Need help before flashing BIOS...

[harmonicsa]

Okay. My computer is royally screwed up. I leave it on one night come the next morning it is stuck in a continuous reboot cycle. I try to do a repair install with the Win XP CD and I get a blue screen error about 2 minutes into the beginning where it is installing drivers. I took it to a repair shop and they told me they hooked it up as a slave and tried to access the HD and it wouldn't come up and that the HD was bad. So I get a replacement HD under Western Digital's advanced warranty program, install the new HD, boot up and try to install Win XP only to get another blue screen error, this time with different tech information. The message says something about disabling caching and shadowing in the BIOS, so I looked around in BIOS for some options that had to do with caching or shadowing. I couldn't find anything on shadowing but I saw an option to do with caching, so I disable that option. I also changed one of the options that had to do with the graphics. The option I switched to was "Internal VGA" (but I can't remember what the exact option was). Anyhow, now after it posts, it goes straight to a blank screen with a cursor in the top left corner. Even when I try to enter BIOS setup it goes to the blank screen. I'm stuck here. My friend suggested I flash the BIOS but I've never done it and need some advice. The barebones system I have is HERE. I noticed "EZ Flash BIOS" under the Features section. I am at ASUS website but I don't know what to d/l in order to flash the BIOS. I figured I could put something on a floppy disk but the problem is how do I access the floppy disk on a computer that I can't boot up past the POST? I don't know what to do... am STUCK. Help? :\

-James

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

You changed the primary graphics adapter to be the onboard one - and you have onboard graphics? In that case, plug the monitor to the onboard graphics adapter and change the setting back from BIOS.

Another option would be clearing the CMOS data, ie. resetting the BIOS to default settings. You'll need to switch the PSU off to turn standby voltage off, and then switch the "clear CMOS" jumper on for a few seconds and then back.

 

[harmonicsa]

All the computer has is onboard so thats what I use... I tried changing the jumper for CMOS to reset it and now I'm stuck at "Bad BIOS checksum" and it keeps installing the BIOS rom file tells me to reboot and comes back to screen with "Bad BIOS checksum" and reinstalls and cycles over and over...

 

[harmonicsa]

P.S. This happened after I tried to "EZ Flash" the BIOS from a CD that came with the computer with the rom file on it. Told me to press Alt F2 at POST and it came up and tried to reinstall the BIOS rom file. Thats where I got stuck in Bad BIOS checksum. At that point I then tried to reset CMOS jumpers to no avail.... just fyi.

 

[mailpup]

You might try changing the CMOS battery. Although they last a long time, yours might be failing.