ASUS MyLogo3 Software - BIOS killer?
Since I do generally get good google results for relevant topics, I thought I would share some information that I received from ASUS level 3 tech support.
I recently tried to use the MyLogo3 software package on an M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition motherboard from ASUS. The software is designed to allow you to put your own logo/opening screen into the boot sequence of the motherboard.
The software encourages you to use a 640×480 pixel design, 256 color, under 150kb. What they do not tell you in the manual is the following:
The software itself does not warn you if the image you are inserting exceeds these specifications. If your image is larger that 150kb, it is possible that the assembled BIOS image may be too large to flash back to the BIOS.
The problem is that when running the software in Windows, you won’t receive any indication that the BIOS has been corrupted – the data will write to the BIOS chip and will verify but the entire BIOS software may not be resident.
On boot-up your symptoms vary – I read later on about cases where users experienced a sheer black screen without POST. Some got their boot logo, but no input devices and no beeps.
I personally got beeps and my boot logo, but no memory test. Removing memory I got BIOS beeps, removing the video card I got BIOS beeps – so a portion of the diagnostics was resident, however there was not enough of the software to proceed to POST or drive checks (not even the floppy drive).
Because the BIOS never goes to POST, it is impossible to use any of the bundled BIOS recovery solutions available on the DVD, floppies or thumbdrives. I had to RMA the motherboard because I have a soldered BIOS chip (not socketed).
Since this information was not available to me when I first started, I thought I would post this in hopes that if someone is considering using the mylogo3 software, they will do so with great care in making sure that the boot screen they have selected is below 140kb (to be safe).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
© 2007 Jacob Gorny