Acer bios erase failure

[ttclark]

I want to upgrade my Acer PowerM8 bios rom R01-B1 to latest R01-C0 for CPU upgrade.

 

The Acer winflash seems to go through the rom flash, but fails " Erase failure.Maybe hardware protected " and then

" FWH rom is write protected. Please make sure whether lockout jumpers is set to correct or not! "

Luckily I saved the original bios file, and I can reload this OK, and the PC reboots OK.

 

I do not know if the PC would have rebooted with the failed bios - I dare not restart.

 

Acer doesn't want to know!

[SYNACK]

You may have to live with the older version, if you can find a slightly older version it might work but it may be safer.

[Geoff]

is there a dos based flash? I've had better luck rebooting to the command line personally. There is too much going on in a running Windows system and I think something gets in the way (drivers I'd guess).

[SYNACK]

is there a dos based flash? I've had better luck rebooting to the command line personally. There is too much going on in a running Windows system and I think something gets in the way (drivers I'd guess).

Just make sure you know the recovery procedure as I have had more brickings in dos. The other thing to check is if there is an update function in the bios itself. Somewhere on here there is also a recovery procedure using a cd with t7he image on it but I must stress that if it fails you need a new motherboard.

[3s-gtech]

There may well be a function in the BIOS which locks updates via the OS out, simply changing the option will allow it to work. These are implemented to prevent rogue Windows programs from writing to the BIOS.

[Geoff]

Yeah, it's usually called 'Antivirus Protection' or something similar?

[ttclark]

Thanks for your input.

I've tried a few things.

There appears to be no bios "lock" in the bios parameters.

There is no Antivirus option in the bios.

 

I decided to try winflash in safe mode (WinXP) and winflash immediately says " Onboard bios is not Award bios! ".

It doesn't do that in full mode ! MSINFO32 says it is Award, but it is supplied by Acer of course.

 

I have got a DOS version, but in light of the message in safe mode I am very wary.

 

I can only find R01-C0 on the Acer site. I know that R01-B4 will take a Athlon 4400+ .

Does anybody out there have an Acer with bios above R01-B1 that they could save with winflash?

 

Cheers