Hi Stefan

Thanks for your feedback.
Please see my extra questions within the mail body further down.

BR, Eduardo

On 12/24/2014 01:43 AM, Stefan Tauner wrote:
On Mon, 22 Dec 2014 19:46:41 +0100
Eduardo de Juan <eduardo.de-juan@adslmail.es> wrote:


Hi Stefan

Thanks for your reply.

I've verified, as you stated, that the file I downloaded from Shuttle's 
web page has the same size as the bios file I backed up, exactly the 
same, 524.288 !

I've also found that the versión from the web seems to be the same as I 
already have installed,

    BIOS Information
             Vendor: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
             Version: 6.00 PG
             Release Date: 02/14/2006
             Address: 0xE0000
             Runtime Size: 128 kB
             ROM Size: 512 kB


Is it normal that the BIOS has not neede to be updated since 2006 ?

It is normal that manufacturers do not provide updates very long due to
economical reasons and because they simply don't care... (that's one
the big advantages of coreboot ;)

You mean I could replace by present BIOS with coreboot ?
Would that provide me with a better (more functional) BIOS (firmware) ?
I.e. would it then be able to boot from USB ?

However I've checked the suported boards but I think mine is not there.

According to the dmidecode output my board is a
Base Board Information
    Manufacturer: Shuttle Inc
    Product Name: FN21V10
    Version: 
    Serial Number: 
............
Processor Information
    Socket Designation: Socket 939
    Type: Central Processor
    Family: Athlon 64
    Manufacturer: AMD
Output from flasrom

Found chipset "NVIDIA MCP51".
This chipset is marked as untested. If you are using an up-to-date version
of flashrom *and* were (not) able to successfully update your firmware with it,
then please email a report to flashrom@flashrom.org including a verbose (-V) log.
Thank you!
Enabling flash write... OK.
Found SST flash chip "SST49LF004A/B" (512 kB, FWH) at physical address 0xfff80000.
No operations were specified.




Can it be that my box is so old that it's not able to boot from a USB 
stick ?
I've tried to boot my office laptop with the same USB and it booted.

There are a number of ways to boot from USB devices and compatibility
problems are (or at least were) quite common. The hardware is able to
boot from USB for sure, but the firmware might have some quirks...