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Home / I-Opener Areas / I-Opener Technical Stuff HOT FLASH BIOS hot flash routine

HOT FLASH (modified 0 times) Rezz Profile | Email No I'm not talking about aging women. I need a little help with hot flashing the BIOS. From what I believe I've put together on this the basic process goes like this; 1) Place two threads under the BIOS chip (an X patern diagonal) 2) Boot the machine. 3) Using the threads gently lift the BIOS chip out. 4) Carefully insert the second BIOS chip. Now this is where the process breaks down. How do I flash the chip? What software is required? What is the next step? 01-26-2003 20:20:33

RE:HOT FLASH (modified 0 times) BadFlash Profile | Email Be advised that this is pretty dangerous. It can and does result in blown up IOPENERS. Use dental floss, not thread. You must already have a unit that is hackable with a bios that can be booted from. The basic process is to bootup from a hard drive with the iopener image and a flash utility in command prompt only. At that point you can swap chips and hope you don't smoke the sucker doing it. Now you run the flash utility and update the bios, reboot, and you have it. Use AWDFLASH.EXE 6.31 and use normal flashing procedures. 01-27-2003 17:52:16

RE:HOT FLASH (modified 0 times) Rezz Profile | Email Thanks Badflash I was wondering if it would be possible to do this in Windows using the Award WinFlash. Use the Bablefish translator (Korean to English) to read the page. 01-27-2003 23:58:53

RE:HOT FLASH (modified 0 times) BadFlash Profile | Email I get loads of customers as a result of using winflash. I doubt you'd do anything other than scamble your unit. 01-28-2003 18:07:47

RE:HOT FLASH (modified 0 times) redwood Profile hahahaha, thats funny! .... but, I just heard Leo Laport on techtv say the Same Thing... he keeps that computer as a Doorstop, to _remind him, Not to flash using windows... 01-28-2003 21:45:08

RE:HOT FLASH (modified 0 times) Rezz Profile | Email Thanks for the heads up, I appreciate it. but my philosophy is; "This is an educational hobby and you can't learn if you don't pay your dues. Plus what have I got to lose anyway, a mother board at most. Maybe you will get another customer, lets find out 01-29-2003 00:56:13

RE:HOT FLASH (modified 1 times) dawson Profile | Email It's actually not too difficult to hotflash. I had a V3 that I used to flash a V5 BIOS chip, and it was pretty straightforward. First I backed up the V3 BIOS. What I did next was have the V3 ready first by removing the BIOS chip, tying some floss in a "X" pattern to grasp it easier (do this also with the other to-be-flashed chip), and reseating it partially back into the socket so it would be easier to remove. Make sure it looks like it's contacting all contacts normally. I boot up the system to DOS, got the flashing program ready (make sure you have the power button safely protected from accidentally powering down), popped out the BIOS with a little help from a jewelry screwdriver and floss, inserted the new BIOS chip straightdown so all contacts touch at once (more or less), saved the original BIOS, then flashed away. No problems. dawson 02-02-2003 12:20:56

RE:HOT FLASH (modified 0 times) Wild_Pencil Profile | Email It's not difficult, but it can sure suck if you're unlucky. Trust me -- I've hotflashed probably a few hundred times while testing my BIOS work, and I've killed 5 chips thus far. 02-03-2003 23:29:01

RE:HOT FLASH (modified 0 times) dawson Profile | Email ... which makes buying the BIOS chip from Badflash that much more appealing! Unless you don't mind risking your I-Opener becoming a D-Oorstopper (or BIOS chip a useless chip!), be cautious and forewarned! dawson 02-04-2003 00:32:48

RE:HOT FLASH (modified 0 times) Rezz Profile | Email I didn't really mind the risk (it wasn't my machine) but the owner was a little uneasy about it since he has a V5, WinFlash is evidently very unstable and no-where on this board does it mention that UniFlash will work on an i-o of any version. Consequently the opportunity went away. There is another side issue here however. My i-o is a V3b with all the goop intact. I have no qualms with slicing, dicing, soldering etc. but removing the goop seems .... well like addmitting to failure. The goop is so symbolic of the battle that everyone here went through that the only way to really feel the success of victory is to do "ALL" the hacks without touching the goop. I originally Flashed the BIOS with the QNX-Flash that a member on this board wrote. It's now time to do the K6+ overclock and I think I'm going to try UniFlash. Actually I have used UniFlash to make a backup copy of my existing BIOS on my V3b i-0. But I have not tried to flash the BIOS yet. Granted I have a few things to do to the board first not to mention figure out a way to get an image of the V540a BIOS. since it is only available on a chip that creates a bit of a delimina. No I'm not asking someone to post it to the wild. I value both BadFlash and Wild_pencil's efforts and do not wish to loose either of them. Any suggest 02-04-2003 13:49:29

RE:HOT FLASH (modified 0 times) Lincoln_man Profile The goop isn't that big of a problem. Take your soldering iron and slowly heat and scrape. It will be like plowing thick mud. You will be able to cut through it and not mess up anything else too bad. Take a pick and work out around the edges and pins. Take your time you'll get it out. The rest of us have. 02-04-2003 15:37:25

RE:HOT FLASH (modified 0 times) Rezz Profile | Email I have no concern over removing the goop after all the worst that could happen is that I would break something.... big whoopie. The point is that I want to KEEP the goop because of the irony. I'm want to do all of the hacks without touching the "HACKER STOPPING GOOP" 02-04-2003 19:18:31

RE:HOT FLASH (modified 1 times) dawson Profile | Email http://briefcase.yahoo.com/wild_pencil Wild Pencil has so kindly posted his hard work for all the enjoy. Use the flashing program everyone else uses. I heard that winflash is a no no. dawson 02-04-2003 22:51:09

HOT FLASH (modified 1 times) Rezz Profile | Email Thank you Dawson However, Wild_Pencil did not post the V540a, only the V540. The difference is that the V540 does not support the K6+ processors The V540a is only available from Badflash, and then only on a chip, thus the delima. 02-04-2003 23:03:00

RE:HOT FLASH (modified 0 times) Rezz Profile | Email Thank you BadFlash for posting the link to the V5.40a BIOS 02-09-2003 00:40:17

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