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Registered Member #127
Joined: Fri Feb 10 2006, 03:36PM
Location: Cincinnati, OH - USA
Posts: 44
Can you actually get the chip off the board? If it is socketed it it looks like it might be pretty easy to build your own programmer for it. You could probably whip up a programmer with some shift registers and a parallel port with no problem since you just need an 18-bit address, 8 bits of data, and some control signals.
For this kind of thing I would look into the 74595 or similar. Use a couple of the parallel port's 8 bits to serially shift the data out and control the latches on the shift register (for shifting out the address and data bits. Use a couple more of the parallel data bits for the 29F002 control signals. The code should be pretty easy to whip up as well.
Then you just need a good BIOS image and you have a working lappy.
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
Building your own programmer strikes me as a pain in the butt. I wrote code for our DSP board at work so it could erase and reprogram its own boot ROM (an AT29C010) in-circuit, and it was a fiddle.
If you can get the BIOS chip off the board, you can have a friend with a programmer flash it for you. (I'd do it, but I managed to destroy the programmer at work, and it's never been fixed or replaced.)
Or, you could replace it with a newer flash ROM that is pin-compatible, but that you are able to program.
Registered Member #65
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:43AM
Location:
Posts: 1155
What BP said is true.... Your best bet is tracing the Chip Enable pins for both chips and toggle two switches to swap.
Some reprogramming software will verify the BIOS first and will fail if does not match a known value. There is generic BIOS programming software out there, I don't think its too risky given your situation.
Also note some BIOS chips have a built in "Safe Mode" such that if the BIOS CRC fails it will boot a MSDOS disk from a floppy to run the updater software when the power is connected. (saw this once and only once)
First try removing the battery, unplug the power, and boot. (even new APM systems lock up)
Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061
Thanks CR.. Tried that and all that happens is the CPU gets very hot, fans spin up to full speed and nothing else. Even the battery meter is blank!
looks like i programmed it with the bios (sent by the manufacturers) for a different model so even the failsafe code fails to work. If I had another identical laptop it would be a doddle to fix but no such luck.
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BIOS reprogrammer?
