I would like to do a bios upgrade on my hp 512 n to get the usb ports working. I am runniung Fedora Core 7. Also I would like to be able to stuff a pentium 4 in this machine. This machine has the trigent lomita motherobard. the bios that is in this machine is the Award bios 3.05. I would appreciate the help finding a flash upgrade for this machine.

USB ports ??... they should be working anyway?

Do a google search for bios or bios updates list

there is a site with all info + download links

Click on the "bios" link here to get the latest update for that PC. You will be required to use the .exe in a Windows box to make a floppy which you can use in the Hp 512 in dos mode.
Most manufacturers will also tell you what the bios update fixes, not HP apparently, so this does not mean it will get USB working.

Have you tried enabling USB in the bios?

There does not appear to be any way to enable pci in the bios, but I would really like to be able to install a faster chip and the bios upgrade appears to be necessary.

I would like to be able to get my usb keyboard working in Fedora Core 7. It is a dynex keyboard is it just not compatible.

You don't actually need a window$ box, and you don't need wine either, if you know a trick.

First download your BIOS update, then ...

Two ways:

1A) Easy way:

1B) More difficult, but more applicable, in some cases the above fails:

First install foremost:
http://foremost.sourceforge.net/

Then run this on the exe:
It will carve the pieces out of there and produce an exe and a zip. Extract the zip with 'unzip'.

2)

You'll notice a .bat with the following command:
That's the flash command. All you need to do is copy all the stuff that was unzipped to a DOS boot floppy and then run either the .bat or that command above to update your BIOS. You can check the integrity of the rom by running 'lha t 308.rom', and it will tell you if it is corrupt or not.

NOTE: Flashing the BIOS is dangerous, I take no responsibility for any damage that might come from following the above instructions. Also note that this BIOS was release in 2002-08-15. Are you sure you don't already have it ?

Pretty kool
I learned two things, -t all in Foremost, never used or heard of that one. Extracting the contents of an .exe with foremost, you can be sure I'll play with these two lessons.
The OP said they had version 3.05, so this one is more than likely a revision of the original as it's 3.08 if I remeber correctly.

Yeah, well, I have actually successfully updated a BIOS using this method. The only thing to worry about is data integrity.

If you have Window$ around, use it to update the BIOS, but if not, I think this may be better than using wine.

EDIT: I didn't notice, but in this case this will work as well:

The bios that is already installed in the computer has a date of 2003, does this mean that I already have the most currebt bios, and that it cannot be updated any more than it already is? Maybe running a petium 4 in this motherboard is just not possible.

I've used FreeDos in the past for my bios flashes. Here's a recent howto: http://linuxtidbits.wordpress.com/20...y-cd-in-linux/

paul62 you do realize that by the time you get a new cpu in and fedora 7 up and going- again .That Fedora 11 will be out and 7 will be past it's End Of Life by a year (fedora 8 just hit EOL in jan 09 )

@paul62

It's a good thing you're not jumping in to quickly. If you look at product information for this computer, you'll find there are two mother boards. One has more options for processor upgrades, the other is stricktly for Celeron processors.
The bios manufacturer is different for each. There are many useful links and diagrams to find exactly which you have on this page I posted. Do some investigating before applying the bios update.
The bios update link I provided earlier is for the Greenland mother board only.

indeed, a bad bios update will leave your computer a doorstop, i have done that before myself and it wasn't pretty although i'm surprised the usb ports dont just work, try doing an lspci at a root prompt on that machine and post the output

you should see something like this
if it recognizes the USB

Here is the lspci and now the usb ports are working, but I would still like to get a p4 on this motherboard.

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82810E DC-133 GMCH [Graphics Memory Controller Hub] (rev 03)
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82810E DC-133 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller] (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801AA PCI Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801AA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801AA IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801AA USB Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801AA AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
01:0d.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)