Jade & Ruby ROM BIOS upgrading
There appears to be a lot of confusion with flashing the BIOS on Jade
and Ruby based machines. The BIOS ROM in Jade & Ruby based machines is a flash device
and is upgraded (flashed) via software in-situ.
There are three possible installed flash BIOS ROMs, which are as
follows:
AMD Am29F010
AMD Am29F020
AMD Am29F040
If you have a Ruby based system (RG, RH), then the flash BIOS ROM will
be one of the first two types, whereas Jade systems (RE, RF) could be any of the three.
The only difference between the three version of the BIOS ROM when
upgrading is that the AMD Am29F040 requires an offset parameter entered into the command
line of JFLASH.EXE.
The current self unpacking archive file in Area 43 on the Apricot
Insight BBS is CRJ406.EXE. This contains a batch file called FLASH.BAT which makes it
easier for the user to detect which version of BIOS ROM is installed in the machine, and
will automatically put in the correct offset parameter if the AMD Am29F040 is selected. If
you follow the instructions in FLASH.BAT you shouldn't have any troubles upgrading the
BIOS.
Care however must be taken when flashing the BIOS on a Jade or Ruby
system, as selecting the wrong BIOS option will permanently damage your BIOS, and will
result in your motherboard being inoperative until the BIOS chip is replaced, so if you
are not sure what to do, contact Apricot Technical Support for further advice.
IMPORTANT NOTES
This program will not function under Windows so ensure you boot the
machine in DOS mode (not loading any TSRs).
Before running FLASH.BAT ensure that the Flash ROM program jumper (J3 on
motherboard) is set to Write Enable.
If any third party video cards are installed in the machine (e.g. Matrox
PCI) then remove them and use the onboard video connector, failure to do so will result in
no screen display after the upgrade. |
