AWBMTools a pair of utilities for creating full-screen BIOS Boot logos For the VIA EPIA motherboard *NEW RELEASE* 12/04/03 This version no longer chokes on greyscale TIFFs that have alpha channels, and copes better with greyscale images in general. WARNING: Flashing the BIOS on your computer is risky at the best of times - flashing the BIOS with a modified BIOS image is VERY DANGEROUS and may well result in a non-working motherboard that is very difficult, if not impossible, to resurrect. You use these programs, and their results entirely at your own risk. If you do come to grief and end up with a machine that won't boot, it may still be possible to resurrect it. If your BIOS chip is removable, will either re-flash it for you, or provide you with a new one, ready flashed with the BIOS of your choice. When I needed a dead motherboard resurrected, my BIOS chip and payment winged their way over to The Netherlands, and the chip was returned, reflashed and working, in around a fortnight:) Background Recent Award BIOS versions have the ability to display a fullscreen boot logo when booting, instead of the usual POST screen. The logo itself is embedded in the BIOS image, and although its 'filename' has the extension.BMP, it is *not* a BMP file - it's an odd but simplistic format referred to herein as AWBM.

BIOS Modding: Introduction and Preparations. Actual BIOS files do not contain any separate AHCI ROM module, because such BIOS module resp. Firmware is not required anymore. Note: The CBROM32_198.EXE has been renamed by me to 'CBROM.EXE' to make it easier for you. It works in the DOS box (has to be run as Admin) of all actual Windows. The New version of Award CBROM.EXE can be use to extract VGA, Net boot rom.etc. The command of the extraction is just like releasing BIOS.

The boot logos created by this program have only been tested so far with my VIA EPIA motherboard. In theory they should work with other recent Award BIOS versions that incude full-screen logo support, but I have yet to test this. What does it do? AWBM2TIFF and TIFF2AWBM convert images between 8-bit (256-colour) TIFF and the custom AWBM format used by the EPIA BIOS.

What doesn't it do? Streaming bleach anime sub indo. These programs *CANNOT* modify a BIOS image, or extract logos from a BIOS image. For that you need a program like CBROM (version 2.xx recommended, Windows only, unfortunately).

These programs are only intended for use with full-screen logos - they *CANNOT* be used to create EPA (Energy Star) logos. How do I customise my Boot Logo? First create your logo in a graphics package. For the EPIA you need to make a 640x480 image with 256 colours. Once you've done that, save it as a TIFF file, and use: tiff2awbm logo.tiff logo.bmp to convert to AWBM format. (The original logo in the EPIA BIOS has the filename VPSD.BMP, though it's most definitely *not* a BMP file.) Now use CBROM to insert this logo into the BIOS image, by typing: CBROM EPIA0207.BIN /logo logo.bmp If this succeeds, you can now flash your machine with the modified BIOS image. Note - if your logo is very elaborate, CBROM may complain that there isn't enough room in the BIOS file.