Urgent: Pegasos II needs Open Firmware update!

[Hammer]

I seen minor** PC BIOS bugs before but this one takes the cake…

**bootable state, with BIOS settings workarounds e.g. setting to low performance bias settings.

[Hammer]

Hey , how many PC users would have the patience or knowledge to repair this with the instructions...

There are certain PC hackers that patches normal BIOS into “Uber’BIOS” (for extreme over clocking).

[redrumloa]

I seen minor** PC BIOS bugs before but this one takes the cake…

I've worked with lots os PC stuff over the years and trust me, they don't always work as advertised. I've seen some nasty stuff.

But don't get me wrong, this is an embarasment for any company. They do seem to have handled it sufficiently though.

[Hammer]

I've worked with lots os PC stuff over the years and trust me,

What are you implying?

With X86 PC world, one could avoid certain brand and make if reliability is an issue.

they don't always work as advertised. I've seen some nasty stuff.

Does this “nasty stuff” have the ability to cause the system to stop from booting up?

[GadgetMaster]

As long as a fix is made available thats good.

Customer service is not judged by producing impeccable hardware/software but by how any customer problems are dealt with when things go wrong.

I was once instructed by a tech support person of a major motherbooard manufacturer to hot swap a bios chip. In other words I was told to boot the system by installing a bios chip from an identical board and start up the bios flashing program. I was then instructed to pull out the chip (whilst the power was on) and replace it with the original corrupted one to resume the flashing process.

I would have been tempted to try this experiment if it wasn't for the fact that this particular board was a top of the range expensive mainboard and my company could not afford to risk two dead bios chips instead of one.

[amigamad]

I was once instructed by a tech support person of a major motherbooard manufacturer to hot swap a bios chip. In other words I was told to boot the system by installing a bios chip from an identical board and start up the bios flashing program. I was then instructed to pull out the chip (whilst the power was on) and replace it with the original corrupted one to resume the flashing process.

That is a well known way of doing it and should work as they advise. :-)

[GadgetMaster]

Like I said, I was tempted, Its not everyday you get a chance to do such things. but my supervisor at the time  said no. (Spoilsport!)  :-P

[Hammer]

I was once instructed by a tech support person of a major motherbooard manufacturer to hot swap a bios chip. In other words I was told to boot the system by installing a bios chip from an identical board and start up the bios flashing program. I was then instructed to pull out the chip (whilst the power was on) and replace it with the original corrupted one to resume the flashing process.

That particular method was applied on some of the ruined Flash BIOS (e.g. flashing certain Uber’BIOS images) on certain nForce 2 motherboards. Gigabyte’s Dual-BIOS (socketed versions**) is very useful for that rescuing role. But some people likes to RMA their boards and get a 'free' upgrade to a newer motherboard revision e.g. A7N8X Rev 1.01 -> Rev 1.04/1.06 -> Rev 2.0.

Second method is via the use of certain NIC cards and modified/hacked NIC flashing software.

[redrumloa]

What are you implying?

Nothing.

With X86 PC world, one could avoid certain brand and make if reliability is an issue.

If one was educated enough to know each individual flaw of each revision of each motherboard of each brand :-D

Does this “nasty stuff” have the ability to cause the system to stop from booting up?

Not specifically that I have seen. My point is only that this is not an earth shattering defect. Most computer products are imperfect in one way or another whether the user can see it or not. The AmigaOne is a perfect example, it has required a bios update and is said to still have problems. Yet there are still users perfectly happy with it.

[Rodney]

Either that statement is not worth the electrons showing it or they have some very shoddy testing and trialling criteria in my opinion.

You doubt you know anything about what you'r talking about so i wouldnt create such strong bold sentences. Arnt you seeing a paterns here, all software and hardware have bugs. This industry is relativly new, we're still learning how to perfect our processors of design and testing.

Software and i suppose hardware is compared to bridges quite a lot in the academic area. At least it was at my uni. The question, why do bridges no break down as much as software or hardware. Bridges have been built for years, and we know how to do it now. But you can compare it to software and hardware because the field is too dynamic but its still very young. We've been building bridges for hundreds and even thousands of years, yet software and hardware has only emerged in the last hundred years or less!!

Everyone acts so surprised when MS finds wholes and bugs in their software and the same goes for linux and hardware and AmigaOS, they think that all the testers in the world should be able to snuff these out. Not true.

A stable peice of software or hardware will still have bugs. Every peice of software today has bugs. You will not be able to find a peice of software or hardware without bugs. Bugs are everwhere, you'll never get rid of them, untill something fantastic and marvelous happens, like the invention of AI, but even that will be flawed because humans original wrote the first A1... I hope you liked my story. The moral is you'll never illiminate all bugs, some bugs will go by undectected. But that doesnt mean they arn't there!!!

[Hooligan_DCS]

@Hammer

>Does this "nasty stuff" have the ability to cause the system to stop from booting up?

From own hand experience: yes it does.
I had a mobo which refused to boot when a big harddrive was attached, until the latest bios version was updated to handle it.

Ok so in practise it's not a bug but lack of support for feature in bios.. but.. anyway.

[Hammer]

I had a mobo which refused to boot when a big harddrive was attached, until the latest bios version was updated to handle it.

Doesn't it show a startup BIOS screen?

Those particular issues are inherited when dealing with old motherboards and a large hard disk.  Such problem can be workaround by plugging in a lesser capacity hard disk or switching the limiter on the hard disk.

My old Pentium II motherboards** still boots up to the normal BIOS screen even IF it doesn’t support 40GB HDs…

**
1. Lucktech, Luckystar Intel 440ZX/BX based,
2. PCchips(now Chaintech) BXPro, BXcel, SIS 5595 SIS 600, 'etc'

[Hooligan_DCS]

@Hammer

Can't remember did it show up in BIOS or not. Maybe I didn't even check as it was so obvious the BIOS needed flashing. Anyway it is, it didn't boot ;-)

[Hammer]

Can't remember did it show up in BIOS or not. Maybe I didn't even check as it was so obvious the BIOS needed flashing. Anyway it is, it didn't boot

Does it render the PC unbootable** in a semi-permanent state?

**I define bootable PC with operating BIOS start-up screen.

Example of non-semi-permanent unbootable PC is when a blown SM56 PCI card plugged in and causes the PC not to show a BIOS startup screen. The PC will return to normal operation when the offending device is disconnected.

Levels of severity;
0. Bootable to BIOS startup screen with issues e.g. unsupported hard disk capacity.
1. Non-semi-permanent unbootable state, e.g. a plugged offending device which cause the PC not to show BIOS startup screen. Usually, unplugging the offending device will return the PC into normal operation.
2. Semi-permanent unbootable state e.g. ruined PC BIOS flash. Can’t return to bootable state with typical methods.
3. Permanent unbootable state e.g. blown circuits on motherboard.

I have encountered plenty of level 0 ‘severity’, usually occurs with older motherboards when upgrading client’s PCs (on the cheap). Few with level 1 ‘severity’ and rare on level 2 ‘severity’.

[Hammer]

If one was educated enough to know each individual flaw of each revision of each motherboard of each brand

Well, notice how most mainstream reviewers has stated that the 1st generation of the AMD K8 based motherboards is stable for normal use (not including over clocking activities).

[Hammer]

Not specifically that I have seen. My point is only that this is not an earth shattering defect. Most computer products are imperfect in one way or another whether the user can see it or not.

Depends on the level of severity. Can one compare AmigaOne’s problems with the 1st generation AMD K8 motherboards**? Careful with generalisation since late revisions of X86 motherboards has less “bugs” than the said products mentioned.

**Not including yet another VIA (again!!!) centric Hyperion 4in1 ver50 data corruption issues.