Bios rom checksum error "drive A error, system halted"

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Hello. I was assembling a socket A system and was doing some troubleshooting. Turned out my first athlon 3200+ was faulty. Luckily I had 2. Popped in the second and boom, it posted. (CPU shows incorrectly I think since the fsb is set improperly by default)

As I only had 1 stick of ram in for testing and wanted to install the rest now, I needed to shut the PC off. Because my screwdriver was having issues bridging the power pins (painted) I decided to do the lazy thing and just yank the power cable from my PSU. This has never really been an issue before but apparently it corrupted my bios.

I'm stuck here. No USB power nor PS2 power. Can't go anywhere.

Athlon XP 3200+
Biostar M7VIT Pro

How do I fix this? I don't have an idea floppy drive. I have a USB one, but there is no power to USB at this point.

Do I need a floppy? Any other solution?

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Unstable CPU can cause those BIOSes to go into "boot block mode". You should try to force-clear the CMOS again. Also, the PSU would be suspect.

 

[AugeK]

Simple solution: replace the Bios battery, go into Bios, adjust settings and select "save and quit".
Done!
Maybe you require a keyboard with an old style connector as "Legacy USB support" may have been set to OFF.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

I have already tried replacing the CMOS battery and clearing CMOS, to no change. I tried an Athlon 2800+ and it got stuck at this screen too.

I cannot access the bios as it goes straight from the GPU bios screen to the "boot block screen". I have tried a legacy PS2 keyboard and it doesn't work either since there is no opportunity to get into bios and the keyboards don't get power.

Just tried a different battery and clearing CMOS again. Nothing changed.

I also tried a Seasonic Focus GX750 and nothing changed. I was originally using a Dell 875w 80+ Silver unit from an Alienware.

 

[AugeK]

I think the bios settings have been "forgotten" due to flat battery.
Screeenshot says you should hit "Del" to enter bios.
Do so and set correctly, then hit F10 to store and quit.

Without keyboard power there is no way to restore.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

I think the bios settings have been "forgotten" due to flat battery.
Screeenshot says you should hit "Del" to enter bios.
Do so and set correctly, then hit F10 to store and quit.

Without keyboard power there is no way to restore.

I can't get to that screen anymore. It only did that once, now it's stuck to the 2nd picture.

From what I gather, it's looking for a floppy drive with a disk with a bios restore file on it.

 

[Mr.Scott]

From what I gather, it's looking for a floppy drive with a disk with a bios restore file on it.

Exactly correct. No other way around it.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

I am a little confused about how an unexpected shutdown corrupted the bios so badly.

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Would something like this work?

It is around the same cost as a floppy drive and some disks, and seems easier to deal with.

 

[Mr.Scott]

I highly doubt that will work in place of a real floppy on that board. Bios is not going to search or boot from USB before looking for an A drive floppy.
That's just how the old hardware works.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

It is a floppy emulator, so the bios should just see a normal floppy drive.

 

[Mr.Scott]

You can only try.

 

[Mussels]

New CMOS battery, restore optimal defaults

And that error is saying no floppy found/error with floppy
Boot from something else

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

As I said, I have already replaced the CMOS battery and cleared CMOS with the jumper.

I plugged in an ide CD drive with an XP install disk and it still gives me that error and won't boot.

I can't change boot order nor get into bios.

 

[Mussels]

As I said, I have already replaced the CMOS battery and cleared CMOS with the jumper.

I plugged in an ide CD drive with an XP install disk and it still gives me that error and won't boot.

I can't change boot order nor get into bios.

It's 9am here. It'll take time for my brain to catch up with my eyes.

It's got 2x rear USB, and 4x front
What USB and PS/2 keyboards have you tried? It'll only work with generic ones, not high power draw or fancy modern wireless ones

USB and PS/2 would be from 5VSB rail on the PSU, is the PSU an older one? or modern?

Here: make sure these are on the 5V setting (pins 1-2 bridged)

They've above the CPU socket

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

First device was just my mid 2000s Dell ultrasharp monitor's built in powered USB hub, with my RedDragon k552 and Logitech g502 plugged into it.

PS2 keyboard I tried was a late 90s OEM unit from a Compaq Presario.

1 and 2 are bridged on the top pins.

The USB devices never turn on at all when the PC is booted. PS2 boards NumLock key lights up but doesn't respond to input for a very brief time (<1s) between my gpu bios screen aand the error.

 

[Mussels]

JUSB is for the USB ports
JKBV is for the keyboard ports

If they arent working on 5V, i'd check your PSU is outputting 5V correctly


You can always try 5VSB, but depending on the age of the PSU the current that supports is very limited

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Tried 2 psus, one is a <1yr old SeaSonic Focus GX750 gold and the other one I was using originally was a ~10 year old Dell 875w 80+ Silver PSU that I was using for it's strong 5v rail.

I highly doubt power is the issue.

Before I unplugged power unexpectedly and the PC functioned properly, I was able to hit F1 and it continued to a no bootable device found (no drives connected at the time) message. This was with the USB hub plugged in.

I don't think keyboard recognition is the issue either because of that.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Got the floppy emulator in and the system sees it as the A drive just as it would a normal floppy and asks me to install a disk.

But when I go to Biostars website and click on either the flashing utility or the bios files, it shows "pick an app to open ftp link". After some research It seems newer browsers don't support this type of link. I tried internet explorer and while it attempts to load them, it appears the files/servers have been pulled.

Any ideas where else I could find the bios files?

Just used the floppy emulator software to format the USB into a dos boot disk. The system boots into DOS and I was able to get PS2 to work. Turns out I had the keyboard in the mouse port (colors aren't the same) it still doesn't show power like NumLock etc, but it does work in dos.


It turns out, biostar has a legacy site and a new site under basically the same url. The new site has the board and downloads that work for the bios. So I have downloaded the bios. However the Award bios flashing utility for dos is not there. So I need to find that.

 

[rslayerr]

i cannot garantee it,but you could try this

Download Biostar M7VIT Pro BIOS 07-08-09 for Windows 9X, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2K, Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows XP 64 bit, Windows 2008, Windows Vista 64 bit, Windows 7, Windows 7 64 bit, Windows 8, Windows 8 64 bit, And

Download Biostar M7VIT Pro BIOS 07-08-09 - BIOS

drivers.softpedia.com

from what i see,the file name is the same from this link and the one that i try to download from ftp biostar

you could try to make a dos boot disk too to see if it will "boot".insert system disk is generally a dos thing(or a boot system thing,ie windows)

but that keyboard thing is still problematic,it should detect a keyboard,so thats a problem right there

edit,found a dos flashing utility for ya

awardflash_826g_dos.exe

The BIOS utility BIOSTAR has long since pulled down from their FTP site. Had to dig through old floppies for two hours to track this down for you--you're welcome! ;-)

www.mediafire.com

 

[rslayerr]

awardflash_826g_dos.exe

The BIOS utility BIOSTAR has long since pulled down from their FTP site. Had to dig through old floppies for two hours to track this down for you--you're welcome! ;-)

www.mediafire.com

dos flashing utility
this link come from a user in tomshardware site

Got the floppy emulator in and the system sees it as the A drive just as it would a normal floppy and asks me to install a disk.

View attachment 223879

But when I go to Biostars website and click on either the flashing utility or the bios files, it shows "pick an app to open ftp link". After some research It seems newer browsers don't support this type of link. I tried internet explorer and while it attempts to load them, it appears the files/servers have been pulled.

View attachment 223877

Any ideas where else I could find the bios files?

Just used the floppy emulator software to format the USB into a dos boot disk. The system boots into DOS and I was able to get PS2 to work. Turns out I had the keyboard in the mouse port (colors aren't the same) it still doesn't show power like NumLock etc, but it does work in dos.


It turns out, biostar has a legacy site and a new site under basically the same url. The new site has the board and downloads that work for the bios. So I have downloaded the bios. However the Award bios flashing utility for dos is not there. So I need to find that.

this could be useful to read...

https://www.oocities.org/rrbhaius/recoverbios.pdf

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Got it, thanks. It isn't progressing though. Just going to give it time.

 

[rslayerr]

View attachment 223890

Got it, thanks. It isn't progressing though. Just going to give it time.

is it me or you have a space between vit0826f and the .pro??
and i think you have to rename it to .bin

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

No space there, just the font used.

Tried changing to .bin and it's still doing nothing. (Powering it down while it's trying to update bios isn't great, but I have to)

I have heard of a program called uniflash that apparently can work better?

I read ram over 2gb can cause issues. I was running 3gb. Went down to 1gb and still nothing.

 

[rslayerr]

No space there, just the font used.

Tried changing to .bin and it's still doing nothing. (Powering it down while it's trying to update bios isn't great, but I have to)

I have heard of a program called uniflash that apparently can work better?

I read ram over 2gb can cause issues. I was running 3gb. Went down to 1gb and still nothing.

have you try the bios file from the link i have send you?maybe the one you have get is corrupt?
or try the other version the same way you have been able to get the fisrt one? VIT0826B.PRO

and have you try to put the jumper to reset cmos?



after a bit of reading,you could try award flasher

Award Flasher (awdflash, winflash) utility- Download all available Award flasher versions

Download all Award BIOS Flasher (awdflash, winflash) utility versions from Wim's BIOS

www.wimsbios.com

take the most recent one,and try to flash it with this prog instead of the other one....good luck

ps:read this,especially the last comment https://forums.majorgeeks.com/threads/bios-rom-checksum-error.269588/

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Have tried to clear CMOS. The FTP site wont load for me. I tried internet explorer. does it load for you?

Heres where I got the file I'm trying to flash.

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