated a backup copy of the old BIOS, as I have a second board of same type and age in place. I will use its BIOS if I decide to go back to the old version with the other board. Otherwise I will back up the BIOS of this test board by a different SW. By the way, does flashrom support backing up the BIOS?
flashrom -r <backupfilename> reads out the flash content and stores it in a file which can later be written back.