[NBLUG/talk] End of BIOS update saga

[Glen Gunsalus]

Well, all things are relative.  Given the alternative, I'm delighted to be 
back in business.  I wasn't looking forward to shelling out unnecessary $s.

In the end eSupport.com did ok by me - just slower and more painful than I'd 
have liked.  I've got a good upgrade of the AWARD BIOS for my motherboard.  
The problem was an entire week of no response during which I was gnashing 
teeth and looking for my next system.  I don't see any excuse for not at least 
letting me know what their problem was.  I finally called them after not 
getting response to my e-mail queries.  When my flash failed and I had no 
system, they said they'd send me a replacement chip, but nothing after that 
despite multiple queries from me.  I finally called them and was told they 
couldn't locate a replacement chip (my MB is ~6yr old, used a rather obscure 
40-pin flash chip, and the manufacturer is no longer in business).  Soooo..., 
once I got them on the phone and found where their problem was, I told them 
I'd be happy to pull and ship my chip so they gave me an RMA and I had a 5 day 
turn-around (they're in MA).

There are other people that'll flash chips (biosman for one), but you have to 
supply the BIOS and in my case, there were only old and problematic versions I 
could locate.

eSupport.com is the licensed (I think) supporter of AWARD now, so they were 
able to supply the latest for my board.  As you recall this all started 
because I wanted to install debian on a second disk of > 20Gbytes which my 
BIOS couldn't detect/boot.  Well, now I see the second 60Gbyte disk and can 
boot it too, so am back in business.

I know this is a bit long-winded, but thought the details relevant to your 
query.

Cheers, Glen

>>> "Ross Thomas" said:
 > Hi Glen,
 > 
 > On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 11:31:03 -0800, "Glen Gunsalus"
 > <G-Gunsalus at mindspring.com> said:
 > > 
 > > Just to complete the circle on this.  I got my BIOS chip back from
 > > eSupport.com and it works!
 > 
 > Really glad to hear it.
 > 
 > Given your initial displeasure with these guys, what is you opinion
 > now?  The 'saga' in the subject indicates this wasn't a great
 > experience for you.
 > 
 > Any decent source of BIOS updates for outdated hardware is good
 > to find and I for one would like to know if they measured up in *any*
 > way.
 > 
 > Ross.
 > 
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