I decided to make a sketch of how code is executed when a machine is powered on. Please correct me if I'm wrong
My point is that you can still have usable boot sector and black screen . I have had it on modded supermicro board and have fixed it. I wish you the best with it
I did what you asked me to do in post #20. But as I suspected, it doesn't work. The machine does not even access the floppy drive. As sketched in my previous drawing, I'm positive that in the case of a BIOS which provides a way to re-flash a BIOS file automatically, if this doesn't work, nothing else will work. Maybe in the case of other BIOS, there's other tricks available along the way. So I still have to better investigate flashing the BIOS through a serial port as mentionned by Supermicro. To tell you the truth, I don't feel comfortable with it and I'm not even sure it is a viable option in my case. I'm also investigating 2 other possibilities: Hot flashing Having the BIOS chip reprogrammed through external service Reprogramming the BIOS chip myself Whatever the option it'll mean removing the BIOS chip from the motherboard... Will keep y'all posted. In the meantine, I'd be glad to hear from everybody's experience...
It sounds like you are weighing all the options, For a point of comparison, last time I sent a board back to supermicro to have repairs done it was about $90.00 + shipping
I didn't intend to send it to Supermicro. If I do so, they will probably read the BIOS chip and figure out what I tried to do. So they'll waive the warranty and maybe refuse to repair the BIOS. What was the reason why you returned a board to Supermicro? Was it also a BIOS flashing that went wrong?
I flashed from a bootable USB stick. So just before I flashed I set up "Generic USB device" as first device to boot from.
Ok. That is to bad. Did you look @ the used boards I linked to from ebay? How comfortable are you @ soldering ? If you can bid on those auctions and let's say get one for between $75.00 and $100.00 your further ahead. Then with the board you have get a chip modded for that one with a working modded bios. Then mod the used board you get with the known working modded bios. Just a thought. That x8 series board you got is a great choice BTW.
Yes I did look at the auctions... I have already soldered in the past but with easy electronic parts (resistors, capacitors...). I also have the equipment for that. But here we're talking about a SOIC/8-SOP. There are 8 pins and they're close from each other. Do you have to heat up all pins at the same time or do you unsolder pin after pin? Also nowadays the boards are RoHS and it is much harder to solder/unsolder. It needs more heat but not too much as to destroy the chip. Finally the manufacturer may have coated the board to protect it against humidity...
Radio shack, a good hardware store or any place that carries individual computer parts should be able to get you what you need. Your welcome not a problem