Fixing a bad flash with onboard video ?

[r4st4m4n]

I bricked my HD4870 after a bad flash yesterday ... :/

I had a floppy ready for this case with atiflash and the original bios but I don't know for what reason the mobo is not booting on the floppy drive. I tried to reset CMOS, remove everything except the VGA and the floppy but the mobo will power up, the fan are spinning but it doesn't access the floppy :shadedshu

So now I'm hunting for a PCI card but I stay in Malaysia and finding a PCI video card is like looking for a needle in a haystack. So far the only one I found (Radeon 7000), I need to order it and the guy is selling it for the equivalent 60$ ... a real ripp-off

I actually can get a simple mobo with onboard video for less than that and I don't need to order it. So is it possible to flash from the onboard video ?
I'm wondering if I put my HD4870 into the PCI-E slot, will the mobo automatically boot from the PCI-E, or is it possible to force the boot from the onboard video ?
The mobo I can get are either with 945GC, PM 890 or NF6100.

 

[Pinchy]

Depends on the motherboard.

Most have a BIOS option to allow you to choose between integrated and PCIe. But most of the time as soon as you put a PCIe card in there it automatically switches to PCIe. So you may need to get a working PCIe card, set it to use onboard, then put the dead one back in.

Do you know why its not booting the floppy? Perhaps its not set as the first boot device? Or maybe you have to press a button or something for it to load the floppy?

 

[r4st4m4n]

Depends on the motherboard.

Most have a BIOS option to allow you to choose between integrated and PCIe. But most of the time as soon as you put a PCIe card in there it automatically switches to PCIe. So you may need to get a working PCIe card, set it to use onboard, then put the dead one back in.

I shouldn't need a working PCI-E card for that. I can boot without the PCI-E card to be sure it boots on the onboard, enter the bios to force the onboard to be used, then switch off, put the dead in and boot. Isn't it ?

But if it's not sure that the motherboard let me force the onboard to be used, I'm better off ordering the PCI video card. I'll try to google few of the mobo I can get to see if I can be sure that it will allow me to do it.

Do you know why its not booting the floppy? Perhaps its not set as the first boot device? Or maybe you have to press a button or something for it to load the floppy?

No, I don't know why it doesn't boot on the floppy. It should have been the default boot device as last time I flashed from the floppy it booted straight from it. And it should be the default device once I reset the bios but it doesn't.

I tried few keys like enter or F keys but it didn't seem to do anything ...:/

IBTW my mobo is a Gigabyte P35-DS3. If anyone has a clue as why id doesn't boot straight to the floppy or what key I should I press when there is a dead video card plugged, please let me know ...

 

[r4st4m4n]

I finally found a shop that was selling PCI video card. I paid 60$ for it ... :/

But thanks to it I manage to fix the HD4870 ... funny how a R100 can fix a R770

Anyway I fell a bit ripp off but happy ... Note for later: never again flash from windows

 

[nINJAkECIL]

if your mobo does have 2 PCI-E slots, you can flash it under windows by ATI Winflash. just plug the broken bios vga card on the 2nd PCI-E slot, and boot with any pci-e vga card plug into the first slot.

ATI Winflash does have an option to choose between those 2 card

 

[Pinchy]

I finally found a shop that was selling PCI video card. I paid 60$ for it ... :/

But thanks to it I manage to fix the HD4870 ... funny how a R100 can fix a R770

Anyway I fell a bit ripp off but happy ... Note for later: never again flash from windows

Good to hear .

You know why the floppy wasnt booting?

 

[r4st4m4n]

if your mobo does have 2 PCI-E slots, you can flash it under windows by ATI Winflash. just plug the broken bios vga card on the 2nd PCI-E slot, and boot with any pci-e vga card plug into the first slot.

ATI Winflash does have an option to choose between those 2 card

The P35-DS3 only has one PCI-E ...

Good to hear .

You know why the floppy wasnt booting?

I'm still not sure why. When I booted with the PCI card, there was a screen saying that the system had a problem to boot last time and asking me if I wanted to use the last good configuration or something like that. A bit like the windows menu when it crashes but this one was for the BIOS. Never seen that before ...
It might be why it didn't boot from the floppy. By pressing enter, it was using the last known good configuration (I guess the one where the mobo was trying to access the dead video card) when I should have entered "up" key first, then "enter" key to reset the settings ...