> I need to flash the Award BIOS on a Tyan S1590S AT motherboard.
> 1. How important is it to completely clear the BIOS first? On one page
>    at the Tyan site they claim it's vital, but the page of flash
>    instructions does not even mention it.

        Clear the BIOS? I have never heard of that being required, or even
recommended. My recommendation is don't fix what is not broke, in your case
you said you need to flash it so I assume you actually do. About the
procedure involved is NOT to use a DOS window, start the computer in DOS
only, no windows loaded. I have seen a flash go OK with windows running but
I do not recommend it. Flashing a BIOS is one of the most dangerous things
you can do to a computer, if something goes wrong it is very possible that
the board will not start up. Some have a sort of emergency recover mode,
some do not. In the case of do not, you would have to physically remove the
BIOS chip, reprogram it, or replace it with a preprogrammed one.

> 2. How important is it that the setup defaults *ALL* be used?  In
> particular,
>    if the setup default boot sequence is C,A,SCSI is it OK to change just
>    that one to A,C,SCSI in order to use a DOS boot floppy?  The machine
>    does not have any DOS on it at all, and it would be a bit unpleasant
>    to install it just for this one-time flash.

        Not important at all, if you know what you are doing then you can fiddle as
much as you want. The only danger here is changing settings that either slow
down your computer or overclock it. However, with a BIOS the wonderful thing
is if you do make a mistake you just clear it either by a jumper or as a
last resort removing the battery for a while. TTYL

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