Caution: This is a long post!

I have a motherboard (model SP-P2BXA) that is showing signs of potential failure in the future. For example in Windows XP I always get a balloon that says "Power surge on USB Hub." The POST sometimes (not all of the time, but sometimes) hangs right after the text "PIII-MMX 450MHz CPU" is displayed. The POST is also not positioned properly on the screen (I can't see all of it). But for the most part the system works rather well, which is why I decided to use it to play around with instead of a everyday-use system.

I've seen people install Windows Vista on real low specs. As some of you know, jackbomb, a guru here on CN did it. I wanted to try it. But after the Windows Vista Setup started, it gave the error "ACPI is not supported by the BIOS." After searching for the ACPI option in the BIOS I assumed the BIOS didn't have this capability and searched the internet for a BIOS update. I found one (version D4) that was 2 years newer than the BIOS that was on the motherboard. It was "untested" according to the website, but the reviewers said it worked great. There wasn't a file doccumenting what changes were made, but since the update was from 2001 I decided to install it to see if it would give me ACPI support. This was stupid, but I thought if Windows 2000 has ACPI support, a 2001 BIOS should as well. So I downloaded it and then formatted a floppy disk using Windows XP on another system. I copied the AWDFLASH program and the "BXAD-D4.BIN" file to the disk. I booted the motherboard with it. There were no problems. I then proceeded to flash the BIOS but got an error saying "The program file's part number does not match with your system. Program anyway?" Again I hit Google to research this error and a lot of sites said this is normal when flashing the BIOS with a newer version. Other sites said "Stop, you've gotten the wrong BIOS version for your board." I checked to make sure it was for the same model as my board and according to driverguide.com, it was. I decided to let it continue. It did, without any problem. It said to press ESC to reboot the system. As soon as I pushed it, the screen turned blank, the CPU fan turned off, and the floppy light came on and started accessing the disk. It stopped accessing the disk after about 10 seconds, but the floppy light stayed on for about another 2 minutes, and then went off. I searched Google again about what it was doing, and found out that it was the "Award BootBlock BIOS Recovery" attempting to restore the old BIOS. But since I didn't have the autoexec.bat file on the disk it wasn't working right. So I searched for how to make it work, and created another bootdisk with the autoexec.bat file (with the command line needed to flash the old BIOS), the awdflash program, and the old BIOS that I had saved on the disk. When I put the disk in the drive, I turned the motherboard on. it came on and read the disk, then the floppy spins and the light stays on for a long time. The first time I attempted this, I nearly burnt the CPU because the fan wasn't running. I didn't see smoke but I smelled something burning. After pulling the plug, I waited for it to cool down and pulled off the CPU from the slot and took off the heatsink and fan. I looked at the CPU and saw no damage done to the surrounding circuit board or the processor. It didn't smell burnt, but the top of the plastic that covered the back of the processor smelled exactly like what I smelled when the system was on. The top of the plastic also looked like it was just starting to melt because the edge of the plastic was starting to curl up.

Last night I left the HSF off and just put the circuit board back into the slot. I got a table fan and turned it on high and aimed it at nearly point blank range to keep it cool. I turned the system on, and the floppy drive came on again, and started reading from the disk. The floppy light stayed on for about 30 minutes till I got impatient and pulled the plug.

Here's my question. How long does it take for BootBlock BIOS Recovery to do its job? I recovered a BIOS before on another motherboard that took it 30 minutes to complete and was successful. But this was with an AMI BIOS. Also do you think the CPU is dead or damaged after being on without a fan for almost 20 minutes? The smell wasn't strong until I put my face down to the motherboard. Thanks for your input, and sorry if this rather long post seems scattered.

Dress modestly, it shows people that you care about yourself.

IMHO It's toast, and realistically not worth attempting repair. You might pick up a replacement motherboard & CPU on ebay for $5 but personally I wouldn't spend any more than that on it.

I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.

See here but watch your eyes. Ouch.

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/jefn/boo...

Did I see where you followed the instructions from the OEM's web site? Might need to use a jumper or some other issue.

A P3? I have seen them on for days without a fan. That doesn't mean yours is OK though.

Here is the issue the the whole bios update deal. People screw them up somehow.

If the bios failed you may not get that working again. If you turn it on and it shows some result in crt or beep code you might go and try to get a downlevel bios and try it. Be sure to get it from the OEM site, not some download site.

It shouldn't take more than a few minutes. I have never seen it over 5 myself. Never heard of it being long.

I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you peanut.

Thanks guys for your input. I forgot to mention that just before the system accessed the floppy, there was 1 long beep then 2 short beeps even after the burning smell when I waited for it to cool and tried it. According to Google, this means video failure.

I would have gone to the OEM's website but they (Super Power Computer) went out of business sometime back and deleted their website. I don't know what else to try except to let it access the disk for as long as an hour. That website that you gave me, jefro, says that people succeeded with it when trying different command line switches in the autoexec file. Perhaps I should try that. Thanks again guys, and if you or anyone else has any suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them!

Dress modestly, it shows people that you care about yourself.

Sounds like you used the wrong BIOS, regardless of what the "reviewers" may have written about it. DriverGuide is not a good source for tech info.

Why didn't you get the BIOS file from the manufacturer's website? Many of them still have archives for their old hardware. I just updated the BIOS on a PCChips socket 7 board last week & got the files directly from PCChips.com

Like Richard59 said, I wouldn't spend more than $5 on it.

You can only let so much smoke out of these things.
I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you peanut.

Thanks again guys, very appreciated. To answer jam's question, I found the Superpower Computer website, (another site said it didn't exist, but there it was) but there wasn't an archive or anything there for BIOSes.

Next I'm going to try UniFlash to flash it and enable logging. It beeps to give the user its progress and also if there's an error or anything. I'll report back the progress. You guys are probably right, its probably junk. If it is, there's nothing lost because I believe it wasn't going to be much longer before the board would fail anyway.

Dress modestly, it shows people that you care about yourself.

Success! I used UniFlash and then restarted the system, it posts like it used to! Thanks guys for the help. It sure is surprising that it's working on the same processor! It only took 2 minutes to do too!

Dress modestly, it shows people that you care about yourself.

"I found the Superpower Computer website"

It appears that SuperPower is a maker of PC cases, not computers:

http://www.superpower.com/default.asp

Do you know the make/model of your motherboard? What you should have been looking for was the motherboard manufacturer's website (Abit, Asus, Biostar, Gigabyte, etc) to see if a BIOS update was available.

It's a SuperPower SP-P2BXA board.

Dress modestly, it shows people that you care about yourself.

Here's a page on it:
http://www.elhvb.com/mboards/superp...

Dress modestly, it shows people that you care about yourself.

Never heard of them before. Oh well, glad to hear you got it sorted out.

Me neither till a few months ago. Thanks man, you guys are great!

Dress modestly, it shows people that you care about yourself.