ACER W500 IS BRICKED (NO BIOS ACCESS ,BLACK SCREEN, WINDOWS BUTTON ON, FAN ON)

Hi, My W500 just went black a few days ago. I had a dual boot OS with Linux Mint Cinnamon and windows 8 and got a data list dump on a black background and then the tablet went black. No access to BIOS whatever tablet buttons I pressed, no cursor, nothing except the windows blue button on and the fan working. I tried an external DVD optical drive for loading windows 8 and the external DVD does some turning but renegs to install anything

Any way to install the ACER W500 latest BIOS using a USB bootable DOS thumb drive program like RUFUS or HP USB DISC STORAGE FORMAT TOOL V2.1.8 or is my Tablet a brick. I know the BIOS is on the Motherboard not on the internal 32 GB mini SATA SSD. There must be a way to flash this using a method

Anybody have a suggestion that solved this

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droidguy

I have had the same Problem as well for a while... it began when i had windows 8 installed to the ssd and was installing linux on the sd card. when the linux install finished, i was left with a dead tablet. it has sat on my shelf for almost a year. i have seen several places cite different ways to reflash the bios, one being this. I have tried this method and it doesnt seem to work, but maybe i'm doing something wrong.

namor1

Good news , got mine fixed Jan 7, bought a new programmed W500 BIOS chip and soldered it in with a simple 25 watt Soldering iron. USE NON ACID FLUX to take off the old and solder in the new. Snip off the metal bridge adjacent to the chip for ease in soldering The chip was off Ebay from a German vendor,got it here in Toronto Canada within 10 days. NO ISSUE SINCE JAN 7 till now FEB 04 I posted my story here in a Google Projext Group and was told by 2 people to just get a new chip http://code.google.com/p/android-x86/issues/detail?can=2&start=0&num=100&q=&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Priority%20Milestone%20Owner%20Summary&groupby=&sort=&id=589 The BIOS chip location is pictured in one of the above link entries. When I powered up the Tablet with the AC brick I got nothing...not even the blue light.I though the worst and fried the BIOS chip and / or something on the motherboard....I then went to make a coffee feeling defeated...I think 10 minutes passed and returned to see the tablet working with win 7 Ultimate. I bought a $10 buck mini sata ssd to ssd card adapter and it fits into any laptop SSD bay and re-installed my version of win 7 Ultimate , This time I made sure to have the SYSTEM RESERVE partition of 380 MB included ( I forgot the exact amount offhand) Now I got WINDOWS 8 PRO RTM installed and its great,just watched THE HOBBIT tonight on my 2009 42 inch LG TV with a MINIJAWBONE portable bluetooth speaker and its amazing,...really good picture. This tablet is Great and worth having, I need the 2 standard USB ports all the time You should be able to get yours fixed ,let us know thanks

namor1

I ment to say I installed win 7 on that adapter which fits into any SATA laptop bay ,sorry for the mistake

namor1

forgot to mention that when I had the tablet's mini sata ssd in the SATA adapter and installed in a laptop I got the entire Dual boot win OS and Linux MINT OS working .I know for a fact that when I first installed Win I forgot to include the SYSTEM RESERVE partition. Your problem was with Linux on the SD card and that must of corrupted the motherboard BIOS chip Did your SD with Linux work on another machine?

nabilh2020

Hi dear,

I got a similar problem to yours.

.and my Tablet is also out of warranty. :-(

Where is the best place in Europe to order the ship from.

I gave it to a Laptop specialist for repair and he dagnosed that the BIOS chip was damaged.

I just need to find the correct BIOS replacement chip.

These are my Acer tablet's details:

ICONIA_Tab_W500-C52G03iss
P/N: LE.RHC02.045
Model: EAB00
S/N: [edited for privacy]
Processor: AMD DUAL-CORE PROCESSOR C-50
Memory: 2 GB
Storage: 32 GB SSD... etc.

Many thanks

namor1

Hi , I got my Bios chip form ebay from a German vendor and got it shipped to toronto canada

here's the ebay vendor link....you will have to sign up to a new ebay account though or get a friend with an ebay account to buy it for you

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/UNLOCK-ACER-ICONIA-TAB-BIOS-PASSWORD-CHIP-A100-A200-A500-A501-A510-W500-W500P-/160776456894?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item256f060abe

let me know how your tablet works after soldering the bios chip in

nabilh2020

Yes thanks. I ordered the chip. The repair shop will solder it for me when I get it.

namor1

alright,please post with your findings with the new bios chip....it'll help others

nabilh2020

That company sucks.

I paid for Int'l expedited, and they sent me a thin letter with instructions, but no BIOS chip!

Their customer service is also horrible, I had to threaten them with escalation until they answered me that they usually send the chip with instruction. This is a bad joke.

I might need to look somewhere else if there is somewhere else.

Thanks anyway.

namor1

I had no issues getting the chip from that vendor....arrived within the time period specified. I checked the vendor's feedback and it was good with over 370 positive feedbacks and yes about 11 negative ones in the past year. Why was it so hard for the vendor to politely just send you a Bios chip if it was their fault...it makes for good public relations. I'd like to see what feedback you left,whats the date you posted your ebay feedback please, I'd like to see if the Vendor responded also with their counter feedback

nabilh2020

namor1

Did you receive yours in a normal envelope or a package?

They sent me a normal thin unsecured envelope with an instructions sheet but no chip.

They claim to have forgotten to include the chip in the envelope, and promised to send it again, so I am still waiting for the chip Smiley Sad

namor1

Hi,I got mine in a regular envelope,the chip is very small and was in a small ziplock plastic labelled w500 , I think its an honest situationI have faith in people ,you'll get it . The instructions didn't say the location where the bios chip is on the w500 mobo, make sure where the original is located and where the dimple is on it

nabilh2020

Hi

Thanks for replying.

They emailed me at my request a photo of the mobo with the place of the chip.

It is not me who will do the job, but a technician so I will give him everything, he already asked for the place of the chip.

Iconia Tab W500.JPG

chriva

You can program eeproms over serial/parallel by using an app called ponyprog: http://www.lancos.com/prog.html

It all depends on what make and model the chip is. Just a thought

nabilh2020

This is the upidate you asked me namor1 to help other users who experienced the same problem.

My W500 is finally repaired. I received the BIOS chip, gave it to the repair shop, and the technician replaced it.

However, the black screen problem persisted.

What was needed was to press a switch under the SSD, and when that was done, the W500 came back to life.

It seems replacing the BIOS chip might have been unnecessary, though I willl never know. The old chip was given back to me :-) LOL!

So the trick might be to find a switch by the SSD and reset it. It is worth doing if nothing else works.

On a side note, I got the W700 i3. I will still keep the W500.

The W700 i3 does not have an sdcard slot, which is a disappointment, but it is a very good machine otherwise.

I wonder why Acer decided to ship a machine without an sdcard slot, maybe like Google they also want to force users to use Cloud storage.

For me, using Cloud for storage is not my cup of tea, I like to save local.

All in all it cost me 100 pounds sterling to get this repair done, £60 for repair cost, £20 for BIOS chip and £10 for other costs, which is more than half the price of a second hand W500 Smiley Sad

namor1

alright thanks,interesting fact about that switch .....I know there's a micro switch on the w500 mobo which has to be taped down when the back cover is removed....i'll check out this "other" switch under the ssd.

thanks for your input

magel282

Can you please show a picture of the switch?

I have the same blank screen. Nothing has worked Smiley Sad

namor1

I haven't taken the mobo yet from mine.....the only micro switch I've seen is the one pictured directly south of the red circled Bios chip (across that lagoon where the fan sits in.

Anybody seen another micro switch either under that SSD plastic insulator or on the opposite side of the mobo?....please confirm....thanks

nabilh2020

.the only micro switch I've seen is the one pictured directly south of the red circled Bios chip (across that lagoon where the fan sits in.

Maybe it was that switch the technician repair guy referred to.

You can understand that as this is his bread and butter, he won't be very specific.

What he said was that just changing the BIOS chip did not yield the result, he also had to press (or flick?) that switch.

He also said that he removed and put back the SSD as well.

magel282

I have ordered a BIOS chip of ebay. This is my last attpempt to revive it. Have tried evey trouble shooting information I can find.

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