I have the asus a8n sli deluxe

I do not have windows, and have not owned a copy of windows in 5 years

I need to update my bios in order to add support for a dual core cpu, I plan to upgrade soon.

asus only has a winflash utility for windows, no dos utility

I have a dos disk that boots and would work if there were a dos utlity.

once again no windows, and no intention to get windows.

gentoo linux, custom build

does anyone know if the winflash utlity will work in wine or winex?

does anyone know of a linux or dos based utility that will update the bios on this model board?

You can also update the BIOS from a floppy or CD-ROM. Read the "fine" manual - the procedure to update the BIOS without the OS is in the "fine" manual for the motherboard.

Start reading section 1.3.3 of the motherboard manual for an overview of this feature, for example.

Section 4.1.4 covers it in detail.

Amazing what one discovers when doing the basics - like reading the manual. Heck, you could glean this feature from Asus' marketing material -- or from the box.

well, I eather need to corrupt my bios so it can search a cd drive, or go buy a floppy drive and drill a new drive slot in my case for the ez flash utility.

thank you though.

No, you don't need to corrupt the BIOS to use that feature. You need to read the "fine" manual.

You don't need to drill new holes in your case, either - the floppy drive will work perfectly well hooked up temporarily and just hung out of the side of the case. I've done it several times without problems.

ok, well turns out the dos program I was using on an el-torito boot image on a cd worked, however I still cannot do the update.. let me elaborate:

KimVette: No, you don't need to corrupt the BIOS to use that feature. You need to read the "fine" manual.
alt+f2 only lets you go from floppy. the other one is automatic upon corruption or loss of bios eather way it will not work, see below:

Lim45: I borrowed a floppy drive and have done this, hanging it out of the case.

Despite all this I cannot update my bios at this time it seems:

to initially update I tried using a boot image on a bootable cd-rw, it booted, I ran the utility that was specified (awdflash.exe) and gave it the bios bin. it gave me a checksum error, I re-downloeded the bin file and tried again, same. I figured it was the utility and checked asus website, the website only provided the winflash utility for this board (I got awdflash from the awardbios website).

After I was told to read the manual in the selected places. I found that when bios were corrupt or bad you could use the original cd, or a floppy with a bios image. The original cd bios was not an update and did not help, I hung a floppy drive from my case and tried again. I used alt+f2 to go tot the bios update utility in the bios itself. Checksum error again... so I thaught ok, this bios was just released, I am at rev 1011, there is 1013, 1014, 1015, and 1016. I will just try 1015, downloaded, put on floppy.... checksum error.... I went through all and was finally able to update my bios to 1013, figured ok, now the others will work... no go, could not update past 1013.... this of cource made me mad. I then discovered that on top of this, 1013 hung just after the ata-raid controller initilised meaning no boot... I tried a cmos clear, still nothing, so I reverted to old vbios (alt+f2 without image) got down to 1006... boot worked now. so I tried from here with the higher bios. 1016 and 1015 still no go. 1014 wroked this time (got checksum before) so now I am at 1014, it boots propely, but higher bios versions still guive me checksum errors weathe rin dos or built-in utlity. have tried a couple of floppy's to make sure it is not a disk problem.

So I am stuck now, I need a higher bios, but cannot install them. I have searched google and asus forums, many people have checksum errors, but all are after the bios is intalled, I could not find a solved reference to my problem.

Actually it does work. I don't bother with DOS boot disks to update Asus boards which have crashfree. Ever. I make a CD and use that. If you follow the directions, it will work (fancy that!)

You may also need to read the readme file which comes with the BIOS and it will tell you what the file on the CD has to be named - or you can go by the filename for the ROM image file you see on the CD which came with the motherboard.

Why didn't I bother posting the step-by-step instructions here? Because it's already in TFM.

you know what, I read that part of the manual 2 times after this post of yours, because reading your post made me feel stupid, but after reading that part of the manual so many times now I no longer feel stupid, I feel that you are probably right about it working, but wrong about how clear the directions are and are using some of your knowledge to prevent you from realising the manual might be missing as little as one sentance to fully clarify it. this is why most manuals are bad, because the peopel that right them assume some knowledge is a given.

Now anyway the key point here is not geting itnot he bios utility, the key point is that fromt he begining my problem was a checksum error in the bios update file, nto the utility, so weather I can get to the part you are talking about is a NON-ISSUE.

If you wish to refute my last post go for it, only a looser would say I am stoping this here before you have your chance, but instead of fillign this forum with posts unrelated/obsolete tot he current issue fo a checksum error please send me private responses via the linux questions message system. We can discuss this ina more appropreate place....


Anyone have this experience with the checksum error?

USE A CD.

Floppies suck. You tried several floppies, but did you think that possibly the heads in the drive are dirty or bad? Did you try a different drive? Did you even TRY a CD?