Acer Aspire 1830T Insyde Recovery Problem

[Komari]

Upgrading the BIOS had to fail of course and now I'm stuck with a bricked laptop. This is what I tried to do to recover it:
1. Switch it off and remove all peripherals and the HDD
2. Insert a flash drive with the BIOS file on it
3. Hold down Fn+Esc and connect the charger (power LED flashes once)
4. Hit the power button (still holding Fn+Esc) -> lights are turning on
5. Fan starts to spin at max speed after some seconds
6. Flash drive LED starts glowing (=power)
7. Flash drive LED starts flashing for several (20 or 30) seconds
8. Fan spins down
9. Fan returns to max speed after 1 minute
10. Fan keeps spinning and nothing else happens

File names I tried (.fd, .bin and . rom for each one):
JV10V124 (default name)
JV10 (shortened to 4 digits)
JV10X64 (name displayed by phoenix tool)
AA (from platform.ini)
BB (see above)
AAHW
BBHW

The flash drive is a 2 GB drive formatted with FAT32.

What am I missing? Could the file names be wrong?

[camiloml]

Post a link to the original bios from the manufacturer site. I will have a look at it.

[Komari]

Here you go:
http://global-download.acer.com/GDFiles/...&SC=EMEA_2
I really appreciate your help.

[camiloml]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/45117524/bios-mo...JV10X64.fd

Format the smallest pendrive you have (2Gb or less is better) in FAT32.

Download and copy this file on the root of it, don't rename. Leave as is.

Power off the laptop, plug the pendrive on it.

Press and hold FN+ESC, don't release untill i say to do

Now press power on on laptop, wait a couple of seconds and press power on again.

Wait untill you see heavy activity on pendrive, then release the FN+ESC keys. Wait and the laptop should reboot itself.

Now laptop is recovered and with full menus in bios

[Komari]

I can't seem to get it to work. I'll try it again tomorrow with a smaller drive.

[camiloml]

The procedure is like i described, maybe you need some tries to get it working. Try in the first press of power on to keep it pressed for a second or two.

I did it with my aspire one many times, and not always the flashing process was trigered. So keep trying.

---

Also try another pendrive before give up

[Komari]

Well, it just won't work. As before, the drive is accessed for a few seconds and nothing else happens.
Another weird thing: The laptop powers itself on a few seconds after plugging in the charger (without pushing the power button).

[camiloml]

Completely assemble it and try again, no need to remove hd or other devices, also check your power on button is not broken.

[Komari]

Thank you for your great support, but it probably was the same hardware problem I already had a few months ago. The laptop doesn't react to anything anymore. And coincidentially, the problem started during the BIOS update this time.