UPDATED! NOW HAS Latest BIOS (902 March-24-2010)
Using a Rampage II GENE BIOS caused issues with the network NIC so I injected the nVidia cert into the cg5290 BIOS. Use the standard ASUS Update Utility to flash the modified firmware.
Download the ROM here. (Note: Hosted from a friend who devs for iPad. So if you have one, please check out His iPad App Site for one of his apps.)
OLD NEWS::OBSELETE
Found the solution! The Rampage II Gene motherboard in the CG5290 BP007 Desktop I bought from Bestbuy has had the BIOS tweaked to NOT include SLi, Crossfire, or X-Fi.
Why?
Asus cheaped out in paying licence fees and doesn't want you opening the machine anyways. So how do you get around this? I found a way!
1: Download the HP Bootable USB Utility from here: http://rapidshare.com/files/107282064/HPUSBFW.zip
2: Download the Boot Files from here: http://rapidshare.com/files/107282214/USB-Boot.zip
3: Download the bios of your choice from Asus: http://support.asus.com/download/download_item_dna.aspx?product=1&model=Rampage%20II%20Gene&SLanguage=en-us&os=25
4: Download AFUDOS Engineering Version here: http://rapidshare.com/files/107282483/AFUDOS236ES.zip
5: Run the HP Bootable USB Utility and tick the "Create a DOS Startup Disk" option. Now navigate to the Boot Files (extract them first) and select the Folder you extracted them to.
6: Click "Start" within the HP Bootable USB Utility and it will make your USB Stick bootable.
7: Extract the AFUDOS of your choice (I personally used v2.29ES) to the USB Stick along with the bios you wish to flash and a backup bios for your board (located on the Asus Support site) so you can flash back if the need arises.
8: Reboot your system and press F8 when the splash screen appears to select the boot menu. Once the boot menu has loaded navigate to the USB Stick and hit Enter.
9: Once the DOS Prompt is ready, type the following to flash to the Rampage Bios (Example uses Bios RAMPAGE~1.ROM):
AFUDOS /iRAMPAGE~1.rom /pbnc /n
To flash any other bios, or even back to a stock bios just use the following:
AFUDOS /i**INSERT*BIOS*FILENAME*HERE** /pbnc /n
Wait for it to flash and power cycle your computer. The first boot takes a while to post (took about a minute, black screen) since your BIOS settings will need to be reconfigured. You will instantly notice your CPU fan is running MUCH faster. To fix that, turn on fan control in the BIOS and set it to silent.
MAKE SURE TO ONLY USE A RAMPAGE II GENE BIOS. I TAKE NO RESPONCIBILITY IF YOU DESTROY YOUR MOTHERBOARD.
20 comments:
Man,
I bought the same machine, I am screwed up with the stupid RAID, the original motherboard says that support raid and this stupid machine they desabilited the RAID support, have you found any solution for that?
please let me know, I am very interested before I buy a stupid PCI Xpress SATA RAID card for this stupid machine.
I have attempted to install your BIOS on my CG5290 with no luck. I had to use my backup BIOS from DVD to restore my machines original BIOS. The Flash utility within the BIOS says that the ROM image of yours has a bad boot sector. In case you can fix this, you may want to update the ROM image and re-upload it.
Sounds like your download was incomplete. This download is hosted by my clock (http://justin.moravetz.com/2008/12/my-pong-clock.html).
Thank you for this. I am going to try this. I just bought this computer. Upon installing a new heatsink, I realized that this motherboard is a really dumbed down version of the real rampage 2 gene. Look at the real one, and notice the north bridge on the real rampage 2 gene has a much nicer heat sink. No wonder I keep getting NB temperature warnings. Notice how the real one actually has start and reset buttons. Bunch of Crap Asus. I don't care why they did this. Warranty issue or not, I was told that I was getting the rampage 2 gene and instead I got its fucking retarded brother.
Also....
I am honestly thinking about buying the real Rampage 2 gene. Its much nicer... The NB heatsink is waaay better. And it Has Start and reset buttons. Also My board is a little warped right from factory. I am upset with Asus right now......
Anyways.... for all of you with this computer. I modded my case... Just wanted to say that this case is actually pretty nice for modding. If you want to see some pics, let me know.
the rampagesli.rom is all you need from my site. To install it you need to use the Asus Update Utility to flash your motherboard BIOS. Make sure your ROM is 100% downloaded and you should be fine.
For some reason it didn't work for me. I used the Asus update utility and selected your .rom file. Then it said something like "block read error" or something like that. Bummer, I wonder what this means.
Justin (or anyone!) get Raid working on this via hacking the bios? Best Buy specifically told me it would support Raid, so I purchased with the system an extra 1TB drive and...well you know the story hehe. If you haven't been able to hack the bios, how do I even get at the pci express x1 slot to add a Raid card? The video card is totally covering it up =/ Help please! Thanks.
No work for me either? Has this worked for anybody? Please email me at kennyroy#at$gmail^dot!com Asus flash utility says the rom is older and I must use Asus Dos utility. when I do that, it says block error
Looks like ASUS made an update to the firmware. The update utility does not like to downgrade. I can give it a go sometime this weekend. I used Windows 7 to install this firmware. Also, I need to finda reliable place to store the ROM since the file is literally being hosted by my living room clock. Lastly, I just finished installing Mac OS Snow Leopard 10.6.2 with complete success! Took me a long time to get it working on this machine, but now it runs great!
So is this bios version you posted a revision of the stock one, or is it a full blown rampage 2 gene bios?
Example: Will every thing be unlocked as if it were the real motherboard? Will overclocking the video card work?
You said you got MAC OSX installed. Did you have any issues with USB install disks? Can't seem to get my CG5290 to notice the USB flashdrive.
Thanks.
First of all I want to say thanks for everything. Second, could you inject the nvidia certificate on the 0901 BIOS update so that I can update the bios?
I don't think the 0901 bios is for the boards that come in the Essentio PCs, only for retail Rampage 2 Gene boards. The last official bios for the Essentio model is still 0502 from what I can tell.
Well it's available in the 5290 download page: http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=CG5290
I'll take a look this weekend. Been avoiding it since I take the stand "if it ain't broke"... On other news 10.6.3 Mac Os is running very well.
Justin !
Hey there again, with all these flashes mods, is there a way to run now RAID on this machine or not? I have not read that somewhere yet, any clue?
Updated! I patched version 0901 from March 24th. Only SLi was added since I couldn't locate the RAID info from the real Rampage II GENE BIOS without going outside my scope of knowhow. Figured is was best not to use your data as a test bed :p
The firmware can be found in the first post. It's being hosted by a friend so its more reliable this time. He is an iPad dev so if you have an iPad, please check out his app at http://pushypixels.com , that would be great!
Hey. I just did bios upgrade from 5202 to your modded bios. But failed on 3rd step. Then I restarted. Now my pc won't boot up. Just fans are spinning. Help. What can I do?
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