Phoenix bios update 14 how fussy?

I have a GVC DR736 motherboard running Phoenix version 6.0.2w. After
hunting around for a bios upgrade it appears this motherboard is an
orphan . I need advise from someone who has hacked bioses.

I did find some bios upgrades for other boards with the same chipset
440BX. Problem is the manufacturers play around with different
onboard options like sound and video. I am running onboard 8 meg
matrox and vortex sound chipsets.

How close do boards have to match to use the same bios upgrade? Do
the onboard video and audio chipsets have to match exactly or is the
requirement only that the boards have onboard audio and video and
nothing else matters?

I have a 2 meg 256K bios chip that I can put in recovery mode and load
with a number of different bioses. I am leaning towards the Intel
RCBIOS14.exe update currently since I was able to match up AGP and
power management controllers.

Some people apparently have switched bios manufacturers to get their
boards updated. Are Award bioses less fussy than Phoenix bioses for
compatibility issues when replacing Phoenix?

What is the best freeware utility to back up my current bios to
floppy? The Intel Iflash utility looks like a one way program.

Sorry to sound like such a wooose but my case is a little non standard
so if I screw this up I won't be able to replace the motherboard. I
searched all 114 pages of my user manual and could not find a
reference to bios chip being removable however the bios identifier
utility I ran said the chip was socketed.

Any new clues would be appreciated!

 

The bios really should be written for that board. Although by some stroke of
luck, you might get another BIOS to work (and I use that term loosely) if
the components are similar enough, it's something I wouldn't bother trying
unless you are fully prepared to have a dead board on your hands in the
process. The fact that you have onboard video and sound would seem to make
the chances of having a BIOS written for another (non-identical) board work
in this one, rather slim. There are services that will sell you a BIOS
update for a board that is no longer supported, but the BIOS is still
written to support that board's features. I think you need to evaluate just
how badly you really need a BIOS update. You never specified as to why you
want to update in the first place. Are you sure that it will solve your
problem? Do you even have a problem with the board as-is?


...

 

This board came in a Sony Digital studio package and is set up for
audio/video applications.

Bought a new hard drive that is capable of 60 megs a second for
streaming but the on board controller maxes out early. When I tried
installing a faster PCI controller card I started getting bios
messages after the controller scanned the card and identified the
drive but before the system would boot.

Also I am stuck with a PII 350 currently and would like to upgrade the
slot1 processor to get around the slow L2 cache problem. I have a 100
mhz memory and a limited power supply wattage so I realize I gotta
know my limits. I still think it would be worth the effort to upgrade
the bios though. You are probably correct I should print off the bios
info and 800 number in case I have to wait a couple days for a bios
replacement.

What I am concerned about is that the new bios won't recognize the
onboard matrox G200 video and I won't be able to see the pages in
setup to disable onboard video and put in a new graphics daughter
card.