Problems flashing an older motherboard(ms6156 Ver. 1.0 BX7)

[blakerwry]

I have a MSI "ms6156 Ver. 1.0 BX7" motherboard (Verified by looking at the silkscreen label on the mobo).. It's an old slot1 66/100mHz board that I would like to flash.

However, I keep getting the error "the program file's part number does not match with your system" when I'm just starting to flash the motherboard using the Award Flash utility.

I have tried the MSI "AWFL783M.EXE" as well as the newest version of "AWDFLASH.exe" that I could find. Both give me the same error, however the formentioned one freezes when it shows the error and the latter simply exits back to DOS.

The reason I'd like to flash the board is because I recently upgraded the pii 400mHz to a pIII 650mHz. The pIII is only recognized as a 600mHz and is also stated to have 0 L2 cache in the BIOS setup screen.

MSI states that with the newest BIOS this board should be able to take any 100mHz slot1 CPU (which includes copermine pIII's upto 1gHz).

Does anybody have any suggestions on how to flash this board? AWDflash didn't seem to have any switches to force the flashing of a BIOS. I've tried with MSI's switches "AWFL783M w6156ims.160 /SN /PY /CP /CD /CC /R /LD", the "/F" switch, and with no switches at all.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

You could always just order a new bios chip.

 

[Tannin]

To possibilities occur to me, BW. One is htt your existing BIOS is corrupt or the chip is damaged, or there is a malfunction in the main board. It's not uncommon to be unable to flash a BIOS, and to get that exact error message. Second possibility is that they have substituted some different parts and you need a different, undocumented BIOS for your particular board. I don't know which of these two is more likely, but being unable to flash is moderately common.

 

[blakerwry]

well, what do you think about this...

On boot the bios says 600mhz pentium III, in the bios setup it lists the CPU as having 0 L2 cache. However, windows recognizes the chip as being a ~651mhz PIII and having 256kb L2 cache... win CPU ID says that it's clock speed is 651.46mHz

1)
Now, I believe that all pIII's had multiplier locks on them and I know my mobo is running in 100mHz FSB mode. SO, I assume that would mean that the processor is actually running in 650mHz and my mobo just doesn't recognize it correctly. Is this assumption correct?

2)
I was kind of surprised to see that the BIOS recognized 0 L2 cahce... I am less knowlegeable on this one... is it possible that the CPU has L2 cache and the BIOS would basically ignore it and leave it unused? Is there a way that I could test to see if my L2 cache is working properly?

 

[Tannin]

There are quite a few specialised cache testing packages around, many of them available for download, but I'd just use a good old-fashioned brute-force method. Find a benchmark utility that measures CPU speed (it really doesn't need to be anything fancy) and compare your system with a similar one. It's quite possibly running at the correct speed. BIOS support for different-clock speeds is a no-issue as a rule; it's only the purely cosmetic factor of what it says on start-up that is affected.