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ST-V BIOS woes

KalessinDB

KalessinDB

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Just curious if anyone has run into a similar problem. I picked up an STV board way back when the multi was originally announced. It came with an original JP BIOS, and I asked the guy doing the group buy (Fox1 on NG, a pretty reputable guy) to burn me a multi BIOS for it as well.

I forget all about the multi BIOS for months as I wait for the multi cart to drop. Eventually I install it and nothing. Just blank black screen. Figure oh well no biggee maybe I messed it up somehow, it was only like 3 bucks.

But recently I got the multi BIOS switcher from these very boards, and same thing happens. Absolutely nothing, no matter which of the 4 BIOS files I set to be active. Switch it back in to the original JP one I still have and it's fine.

So basically I have a board that I seem to not be able to change the BIOS chip on, period. Anyone else encountered anything like that?
 
My STV mainboard came from Derick2k, I guess he had installed the multiBIOS previously for his own use.
I had no issues with it booting the BIOS, however I did notice right away that some games only work with some region BIOS (which I guess is the entire point of having the multiIBIOS).
 
There are two different types of bios chips that come on ST-V boards. They are not interchangeable. What type of chip was the original, working chip?
 
Mitsurugi-w said:
There are two different types of bios chips that come on ST-V boards. They are not interchangeable. What type of chip was the original, working chip?
Click to expand...
Not at home right now (posting to kill time waiting on a doctor) but will check that soon as I get home.
 
Mitsurugi-w said:
There are two different types of bios chips that come on ST-V boards. They are not interchangeable. What type of chip was the original, working chip?
Click to expand...
Original chip days M27C4002-I2FI V88AI 943IBS Singapore

Both the chip from Fox1 and the one from silverfox0786 have labels on them so I can't easily check their markings, though they're physically the same size (not that I especially think that's going to mean anything)
 
I know the one type that is normally a MASK rom is replaced with M27C400 or equivalent. This is the one all of my STV motherboards have had.

I know if you have an eprom stock bios (not mask rom), then it's different. The M27C4002 has a different pinout than M27C400.

tl;dr you have the odd-man-out motherboard and you should just need your bios burned to a M27C4002 not 27C400. Fox1 should be able to handle that, or I could grab some blanks and burn one for you since my programmer should handle M27C4002 just fine.
 
Last edited:
Well that explains it then. Thanks. I'm actually gonna poke at silverfox0786 since I've got his quad bios selector and see if he can write me one with the four options. If not possible, I'll message Fox1

Thank you all for the quick help.
 
Looking at the selector he's using a 16Mbit rom, and since the stv bios is 4Mbit you can do the math there. It's likely the hardware switcher would have to be physically re-wired to the correct address lines for your motherboard. Honestly I'd try the software multi on a M27C4002 first so you're 100% sure of what's going on (plus that's cheap and easy to try).
 
skate323k137 said:
Looking at the selector he's using a 16Mbit rom, and since the stv bios is 4Mbit you can do the math there. It's likely the hardware switcher would have to be physically re-wired to the correct address lines for your motherboard. Honestly I'd try the software multi on a M27C4002 first so you're 100% sure of what's going on (plus that's cheap and easy to try).
Click to expand...
Alright, fair enough. There's very few games that don't play nice with the software multi anyway so I suppose I'll go that way (plus I forgot he's international)

I may have a quad selector to sell soon...
 
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