Bios Corrupt on Acer Aspire 5313 notebook

[Dave C.]

HI,
I was running an "Insyde" Bios update from windows XP on my sisters
Acer Aspire 5313 laptop last night and the damn thing crashed at 99%
complete! I left it for 30 minutes to see if it would finish but -
nothing. All keys and mouse actions were gone. I tried holding the
power button for 10 seconds - nothing.
I unplugged it and removed the battery, put it back in and tried to
switch it on - nothing. It was completely dead: The power switch on
the laptop had no effect - no light, fans - nothing. I opened it to
see if I could find a reset pin on the bios chip but I have no idea
which is the bios chip!

I left it open overnight without battery/AC in the hope that the bios
would reset to default, but I'm having the same problem today. There's
no way to turn it on or boot from a usb or floppy or anything. It's
still open here and I'm wondering if there's anything I can do?

Is it dead forever?

Thanks,
Ciarán

Yup, it sounds like it's dead forever. But not because of a bad BIOS flash.. There is a way you could try to reflash the BIOS using a bootable DOS disk with flashing program and data file pre-installed.

But you've got a bigger problem than that to solve first. If the notebook isn't even turning on, you've got a hardware problem. Dead power supply maybe?

Before you throw any money at this, keep in mind that brand new Dell laptops can be purchased for $200. -Dave

 

[cronoklee]

HI,
I was running an "Insyde" Bios update from windows XP on my sisters
Acer Aspire 5313 laptop last night and the damn thing crashed at 99%
complete! I left it for 30 minutes to see if it would finish but -
nothing. All keys and mouse actions were gone. I tried holding the
power button for 10 seconds - nothing.
I unplugged it and removed the battery, put it back in and tried to
switch it on - nothing. It was completely dead: The power switch on
the laptop had no effect - no light, fans - nothing. I opened it to
see if I could find a reset pin on the bios chip but I have no idea
which is the bios chip!

I left it open overnight without battery/AC in the hope that the bios
would reset to default, but I'm having the same problem today. There's
no way to turn it on or boot from a usb or floppy or anything. It's
still open here and I'm wondering if there's anything I can do?

Is it dead forever?

Thanks,
Ciarán

 

[cronoklee]

Yup, it sounds like it's dead forever.  But not because of a bad BIOS flash.  There is a way you could try to reflash the BIOS using a bootable DOS disk with flashing program and data file pre-installed.  

But you've got a bigger problem than that to solve first.  If the notebook isn't even turning on, you've got a hardware problem.  Dead power supply maybe?

Before you throw any money at this, keep in mind that brand new Dell laptops can be purchased for $200.  -Dave

Thanks Dave. Dang, I must have blown something when I unplugged it.
It's pretty old & slow & prone to crashing anyway (hence the bios
upgrade!) and her birthday's coming up...

Cheers for the advice,
Ciarán