Upgrading Asus G1S BIOS

Be aware that following procedure may corrupt the BIOS and render your laptop unusable. So please proceed with your own risk. If you are not sure what you are doing, please ask someone experienced to do this procedure with you.

Please make sure that your computer is connected to mains adapter and the battery is full before starting this BIOS upgrade procedure.


You may want to upgrade your Asus G1S's BIOS to version 205 or 300 before installing Windows XP. These new BIOS versions 205 and 300 contain a special BIOS option "Hard Disk IDE/SATA Compatibility Mode", which allows you to install Windows XP easily, without creating a special Windows XP installation disk.

See table below, which version you need for an upgrade.

VERSION FILE NAME IMAGE NAME FEATURES
205 G1S205AS.zip G1SAS.205 Use this BIOS version if you have maximum of 2GB of RAM installed.
300 G1S300AS.zip G1SAS.300 Use this BIOS version if you have more than 2GB of RAM installed.

Some users have indicated minor performance loss and/or a faint high pitch sound after upgrading to BIOS 300. If you have maximum of 2GB RAM installed, you can use version 205 without problems. But, if you have more than 2GB RAM installed and plan to install Windows XP or any Linux distro, it is recommended to use BIOS version 300 - otherwise you will encounter major problems with the display drivers and experience poor display performance.

You can perform the BIOS update either by using a USB-memory stick with 2MB of free space or by using two CD's. The USB-stick method is simpler and faster. But if you do not have a suitable USB-stick, you can use the CD-method instead.


USB-MEMORY STICK METHOD

The USB-memory stick has to formatted as FAT32 in order to make this recipe to work - otherwise the BIOS update utility cannot read the USB-stick. As the USB-memory sticks are [usually] preformatted and sold FAT32 file system on it, there should not be any problems with this. However, if you have changed USB-stick's formatting, you need to reformat the stick for FAT32 [and lose all data on the stick].

So, here we go:

1. Navigate to Asus G1S support site
2. Open BIOS section and download the BIOS files G1S205AS.zip and G1S300AS.zip
3. Unzip the files and save the BIOS images G1SAS.205 and G1SAS.300 onto the USB-stick
4. Remove temporarily all peripherals connected to the G1S's USB-ports
5. Place the USB-stick to [any free] G1S's USB-port
6. Reboot your G1S and press "F4" as soon as system reboots [ie. you see the Asus splash-screen]
7. At this point you should see "AsusTek BIOS ROM Easy Flash Utility" screen
8. Select drive C: with the up/down arrow keys and press "Enter"
9. Select the unzipped BIOS binary file G1SAS.205 or G1SAS.300 with up/down arrow keys and press "Enter"
10. Select "Yes" to start BIOS update
11. Wait until BIOS is written. The computer will reboot itself.
12. When the system reboots, press F2 to enter BIOS
13. Navigate to "Reset to Defaults"; either User or Manufacturer defaults.
14. Navigate around BIOS and select options the way you like them (boot device order etc.)

Congratulations! Now your BIOS is updated.


CD-METHOD

This recipe assumes that you know how to use a disk burning software for creating CDs and burning ISO images. For this recipe you will need two blank CDs and a software that is capable of burning ISO images - like Nero or free CDBurnerXP.

First you need to create a bootable CD:

1. Navigate to the www.bootdisk.com site
2. Download the zip-file flashcd.zip which will contain iso-image for bootable CD
3. Unzip the file flashcd.zip and burn the FLASHCD.ISO image to the CD

Next you need to create another CD for the new BIOS images and an utility for flashing the BIOS:

1. Navigate to Asus G1S support site
2. Open BIOS section and download the BIOS files G1S205AS.zip and G1S300AS.zip
3. Open BIOS-Utilities section and download the AFLASH2-utility
4. Unzip the files G1S205AS.zip and G1S300AS.zip and save the BIOS images G1SAS.205 and G1SAS.300
5. Unzip the AFLASH2-utility file and save the AFLASH2.EXE
6. Burn the files G1SAS.205, G1SAS.300 and AFLASH2.EXE to the second CD

Finally, you can go ahead and update the BIOS:

1. Place the bootable CD #1 into the CD/DVD drive
2. Reboot and press ESC to select the boot device
3. Boot from CD and wait until you see DOS command prompt
4. Remove the boot CD
5. Insert the CD #2 containing the BIOS image and AFLASH2.EXE utility
6. Change the default drive letter to R:
7. Launch the AFLASH2.EXE and update BIOS you need
8. Wait until BIOS is written. The computer will reboot itself.
9. When the system reboots, press F2 to enter BIOS
10. Navigate to "Reset to Defaults"; either User or Manufacturer defaults.
11. Navigate around BIOS and select options the way you like them (boot device order etc.)

If everything went well, you will now have a system with updated BIOS.


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