Next let's use CBROM to take a peek at your BIOS and see what PXE loader is in there. CBROM606.EXE J7F2WA14.BIN /D (where J7F2WA14.BIN is the filename of the BIOS you have on your USB key, either from downloading it or using AWDFLASH to save it). BIOS-Mods.com for years has been and continues to be an open, collaborative space to help users around the world make the most of their motherboards, hardware platforms, and computers as a whole. Over the years, we have had many talented developers come and go who have all left tremendous impacts on our ability to modify BIOS images and provide. Are there any good tools for modding the BIOS in a Gateway desktop using the Intel DG965OT motherboard from about 2008? I would like to upgrade the E6300 Core 2 Duo CPU to a Q6600 Core 2 quad CPU and I think that may require some custom bios settings. The MB datasheet indicates the board supports Core 2 quad processors with a 1066 MHz FSB.

• Cbrom Exe Bios Update
• Cbrom Exe Bios Download

Add gPXE to the BIOS of the Jetway J7F2WE family of motherboards (replacing the Intel UNDI PXE code)

Jeff Campbell, Turks & Caicos Islands, February 27, 2008

Note: This is completely without warranty. It worked for me. It may not work for you. It may wreck your system. If you don't know what you're doing, don't do it. You have no recourse but to blame yourself and sit in the dark rocking in the fetal position if this fails.

The “RD1 BIOS Savior” from IOSS is a US$30 device that can plug into a motherboard BIOS ROM socket to allow manual switching between two BIOS chips. This allows you to boot from one BIOS ROM and then switch to a second BIOS ROM chip for trial flashing. If the new BIOS fails, you can switch back to the first, unmodified BIOS ROM, and try again (info from Coreboot).

I am currently using a large number of J7F2WE based motherboards for a computing cluster. The machines have no local storage at all, just a 1 GHz Via C7 processor and 1 GB of RAM. The on-board NIC on the motherboard is based on the VIa Rhine II chipset. My machines also have three more NICs per box, but they don't factor in to getting gPXE loaded. gPXE replaces the Intel PXE code included for the on-board NIC.

These instructions are based on my experience with an Award 6.0 based BIOS.

Make a DOS bootable USB drive

We're going to be working with BIOS flashing utilities that run under DOS. Before you continue you should make a DOS bootable USB key (and ensure you can get it to boot on your system). We'll put various utilities and ROM files on it during this how-to. You can follow my instructions (assuming you have access to a MS Windows machine) to make one.

Grab the latest BIOS for your board

You should be able to find the latest BIOS on the manufacturers website. In my case I'm using A14 of the Jetway BIOS, which I found on the Jetway home page.

I also grabbed the AWFLASH 8.80 utility, which we'll need to backup the existing BIOS and reflash the new gPXE enhanced BIOS.

Put these on your new DOS bootable USB key.

Grab the CBROM utility

This is the magic tool that makes it possible. CBROM comes in various flavours, you can read more about it here

• CBROM 6.xx is for Award BIOS 6.0 series only

I grabbed CBROM 6.xx from: http://www.biosmods.com/download/award/cbrom606.zip

Unzip it and put it on your USB DOS boot disk.

Identify your NIC chipset

(I learned how to do this here.)

Boot your system in to linux and then run:

Scan the output for your onbaord NIC, mine showed up as:

To build a gPXE ROM via Rom-o-matic, we need to know the vendor and chipset id's.

Using the infromation from above, lets interogate the PCI device:

Make a note of the vendor and device IDs (1106 and 3065 respectively in the above example).

It's ROM-o-matic time, baby!

Now that you know your vendor and device ID, cruise on over to ROM-o-matic

This is a wonderful tool that will build the ROM you are going to add to the BIOS.

We want to use the gPXE generator.

At the time of writing it was at version 0.9.3.

Click on the Image Generator.

At step one, we need to choose the NIC/ROM type, which is what we needed the vendor and device information for. In my case I went down to the bottom to Via and found the entry:

via-rhine:pci_1106_3065 – [1106,3065]

This is the NIC driver for my card. If you get this wrong, or if your NIC is not currently supported, you will not be able to sucessfully network boot. Most mainstream NICs or those in the market for a while are supported. If yours is not listed, join the IRC channel and ask, someone may be able to help.

At step two, you want to choose “Binary ROM Image (.rom)” which is what we'll need to add to our BIOS file.

At step three, if you want, you can customize the options that get rolled in to your ROM. I looked, but liked the defaults so I left them alone.

Step four - hit the button, download the ROM to your USB key.

Now let's get our hands dirty

Boot the target machine with your USB DOS boot disk (DO NOT try and do it from a window within your existing OS - that may cause problems).

You should have the awdflash utility, the latest bios for your system and your gpxe ROM file, as well as the CBROM utility on your USB key. If you don't, do not pass go, do not collect $100, go back to the start of this document and re-read the section about the fetal position.

Use the awdflash utility to save your current BIOS (if its different than the latest one). You can use awdflash.exe /? to see a list of options and details on how to save it. Or don't save it, thats up to you. Just don't come crying to me.

Next let's use CBROM to take a peek at your BIOS and see what PXE loader is in there.

CBROM606.EXE J7F2WA14.BIN /D

(where J7F2WA14.BIN is the filename of the BIOS you have on your USB key, either from downloading it or using AWDFLASH to save it)

Which gives the following output:

G:>CBROM606.EXE J7F2WA14.BIN /D

CBROM V6.06 (C)Award Software 1999 All Rights Reserved.

Line 8 is what we are interested in. If you look in the far right column you can see the filename “PXERPL.LOM” which gives us a hint this is the PXE bootloader code.

Add the gPXE ROM

To make life easier, and to ensure I didn't tube my main BIOS file, I created a copy with an easier to type name, in my case I called my copy of J7F2WA14.BIN called gpxe14.bin

Then I tried inserting the gpxe.rom in to it with the following command:

CBROM606.EXE gpxe14.bin /pci gpxe-3065.rom /err

(where gpxe-3065.rom is the name of the file rom-o-matic generated for you)

The system should churn away for a while, then show a percentage complete. Go get a drink or something, don't be too anxious. After a while you will get your prompt back.

I then used this command to confirm it appeared to be loaded in to the file:

Note line 8! So it appeared to load. Now it was time to flash the new updated BIOS file in to the machine.

Flash your new gPXE enhanced BIOS in to the eeprom

Up until this point, we've been playing with files on the USB key, but haven't touched your actual BIOS for writing. Now we will.

I used the AWDFLASH utility, following the instructions from the Jetway site, and flashed it with:

AWDFLASH.EXE /cd/cp/ch/wb/qi gpxe14.bin

I followed the on screen prompts and then rebooted when done, entering the BIOS menu via the DEL key. I ensured that PXE booting was enabled under the Integrated Periperhals.

Much to my delight, instead of the Intel PXE driver, up came the gPXE bootloader.

Tah-dah. You now have gPXE on your box.

BIOS-Bootlogos

A short instruction, how to create EPA BIOS-Boot-Logos and Fullscreen BIOS-Boot-Logos under Bios-versions from AMI, AWARD and PHOENIX, with Bios-Tools like: AMIbcp, AMIFlash, AWDFlash, WinFlash, WinPhlash, CBROM, and my Freewaretool BMPtoEPA.

Extract Boot-Logo out of BIOS Update file
Insert Boot-Logo into BIOS Update file
Boot-Logo collection
Edit Boot-Logo (EPA-Format) with BMPtoEPA
Create Boot-Logo with Paint Shop Pro
Boot-Logo Software (CBROM, Flash tools)
Write BIOS Update file onto BIOS-Chip

Extract Boot-Logo out of BIOS Update file

Cbrom Exe Bios Update

Bios-Tool: CBROM v2.15

CBROM, a small software from AWARD (PHOENIX), has functions to read, edit and insert each segments inside a Bios Update file. CBROM works under DOS and the Windows command line. To show all parameters, go to the command line (DOS-Prompt) and insert: 'cbrom215.exe'.

First of all we need a Bios Update file to edit the current logo, and the parameter /D to show all ROM segments. In our example we use the BIOS Update file 'N24LD505.BIN' from the DFI mainboard 'LanParty NFII Ultra B'. The input of 'cbrom215.exe n24ld505.bin /D' shows:

The picture above shows the small EPA-Logo (EPALogo.bmp) on Pos.10, and the Fullscreen logo (LanParty.bmp) on Pos.11, and also the original and compressed size in kilobytes.

EPA-Logo extraction:
Extract the small EPA-Logo with 'cbrom215.exe n24ld505.bin /epa extract'.

Fullscreen-Logo extraction:
Extract the Fullscreen with 'cbrom215.exe n24ld505.bin /logo extract'.

Insert Boot-Logo into BIOS Update file

Bios-Tool: CBROM v2.15

Now we use CBROM to insert our self created (normal) Bitmaps. Because CBROM is able to translate normal BMPs into the special AWBM format. All we have to do is to create (see below) a Bitmap file in a specified size and format.

EPA-Logo insertion:
'cbrom215.exe n24ld505.bin /epa filename.bmp'

Fullscreen-Logo insertion:
'cbrom215.exe n24ld505.bin /logo filename.bmp'

If you get an error message like 'not enough space!', you have to edit your Bitmap a second time with a graphics program either to reduce the Bitmap size, or to use less colors as a result to get a better data compression.

Boot-Logo collection

A collection of various EPA-Logos: bios-epa-logos.htm.

Edit Boot-Logo (EPA-Format) with BMPtoEPA

BMPtoEPA - download and howto

Create Boot-Logo with Paint Shop Pro

Now we create/edit a Bios-Boot-Logo. In this example i use the graphics program PaintShopPro from Corel, but you can use your favorite program as well.

The different formats for Fullscreen and EPA-Boot-Logos:

Start PaintShopPro, create a new file and choose one of the above formats with the right resolution and color depth.

During your first tries: use black as background and white as foreground color. After you have created your logo, save the Bitmap file (BMP) without RLE-Compression.

Fullscreen-Logo: start CBROM to insert the Bitmap into your Bios-Update file.

EPA-Logo: start the Windows tool BMPtoEPA, convert the Bitmap into the EPA-format, save it and use CBROM to insert the Bitmap into your Bios-Update file.

Finally write the Bios-Update file onto the Bios-Chip.

Boot-Logo Software (CBROM, Flash tools)

CBROM Download: www.award.com or Google

Version info:
CBROM-Version: 1.x for Award v4.x (old)
CBROM-Version: 2.x für Award v4.51+v4.6x (old)
CBROM-Version: 6.x für Award v6.x (new)

Use the flash tool from your mainboard manufacturer to program your Bios-Chip!

Write BIOS Update file onto BIOS-Chip

Please read my Bios-Update-Instruction or use the instructions from your mainboard manufacturer.

Einträge: 4

hey my hp hp compaq presario c700 laptop has stoped working after i tried to update it and its not even stating up now no powerup please help

@abdullahi tope
Look into the BIOS-Setup if there is an option to disable the logo.

i want to a solution pls. I want remove something on my system. If i put on my system it display an image, hw can i do it, to get it removed

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