Serious problem with computer bios, please help

Question

Hey everyone, well I've emailed dell technical support 3 times but I've yet to receive a reply. I'm sure they'll reply soon enough but the problem with my computer is really bothering me. Well, it appears that my computer has suffered some major damage involving the bios and I am not sure exactly how to correct it. I have only been using my Dimension 8200 for a month at the most. It is equipped with windows xp and apparently the aor 1 bios supplied by dell. The problem developed while I was downloading something off the interent and while I was running real player. The computer crashed and attempted to restart itself when it got passed the bios screen then stopped with the underscore flickering. After waiting several minutes I decided to manually shut down. After several attempts at restarting the computer I assumed it was windows fault so I attempted to reinstall it however, what appeared on the screen was a disply stating that the bios could not pass checkpoint [WRIT] then in another attempt it said it could not pass checkpoint [HRDISK] or something in that effect. I am hoping that you guys can help me solve my problem, after going through the knowedge base and forums I have assumed that perhaps by flashing the bios or updating it, the computer might fix itself. I haven't tried this yet because I would like your opinions before such drastic actions. I haven't even turned my computer on in a few days cause I am unsure what to do. Any help is appreciated and thank you.

pastle · Answer

What does flashing the bios mean? I have never heard this term.

Paul_Cussen · Answer

flashing/reflashing the bios will not cause any adverse effects, unless you lose power while doing so. Although other people here say otherwise, I make a point of ALWAYS KEEPING my bios up to date, and have yet to have ANY adverse effects.

Hope this helps,
Paul.

DVLSH1 · Answer

flashing means updating it by downloading the latest bios file and making a floppy disk and booting from that floppy, which updates your bios to the latest version

pastle · Answer

This is something I have never done. How important is it? Where do I get the latest bios file, and do I download it to the floppy disk?

Mecadon · Answer

Make sure you login your account first. Then go to the downloads section of this site. Select flash BIOS from the dropdown menu, enter your operating system (ME, XP, etc.) and the site will pull up compatible BIOS for your computer. Select the latest version and download the version which will require you to use a floppy disk. The instructions are relatively simple. Save it to your desktop. Close all programs. Insert a blank floppy disk into your A drive. Double click the BIOS desktop icon to unzip the files and follow the directions for creating the BIOS floppy disk.

Once the disk is completed you're ready to flash your BIOS. Leave the disk in the A drive. Restart your computer. The computer will read the A drive for the updated BIOS. Follow the directions. Once the flash starts, DON'T TOUCH THE MOUSE OR KEYBOARD until it's done! Reboot your computer and the updated BIOS version will be acknowledged by your computer. You're done.

There are more detailed directions available when you get to the downloads section of this site. Review them thoroughly before proceeding. Good luck.

Mecadon

Dell Dimension 8100
Windows ME with BIOS A09
1.5 Gh Pentium 4
256 Mb RAM PC800
40 Gb hard drive (7200 rpm)
32 Mb Nvidia video card (tv out)
Soundblaster Live sound card
16x DVD ROM drive
16x10x40 CD-RW drive
17" Trinitron
AL speakers with subwoofer
Epson 777 printer

Dimsn8200owner · Answer

Thank you for your help, after updating the bios the system functions normally with the exception of random restarting. After updating the bios my computer restarted itself after a few mins of use then it restarted itself again. Eventually it did something very strange and I encountered an error message which disappeared too quickly for me to identify. Eventually I reached windows again and decided to run scandisk with the automatically fix errors and recover bad sectors options checked. Then the computer restarted again by itself and then ran scandisk as it was loading however, it seemed to crash and then began emitting a number of beeps. I am wondering if I should do a clean install of windows xp or could I just restore my computer to a system point where it worked correctly before and clear the nvram. Thank you for your time and your help thank you.

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Serious problem with computer bios, please help

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