Okay, so MSI really fucked up a few years ago.
When they released the 865PE Neo2 line they decided in a few models to silkscreen them identically. As a result, the Neo2-P I thought I was getting (I needed it because it has support for two floppy drives for a very specific task) but turned out to be a Neo2-PLS (which lacks support for the second floppy drive).
Thus I blew $120.
I have been googling around and I stumbled upon something interesting.
Image search the MSI 865PE Neo2-PLS and you will see a black board like this:
[img]http://global.msi.eu/uploads/prod_fac45a9e414951ccd2cf791959e84337.jpg[/img]
Also, please not how the PLS also came in red. the board I have is black.
Now image search the MSI 865PE Neo2-P:
[img]http://www.thgtr.com/motherboard/20040729/images/msi-board-1024.jpg[/img]
Note here how you got a lot more results with black boards.
Anyways, go look at the owners manual for the Neo2-P and on the first page...
[img]http://www.phphuoc.com/reviews/main_msi_neo2_865pe/6728v2.0_gold.jpg[/img]
Anyways, so I'm guessing that the -PLS and the -P boards are the exact same thing, just with a different BIOS.
Would it be safe to assume that if I flashed this -PLS board with the -P BIOS I will not have any problems AND get the ability to use two floppy drives again?
Oh, I see what they did here.
The manual is wrong. the online spec sheet says that even the -P only had support for a single floppy drive.
Well the traces for two exist so I'll see what I can do with my BIOS editor.
It's worth a try. Same chipset on both boards, so the bios image should flash without a problem.
However, if you can - and the board uses a socketed BIOS chip - replace it with a spare before the flashing, so you can easilly replace it with the old one incase of POST failiure.
like hell its socketed. It's soldered to the board even though there is silkscreening marking where the socket would go.
Please report if it worked or not.. im curious :-)
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