Motherboard Trying to update my BIOS, clueless on what MB I have

[User-1]

Hello all,

I have an old Shuttles Case and I thought motherboard, but it's not. I can't find any info on the MB other than some numbers, 71R-FG4100-T820.

Here's somewhat the history of it. I put together a Shuttle SFF pc years ago. I first installed Win7 and then I was going to install a Linux OS. I installed 8GB of ram, but the BIOS was only reporting seeing 4GB. The computer ran OK with 4GB but I wasn't really inspired to move forward with doing anything more, since I was busy at that time. So nowadays I went ahead and just installed Linux and started from there. I thought that maybe either one of my memory cards was bad or one of the two memory slots were bad. I figured the first to do was find out which one it is. Since now my computer is running like crap. It ends up that both slots are good, as are both cards (2 x 4gb)! So I guess I have to update the BIOS. Hopefully then I'll have my 8GB of ram. The problem is that I'm not finding anything with the number above.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can update my BIOS?

(Hopefully this is the right forum for this. If not, let me know and I'll remedy it.)

 

[Phuncz]

Welcome ! That number doesn't ring any bells, usually there's a model number somewhere around the CPU socket or near a PCIe connector. Would it be possible to make a photo of the motherboard and some specs what kind of hardware is in it, like chipset, RAM support, etc.

If you're talking about 2x 4GB and only 4GB being recognized, I would expect it to be DDR2 RAM, since DDR3 shouldn't have an issue with 4GB sticks but DDR2 did from time to time.

 

[jeshikat]

Looking up that mobo # shows that it's DDR3, and that it may belong to a SG41J1: http://global.shuttle.com/main/productsDownload?productId=1383

 

[User-1]

Hey guys, thanks for the warm welcome! Glad to find the site!

OK I managed to get a couple of pics that would be of great help. Looks like this is a Shuttle MB!

To post pics here is via a url? Can't do it from my computer? BRB

I'm just posting the link here..........

 

[jeshikat]

To post pics here is via a url? Can't do it from my computer? BRB

Imgur is what most people use: http://imgur.com/

Hosting pics on the forum itself would increase hosting costs due to storage and bandwidth so it's not something we're doing at the moment.

 

[User-1]

OK I understand.

Man I'm not really finding anything with these numbers. Shuttle's site wasn't any help either.

 

[jeshikat]

Ok, serial number in your pic says "SG41J1..."

There's a SG41J1 and a SG41J1 Plus. Only the Plus takes DDR3 so if that's what type of RAM you have, then you definitely have the SG41J1 Plus.

There's several BIOS updates for the Plus, a few of which mention DRAM compatibility: http://global.shuttle.com/main/productsDownload?productId=1383

 

[User-1]

Wow thanks for the help! Yeah I have the SG41J1 Plus. I'm using DDR3, http://www.corsair.com/en-us/cmx4gx3m2a1600c7

The latest BIOS is .110, I currently have .101

The site gives a checksum. So I'm going that route. I've never done that before, but always wanted to. I'm using Ubuntu 16.04. The disk used for installing my 64 bit OS was from this Linux mag that Ubuntu put out. The download has three files, a DOS file, a W32, and a W64 file. Any idea how to approach this?

 

[jeshikat]

If you're not running Windows then you'll have to do DOS I guess: http://www.howtogeek.com/136987/how-to-create-a-bootable-dos-usb-drive/

You may want to read the manual and see if it has any specific instructions on the procedure for updating the BIOS from DOS though.

 

[Soul_Est]

Wow thanks for the help! Yeah I have the SG41J1 Plus. I'm using DDR3, http://www.corsair.com/en-us/cmx4gx3m2a1600c7

The latest BIOS is .110, I currently have .101

The site gives a checksum. So I'm going that route. I've never done that before, but always wanted to. I'm using Ubuntu 16.04. The disk used for installing my 64 bit OS was from this Linux mag that Ubuntu put out. The download has three files, a DOS file, a W32, and a W64 file. Any idea how to approach this?

I downloaded the latest BIOS update (.ZIP) and tried to extract it but no dice. Last time I went about updating the BIOS, I used grub4dos to make the drive bootable.

 

[User-1]

Looking up that mobo # shows that it's DDR3, and that it may belong to a SG41J1: http://global.shuttle.com/main/productsDownload?productId=1383

This states in the directions provided;

Download Rufus and launch it. Rufus doesn’t require any installation – you will see the Rufus application as soon as you launch the downloaded .exe file.

I'm betting they're assuming the downloader is running Windows.

 

[jeshikat]

Ah right, Rufus is a Windows tool. Maybe something like this then? https://www.chtaube.eu/computers/freedos/bootable-usb/

 

[Phuncz]

Wow thanks for the help! Yeah I have the SG41J1 Plus. I'm using DDR3, http://www.corsair.com/en-us/cmx4gx3m2a1600c7

The memory in that picture says it's "4GB (2x2GB)" and according to Corsair it's a 4GB kit, meaning 2 sticks of 2GB each. So you can't have 8GB if they are two 2GB sticks. But even if it was two 4GB sticks, it has a high voltage spec of 1.65V while standard DDR3 used 1.5V, this might also be a problem if the picture isn't from your own stick of RAM.

I've had this problem with DDR2 and 2.1V sticks causing all sorts of issues when I use four sticks of them, I have start upping various voltages of components to even be able to boot. Shuttle's boards are usually less flexible and can be difficult about above-average RAM voltages.