[H-GEN] can't get past "Award BootBlock Bios v1.0"

[Tony Nugent]

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It seems that I'm stuck here...

=========8<------- cut ----------------
Award BootBlock Bios v1.0
Copyright (c) 1995, Award Software, Inc.

BIOS ROM checksum error

Detecting floppy drive A media...
INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
=========8<------- cut ----------------

(it does not recognise any disk I put into it).

If you have ever seen this error message and you know what to do
about it, then please read on as I need your help...

Hardware:
	ASUS TXP4 motherboard with Award BIOS, P200mmx processor
	48Mb 72pin (not faulty)

Until now, this box had been running reliably for about four years.
I have the original m'board manual and cdrom.  I have checked
www.asus.com.tw, and also google (which proved to be most useful).

Senario:

- opened up the case to put a 6Gb hard drive into it (as secondary
  ide master).  It went in with no problems.

- turned on the machine, got:
  - one long and three short beeps, a short pause, then a lower
    daa-daa beep.
  - corrupted greenish blinking reverse-lit pattern on the screen
    which went blank if I hit reset.

- the bios bootup error beeps are not mentioned in the manual
  (typical, eh?)  Info on the web says that one long and three short
  beeps indicates a video problem, so I replaced the video card
  (pci, no agp slot).

- turn on the machine again, this time I get the above message
  saying that it wants to boot from a floppy.  Note that this
  happens very quickly (right after the video bios init), and normal
  bios bootup does not occur.

- put an m$dog/w98 boot disk into the drive, press enter, the floppy
  spins momentarily, followed by the low daa-daa beep, then a repeat
  of the "INSERT SYSTEM DISK" message.  Nor does it work directly
  from a reset or reboot.  (Nor with linux lilo/kernel boot
  sectors:)

- further web browsing revealed that the bios checksum error could
  be due to a date mismatch, so I reset the CMOS by crossing the
  approproate jumper -- but that had no affect.  (I also now have
  the BIOS flash protection jumper off).

- I have stripped the m'board down to nothing and rebuilt it twice
  now (checking different components), each time with the same lack
  of success.  However, the original video card (back in the same
  slot) is now working ok again (go figure:)

Obviously the bios needs to be re-burned to get much further with it.

However, everything on the web says that at this point I should be
able to boot a floppy into dos and then run a flash utility to burn
a new rom image into it.  I have it all ready to go (boot disk with
flash utils and lastest rom image etc) but it just won't eat any
floppies that I feed it.  (The floppy boots ok on other computers).

Can anyone offer any suggestions?  Or is this box pretty much a lost
cause?

  Weird problem, I have no idea what caused this.  It isn't mine
  (which makes it worse since it was apparently ok before I touched
  it), but I've had hardware in and out of this box before with no
  issues.  Either the eeprom has "faded" over time, I've
  inadertently done something to zap it, or (as one web page
  suggested) it has been hit by the Chernobyl virus (which is
  possible considering what it has been recently exposed to).

Thanks.

Cheers
Tony

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