You might find yourself in a situation where you have an old motherboard based on a phoenixBIOS chip, and you desire to update the BIOS to the latest version.
In this example, I had a Supermicro X7DWE-O. The motherboard is quite old and BIOS downloads are no longer available. Visiting the Supermicro website below, you are greeted with a message: The product is archived and no longer in production. Please go to our BIOS List to locate your product BIOS/BMC Firmware/Bundled Software.
https://www.supermicro.com/en/support/resources/downloadcenter/firmware/MBD-X7DWE/BIOS
I was able to acquire the BIOS .bin / .rom file (i.e., X7DWE0.B19). However, after entering the BIOS setup on the motherboard I found it had no built in update system. I also had no DOS flash utility for Phoenix BIOS.
I came across several Supermicro FAQs for motherboards such X7DA8, X7DWA, X7QC3, X7SBE and X7SB4 that mentioned a Phoenix BIOS and related functions:
https://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=760
https://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=5039
https://www.supermicro.org.cn/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=5860
https://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=11444
https://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=12512
The steps I used to flash the BIOS:
- Create a USB bootable DOS disk (I prefer FreeDOS) using Rufus
- Download the phflash utility
https://www.mediafire.com/?1b2zr67o1y5v4gr - From that download, find and copy phflash16.exe to the bootable disk
- Use the disk to boot into DOS
- To update the BIOS, use the command phflash16.exe <filename>. For example:
phflash16.exe X7DWE0.B19
- Proceed with the directions shown to flash.