On Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:49:18 +0200 István Rétallér istvan.retaller@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Stefan thanks for your feedback. Let me put down my story, it may be useful for others: Not all *.bin files are appropriate to download! If you think so, maybe a warning should be done on your site. As Abit has disappeared, I downloaded a self-extracting file from a secondary site. http://www.updatesdriver.com/download/5918/Abit%20Abit%20NF7%20Bios%20v%2028/Abit%20NF7-M%20Bios%20v%2028/Ab.../ It contained the BIOS upgrade called nf7_28.BIN and others: nf728/RUNME.BAT,1KB,2004-9-29 16:10:52 nf728/NF7_28.TXT,2KB,2004-9-29 16:14:54 nf728/nf7_28.BIN,512KB,2004-9-22 17:52:50 nf728/AWDFLASH.EXE,43KB,2004-3-9 11:44:12 nf728/ABITFAE.BAT,2KB,2000-12-27 9:59:04 When as I examined the dump I have found strange that page 0 of the chip consists nearly 0xFF - however still at the beginning there was the "Phoenix BIOS" string exactly as it was written in my chip. To be sure about the content I have downloaded it from two fifferent sites, one of them was http://www.omicron.hu/?oldal=support&p=/driver-ek/alaplap/abit/nf7/bios/... I have forgotten the address of the other site. I compared the files of different origins and all of them were bitwise identical. But I was not quiet due to the strange structure and asked a friend of mine about it. I supposed the flash pages are somehow mixed and are mixed back during the flash process. He couldn't answer as he always used AWDFLAX.EXE to refresh BIOS, but he also said it seems to be a good BIOS, however the structure is really strange.
So I downloaded it by using flashprog. I have read back and it was ok - until I have tried to reboot. :)))
After a week hunting for another NF7 motherboard I could make my mothherboad work again. (We applied hot-swap chip change.)
So let me suggest you to take a warning to your site: Not all *.bin files are appropriate to download!
Let me send my warm congratulation about your work, it is a grea idea and a nice job!
hello again!
so basically flashrom works as intended on the abit nf7? you have used the wrong file the first time, but were able to recover it with hot flashing. which file did you use then? the backup, the content of the flash chip of the second board or some other file? do you know the exact revision of the board? there should be a sticker near the pci slots with that information on it.