BIOS upgrade and esupport.com

[DodgeMan79]

I have an older sony vaio laptop and the bios upgrade available to me is dated back to 2004. so I thought I would check out the site. after submitting some information i started to receive a few emails that sounded funny

email #1
Your BIOS Upgrade Ticket # is: 43LKLJX

Thank you for submitting your BIOS update request on-line this past Saturday.

Additional information about your PC is required in order to send your flash BIOS update. Please call me today and mention your ticket number or e-mail address.

On Mondays you can call me until 7:30EST.

Thank you,

Gene Smith
BIOS Technician

email#4
Your BIOS Upgrade Ticket # is: 43LKLJX

Please call me today regarding the Flash BIOS update request that you submitted on-line last Saturday.

In order to update your BIOS, additional info about your system is needed. Please call me today and refer to your ticket number or e-mail address.

On Thursdays you can reach me until 5:30EST.

Thank you,

Gene Smith
BIOS Technician

email#5
Your BIOS Upgrade Ticket # is: 43LKLJX

It has been a few days since we received your BIOS upgrade request online. Due to customer demand, we have decided to offer the new BIOS upgrades via an e-mail download.

eSupport.com is the Exclusive Authorized Upgrade and Support Center for American Megatrends and Phoenix-Award BIOS. For nearly 20 years, we have constantly upgraded thousands of motherboards and developed new BIOS upgrades for all the latest technology.

Based on the technical specifications you had submitted, we have an excellent BIOS Upgrade for your system. We have the brand new BIOS for your motherboard. The price is only $29.95........(too mcuh garbage to paste)


so I think they like to hassle a few days to get you to call then try and suck me in for $29.95. I only got one small hint about what version of upgrade I am able to get, 6.1X. i currently have PHOENIXBIOS 4.0 RELEASE 6.0.X.

is there a better site where I could get an upgrade without paying $29.95 for a such a small upgrade?

[Limp_Trizkit]

If the machine runs well enough right now, I wouldn't even consider upgrading it, especially from such a queer-sounding site as that one.

I would stick to OEM updates. Have you tried to call Sony to see if they could do anything for you, i.e. maybe they have an update collection CD they could mail you?

[DodgeMan79]

i've checked sony's support site and that's it. I'll see if there is a CD option as well. the current bios upgrade wants to format a floppy disk in A:, I don't have a floppy. how I can extract the files somewhere to be loading onto a bootable CD?

i have noticed that my RAM is not always detected correctly. I have (2) 256 sticks and my laptop can handle 512 with (2) 256 sticks. sometimes windows shows 256 sometimes 512, same with the bios.

[Limp_Trizkit]

i have noticed that my RAM is not always detected correctly. I have (2) 256 sticks and my laptop can handle 512 with (2) 256 sticks. sometimes windows shows 256 sometimes 512, same with the bios.That could be a RAM issue. Try reseating one or both sticks...and who knows, one of them might be starting to fail.

As far as the floppy image...is it some proprietary tool, or is it something like WinImage where you could get the demo of the software and extract files? And, as long as you have access to something that can write a floppy, just write the floppy, then copy all the files to a new ISO in Nero and use the floppy to copy the boot sector into the image (should be in the Image Options in Nero somewhere, I can look it up if you want more information), burn the disk, and try that on your laptop...it *MIGHT* work.

[DodgeMan79]

i've tried reseating and swapping slots. I'll run memtest overnight and see what happens.

the file is an EXE that wants to format a floppy disk, and my laptop doesn't have one. i did find a site, http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/#clean, that helps in building a bootable CD to flash my bios. it's great but I can't get the files from the EXE.

if you can help, my model number is pcg-grs100 from Sony.

[Limp_Trizkit]

If you (or someone else you know) can run that utility on another PC with a floppy drive (and a floppy), you'd be set, or at least have the files you need. Do you have any knowledgeable friends with a floppy drive who understand what you're trying to do and can e-mail the files back to you?

If you can wait about two or three weeks (I have the week of Thanksgiving off from school) and you remind me, I can do it for you. But that's a few weeks of waiting, and if possible I think it's better for your sake if we get this dealt with sooner; at least, I'd be eager to get this dealt with. I'd try with what I have in my dorm now, but my laptop's USB floppy drive has some real issues with those custom formatting utilities, and I had to smash my desktop's with a hammer (long story). *shrug*