I have corrected this problem by:

Warning: High Risk of Permanent Damage to your motherboard.  Safer (and more expensive) 
method follows further below.

Start of High Risk Method:

1) If you have an ASUS Motherboard get AFLASHxxx.EXE from www.asus.com.tw (xxx is 
the version for your Motherboard, don't ask me, look on the ASUS website to figure 
it out)
2) Rename the .exe to .doc
3) Do a text search on ATMEL
4) Do you see other manufacturers and part numbers on that page?  There is a good 
chance that some or all of these devices are suitable substitutes for your (now worn 
out) FLASH chip.  Check the device dimensions.  For example, if it is 256K X 8 bits 
than any listed device with the same dimensions should work.
5) Cannibalize a damaged/discarded motherboard for its FLASH device as defined above.
6) Turn computer power supply off
7) NOTE THE POLARITY OF THE DEVICE – Pin 1 has a dot in the plastic.  Draw yourself 
a picture of the device orientation on the Motherboard.
7) Loosen the BIOS device or remove it completely being very careful NOT to bend 
the pins.
8) If the pins are too widely opened, you may choose to correct this by laying the 
device on its side and rolling it towards its underside 2-3 degrees, thus bending 
the pins inwards slightly.  This will make live extraction slightly safer.  Do the 
same for the replacement device so that the pins exactly line up with the socket.
9) Put the original device back into the motherboard but do not seat it all the way, 
just enough for the pins to make firm contact with the socket conductors leafing 
a space to pry it loose again.
10) Boot from a boot floppy containing 
     i) the ASUS FLASH utility AFLASHxxx.exe as well as
     ii) the BIOS file that you plan to load to your FLASH. 
Note: This file should be downloaded from the ASUS website. ON SOME VERSIONS of AFLASHxxx.exe 
you can create this file from your installed FLASH BIOS device.  You are on you own 
here, best to get the file from ASUS.  Example ASUS P2B use BIOS version 1012.
11) After booting, note the polarity of the FLASH device and remove the FLASH device 
being careful not to short anything and try to disconnect all pins at the same time.
12) Insert the new FLASH device, same rules, all pins make contact at same time.
13) Use AFLASHxxx.exe.  (Note the name of the new BIOS file before you begin since 
you will need to type it in.   If AFLASHxxx.exe recognizes your FLASH device (part 
number in blue box at top of screen) you are good to go.  Example: Original device 
ATMEL AT49F002T  Cannibalized Device SST29EE020. Blue box now shows the latter.
14) Flash the BIOS.
15) Reboot, press DEL, reset you BIOS to defaults, set you BIOS up again.
16) ESCD now updates without complaint

Notes:

A safer method is to copy the contents of the old device to the new device using 
an EEPROM programmer.  Then the computer power can be kept off when inserting and 
removing devices.  This could cost you money unless you have a EEPROM programmer. 
 If you do this, it is still a good idea to re FLASH your new BIOS chip after the 
device swap, but that is only if you know that the latest BIOS will work as good 
as the current one.  You can use AFLASH to save the current one so you can revert 
to it if need be.

The reason you have to do this repair is that the authors of AWARD BIOS decided to 
store card config info in the FLASH.  This is not updated every time you boot, but 
is periodically updated apparently.

According to the ATMEL datasheet at 

http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/DOC1017.PDF

this device will not wear out until 10,000 cycles.  Hmmm.....

I put AT49F002T on an EPROM programmer and it would not erase.  That is how I determined 
that this was the problem.  AFLASH.exe says that it is rewriting the ESCD data so 
this data is definitely stored in FLASH and NOT in CMOS NVRAM.  Comments from AWARD/AMI 
engineers on this design decision would be interesting no doubt.

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