Mayday Mayday...Black Screen of Death!!
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Mayday Mayday...Black Screen of Death!!
Hi Guy's,
As you have helped me out many times before, I thought this would be the best place to turn to in my moment of trauma.
I am desparate to find and answer to the fact that I down loaded a BIOS update from Medion.de this evening, and after much faffing about managed to get it to install succesfully, or so I thought, when I rebooted I got a two tone bleep from the motherboard, which I am told is an error code, and the black screen of death!! Absolutely zilch.
I have the original BIOS on a floppy, but trying to rename it as the new file and hope that the Autoexec.bat might install the old one has proved fruitless.
Motherboard is an MSI 6382 running V6 BIOS. Medion MT5.
Help please........!!
As you have helped me out many times before, I thought this would be the best place to turn to in my moment of trauma.
I am desparate to find and answer to the fact that I down loaded a BIOS update from Medion.de this evening, and after much faffing about managed to get it to install succesfully, or so I thought, when I rebooted I got a two tone bleep from the motherboard, which I am told is an error code, and the black screen of death!! Absolutely zilch.
I have the original BIOS on a floppy, but trying to rename it as the new file and hope that the Autoexec.bat might install the old one has proved fruitless.
Motherboard is an MSI 6382 running V6 BIOS. Medion MT5.
Help please........!!
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Sorry, it's dead. If the BIOS didn't update properly it is now impossible to boot the motherboard so it can't be fixed.
Your only options are to try and get a replacement BIOS chip for the motherboard or buy a new motherboard.
Your only options are to try and get a replacement BIOS chip for the motherboard or buy a new motherboard.
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Thread Starter
Thanks Orac,
I had hoped that I could download another BIOS and get the motherboard to read it on boot up from the floppy, but if it takes specialist equipment to load a new BIOS then I'm done for!
If anyone has any tricks in hand I would be gratefull.
I guess on the same quest can anyone suggest a good motherboard that would support the following:
AMD Athlon 1.6+
768mb Ram
80gb Hard drive.
CD-RW
DVD
Creatix 56K modem
Nvidea Gforce 3 ti200...........
..................and not go chest up at the slightest excuse!
Thanks again for all the support that comes from these pages.
I had hoped that I could download another BIOS and get the motherboard to read it on boot up from the floppy, but if it takes specialist equipment to load a new BIOS then I'm done for!
If anyone has any tricks in hand I would be gratefull.
I guess on the same quest can anyone suggest a good motherboard that would support the following:
AMD Athlon 1.6+
768mb Ram
80gb Hard drive.
CD-RW
DVD
Creatix 56K modem
Nvidea Gforce 3 ti200...........
..................and not go chest up at the slightest excuse!
Thanks again for all the support that comes from these pages.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Lots of boards out there. Make sure it supports your memory type. If you want safety in numbers get a Gigabyte board with 2 onboard BIOS chips so you always have a back up. Might I suggest the Gigabyte GA-7VRXP. 
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BB, may I ask a couple of obvious questions?
Firstly, can you boot from a simple DOS Boot Floppy?
Second, if the answer to the first is "yes", can you interrupt the boot to got to BIOS setup?
Mostly, BIOSs allow you to go to Manufacturers defaults in cases like this. (F9 or F10 usually).
It does sound somewhat extreme to condemn the poor old MB to death because of a glitch in a BIOS update.
Firstly, can you boot from a simple DOS Boot Floppy?
Second, if the answer to the first is "yes", can you interrupt the boot to got to BIOS setup?
Mostly, BIOSs allow you to go to Manufacturers defaults in cases like this. (F9 or F10 usually).
It does sound somewhat extreme to condemn the poor old MB to death because of a glitch in a BIOS update.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
fobotcso,
The following is the Microstar recovery procedure for the Award BIOS on the 6382 ( I am presuming it is the award BIOS):
------------------------------
BIOS Recovery Feature
For AMI BIOS
Rename the desired AMI BIOS file to AMIBOOT.ROM and save it on a floppy disk. e.g. Rename A569MS23.ROM to AMIBOOT.ROM
Insert this floppy disk in the floppy drive. Turn On the system and press and hold Ctrl-Home to force update. It will read the AMIBOOT.ROM file and recover the BIOS from the A drive.
When 4 beeps are heard you may remove the floppy disk and restart the computer.
For Award BIOS
Make a bootable floopy disk
Copy the Award flash utility & BIOS file to the said floppy disk
Create an autoexec.bat with "awdfl535 biosfilename" in the content e.g. awdfl535 a619mj21.bin
Boot up system with the said floppy (it will take less than 2 minutes before screen comes out)
Re-flash the BIOS & reboot.
----------------------------------------
But from his comments ("I have the original BIOS on a floppy, but trying to rename it as the new file and hope that the Autoexec.bat might install the old one has proved fruitless."), it looks like he has already tried that and the board won't load/boot the floppy drive. in which case, there is no way into it.
The two beeps do not match either company's normal BIOS check codes:
Beep Codes
The following is the Microstar recovery procedure for the Award BIOS on the 6382 ( I am presuming it is the award BIOS):
------------------------------
BIOS Recovery Feature
For AMI BIOS
Rename the desired AMI BIOS file to AMIBOOT.ROM and save it on a floppy disk. e.g. Rename A569MS23.ROM to AMIBOOT.ROM
Insert this floppy disk in the floppy drive. Turn On the system and press and hold Ctrl-Home to force update. It will read the AMIBOOT.ROM file and recover the BIOS from the A drive.
When 4 beeps are heard you may remove the floppy disk and restart the computer.
For Award BIOS
Make a bootable floopy disk
Copy the Award flash utility & BIOS file to the said floppy disk
Create an autoexec.bat with "awdfl535 biosfilename" in the content e.g. awdfl535 a619mj21.bin
Boot up system with the said floppy (it will take less than 2 minutes before screen comes out)
Re-flash the BIOS & reboot.
----------------------------------------
But from his comments ("I have the original BIOS on a floppy, but trying to rename it as the new file and hope that the Autoexec.bat might install the old one has proved fruitless."), it looks like he has already tried that and the board won't load/boot the floppy drive. in which case, there is no way into it.
The two beeps do not match either company's normal BIOS check codes:
Beep Codes
Last edited by ORAC; 18th Jul 2002 at 23:47.
Plastic PPRuNer
Hmmm... All may well be lost, but just maybe not. Dissection of 382v152m.exe which is the 1.52 S3 BIOS file for the MSI 6382 from Medion shows the Award flasher, so your mobo must have an Award bios. For 2 beeps try reseating the memory before anything else.
Your PC SHOULD have a boot-block BIOS which means that there is a small section that isn't normally overwritten and which supports a floppy ONLY (If you have a PCI video card you won't see anything on the screen because the boot-block BIOS only supports an ISA videocard), so this means that you may be running blind, but never mind, you can get round that. But check your mobo documentation to see if there is a BootBlock Protection jumper (usually not).
Make a bootable floppy and check that it boots properly on another PC. Then unpack 382v152m.exe onto the floppy - you should see 4 files, an AUTOEXEC.BAT, AWFL789.EXE, LIESMICH[readme].TXT AND W6382VM7.MED
Their autoexec.bat is:
@echo off
cls
echo. start flashing BIOS ?
pause
awfl789 W6382vm7.med /Py /Sn /Cd /Cp /Cc /E /R
strip it down to the last line only, i.e.
awfl789 W6382vm7.med /Py /Sn /Cd /Cp /Cc /E /R
Insert and boot from cold, pray the bootblock catches the floppy (you have Scandisk'ed it carefully on Surface Scan haven't you?). Pray very hard.
Read http://www.wimsbios.com/HTML1/faq.html and see http://www.plasma-online.de/index.ht...ios_flash.html to see what AWDFLASH command line arguments are to get more tips. Since your old BIOS has been saved you may be able to restore it (renaming as you did may not work), substitute whatever name it was given for W6382vm7.med in the above autoexec.
For AMI and Award BIOSes you MAY be able to clear a corrupt BIOS by creating a bootable floppy as before, copying DEBUG.EXE to it and executing the following script from the DOS prompt if you have one.
A
DEBUG
-O 70 17
-O 71 17
Q
or, if you're "blind" as you seem to be, copy the following lines to a text file (use the DOS Editor if you can, rather than Notepad)
-O 70 17
-O 71 17
Q
and name the file debug.scr (doesn't matter what you name it so long as you have an autoexec.bat that calls it, to whit:
debug < debug.scr > debug.out
That SHOULD wipe your BIOS and you can start afresh as above (debug.out is just a text file that contains everything that DEBUG would have displayed on your screen).
Once the BIOS is up, you'll probably have to tinker with all the settings to get your kit to work, try "set to BIOS defaults", reboot and work from there.
Good luck and let us know.
Your PC SHOULD have a boot-block BIOS which means that there is a small section that isn't normally overwritten and which supports a floppy ONLY (If you have a PCI video card you won't see anything on the screen because the boot-block BIOS only supports an ISA videocard), so this means that you may be running blind, but never mind, you can get round that. But check your mobo documentation to see if there is a BootBlock Protection jumper (usually not).
Make a bootable floppy and check that it boots properly on another PC. Then unpack 382v152m.exe onto the floppy - you should see 4 files, an AUTOEXEC.BAT, AWFL789.EXE, LIESMICH[readme].TXT AND W6382VM7.MED
Their autoexec.bat is:
@echo off
cls
echo. start flashing BIOS ?
pause
awfl789 W6382vm7.med /Py /Sn /Cd /Cp /Cc /E /R
strip it down to the last line only, i.e.
awfl789 W6382vm7.med /Py /Sn /Cd /Cp /Cc /E /R
Insert and boot from cold, pray the bootblock catches the floppy (you have Scandisk'ed it carefully on Surface Scan haven't you?). Pray very hard.
Read http://www.wimsbios.com/HTML1/faq.html and see http://www.plasma-online.de/index.ht...ios_flash.html to see what AWDFLASH command line arguments are to get more tips. Since your old BIOS has been saved you may be able to restore it (renaming as you did may not work), substitute whatever name it was given for W6382vm7.med in the above autoexec.
For AMI and Award BIOSes you MAY be able to clear a corrupt BIOS by creating a bootable floppy as before, copying DEBUG.EXE to it and executing the following script from the DOS prompt if you have one.
A
DEBUG -O 70 17
-O 71 17
Q
or, if you're "blind" as you seem to be, copy the following lines to a text file (use the DOS Editor if you can, rather than Notepad)
-O 70 17
-O 71 17
Q
and name the file debug.scr (doesn't matter what you name it so long as you have an autoexec.bat that calls it, to whit:
debug < debug.scr > debug.out
That SHOULD wipe your BIOS and you can start afresh as above (debug.out is just a text file that contains everything that DEBUG would have displayed on your screen).
Once the BIOS is up, you'll probably have to tinker with all the settings to get your kit to work, try "set to BIOS defaults", reboot and work from there.
Good luck and let us know.
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Thread Starter
Thanks so much for your replies.
I coudn't originally get the BIOS flash to run just by booting from the floppy. I had to create an MS-DOS start disk in WinXP (Right click the A drive).
Booted from that, got an A: prompt, changed disks and typed in AUTOEXEC.BAT, hey presto the BIOS went in, lots of pretty white blocks telling me all was well. Load finshed, the screen went back to an A: prompt. At that point I hit CTRL/ALT/DEL to restart and got my two tone short beeps and sod all since. Looks like a 'Parity Circuit' failiure in the AMI codes, but as you say it looks like this is more an 'Award' procedure. So a RAM problem listed there.
I have just updated the RAM by 512mb this week, so should I take that out and try booting with original 256 stick in?
Thanks again for all your help. I should say that the supplier has agreed to order a new 6382 board, but it's going to take a week or more to come.
Frankly, as this flash was supposed to cure a corruption of the BIOS clock each time I started from power up then I am not sure I want a third 6382. It seem's worth spending the money on a better board.
I coudn't originally get the BIOS flash to run just by booting from the floppy. I had to create an MS-DOS start disk in WinXP (Right click the A drive).
Booted from that, got an A: prompt, changed disks and typed in AUTOEXEC.BAT, hey presto the BIOS went in, lots of pretty white blocks telling me all was well. Load finshed, the screen went back to an A: prompt. At that point I hit CTRL/ALT/DEL to restart and got my two tone short beeps and sod all since. Looks like a 'Parity Circuit' failiure in the AMI codes, but as you say it looks like this is more an 'Award' procedure. So a RAM problem listed there.
I have just updated the RAM by 512mb this week, so should I take that out and try booting with original 256 stick in?
Thanks again for all your help. I should say that the supplier has agreed to order a new 6382 board, but it's going to take a week or more to come.
Frankly, as this flash was supposed to cure a corruption of the BIOS clock each time I started from power up then I am not sure I want a third 6382. It seem's worth spending the money on a better board.
Plastic PPRuNer
"I have just updated the RAM by 512mb this week, so should I take that out and try booting with original 256 stick in?"
Get some contact cleaner and clean the contacts on the RAM and the socket. Get some Dust-Off compressed air/gas and blow the socket clean after. Try the RAM again. If that don't work try the original 256 stick. Is your RAM the correct speed for your mobo?
Never heard of Medion before, but Gigabyte make good mobos.
Get some contact cleaner and clean the contacts on the RAM and the socket. Get some Dust-Off compressed air/gas and blow the socket clean after. Try the RAM again. If that don't work try the original 256 stick. Is your RAM the correct speed for your mobo?
Never heard of Medion before, but Gigabyte make good mobos.
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Interesting, I got two bleeps and a black screen last week and it turned out to be my GForce video card that had turned up it's toes. Could it be just a coincidence that you were changing the BIOS? Can you try your video card in another machine?
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Similar problems were caused by bad RAM. It passed the boot check OK but was not compatible with the MB/Processor (bought them together, both good brands). Try another RAM slot, DDR should go in slot 1, but maybe it will work in another slot anyway.
Clean the contacts with a pencil eraser, then compressed air to clean it and the slots.
When you have had enough problems and fixed them, you could get a job as a computer repair guy!
Clean the contacts with a pencil eraser, then compressed air to clean it and the slots.
When you have had enough problems and fixed them, you could get a job as a computer repair guy!
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Thread Starter
Sorry Guy's no luck, I have tried all the idea's above apart from the Debug file, and I'll try that next.
I have reseated/cleaned and tried to boot with the 256 and the 512 mb memory sticks in the first slot. No change. I am 'helpfully' told that I may have fried the RAM. There is no visible damage evident, but I did notice a light brown residue/thin dust in the vicinity of the centre contacts when I extracted the 256 stick. Having said all that the memory was only moved a few months ago by the engineer who fitted the present motherboard. Also apart from the now very minor problem of the corrupting clock the computer was in great shape and was never running better prior to flashing the BIOS.
I have also cleaned and reseated the graphics card (MS-8838 Ver IIb), no change.
I notice however that whenever I boot with a floppy installed, then the 'beeps' don't come. I should also point out that my initial description was misleading. On relfection they sound more like a short followed by a longer, lower tone. Rather like a mocking 'ee-aaw' sound. Familiar to television viewers as a wrong answer in a game show! The floppy rotates for a few seconds, and will also do so if any of F8/F9/ctrl keys are pressed, but still the 'BSOD'.!!
I had thought of going out and buying a new board, but if the RAM or graphics cards are also gone then I suppose keeping my guarantee intact and waiting a week or so for the new board is best.
I'll keep playing meantime, after all I suppose I can't make it that much worse.........can I?
I have reseated/cleaned and tried to boot with the 256 and the 512 mb memory sticks in the first slot. No change. I am 'helpfully' told that I may have fried the RAM. There is no visible damage evident, but I did notice a light brown residue/thin dust in the vicinity of the centre contacts when I extracted the 256 stick. Having said all that the memory was only moved a few months ago by the engineer who fitted the present motherboard. Also apart from the now very minor problem of the corrupting clock the computer was in great shape and was never running better prior to flashing the BIOS.
I have also cleaned and reseated the graphics card (MS-8838 Ver IIb), no change.
I notice however that whenever I boot with a floppy installed, then the 'beeps' don't come. I should also point out that my initial description was misleading. On relfection they sound more like a short followed by a longer, lower tone. Rather like a mocking 'ee-aaw' sound. Familiar to television viewers as a wrong answer in a game show! The floppy rotates for a few seconds, and will also do so if any of F8/F9/ctrl keys are pressed, but still the 'BSOD'.!!
I had thought of going out and buying a new board, but if the RAM or graphics cards are also gone then I suppose keeping my guarantee intact and waiting a week or so for the new board is best.
I'll keep playing meantime, after all I suppose I can't make it that much worse.........can I?
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Now if you could find someone with an EPROM burner (not uncommon with electronic kit builders, tech colleges etc) and the shop has another board (or you wait till you get the replacement). You can copy the BIOS and reburn the chip on your present board.
At least then you'll have a spare.
At least then you'll have a spare.
Last edited by ORAC; 19th Jul 2002 at 19:48.
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Thread Starter
I cannot thank you all enough!
..........Yippee! You did it!I cannot thank you all enough for your kindness and dedication in researching and posting the replies above.
Mac's suggestion of rewriting the Autoexec.bat file with the old BIOS did not work when I tried it using two separate disks, but when the Award flash/Autoexec/Old BIOS were added to the bootable floppy files on one disk (Sorry I didn't read the instructions properly first time) the machine showed a little life. I pressed the enter key after the first reading of the floppy, and lo and behold the screen burst into life and offered to load the BIOS.
This it did, and on finishing instead of pressing ctrl/alt/del I pressed escape first and then rebooted. I now have my beast back in fine form, reading the full 768mb of RAM and the graphics card playing fine.
My wife is in tears of happiness, the dog's are barking for joy....as they now think that I might be a tad happier to live with again!!
My thanks to you all once again.
Now does anyone think I ought to have a go at reloading that upgraded BIOS again?.......
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BIOS upgrade
With my MoBo (Abit with Award-Bios) it's suggested to turn off the computer (unplugging to be sure) and then clearing the CMOS, before rebooting.
Maybe this could prevent mishaps with upgrading your BIOS in the future?!
Maybe this could prevent mishaps with upgrading your BIOS in the future?!
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I have flashed me bios a few times and it always recomends you save your exsisting bios to a floppy, there even a utility for doing this.
I have never had any probs flashing a new bios so I have never had to reload the original, but I assume there must be some way of doing it?.
Isn't there a jumper pin on most boards that allows you to dump the bios in the chip?.
Again never had cause to use it.
PS, I updated the bios on a Spacewalker shuttle board from a kind gent not a million miles from here so it would recognise and run a AMD tx 1.5.
Runs that CPU sweet as a nut now it does
I have never had any probs flashing a new bios so I have never had to reload the original, but I assume there must be some way of doing it?.
Isn't there a jumper pin on most boards that allows you to dump the bios in the chip?.
Again never had cause to use it.
PS, I updated the bios on a Spacewalker shuttle board from a kind gent not a million miles from here so it would recognise and run a AMD tx 1.5.
Runs that CPU sweet as a nut now it does
Last edited by tony draper; 21st Jul 2002 at 17:08.
