Failed BIOS update on Acer Predator G3-605

BaronHK

Hello,

 

I just upgraded my BIOS for my Acer Predator G3-605. 

 

Now when I try to boot the computer, it just makes a 3 second beep and leaves me looking at a blank screen.

 

I followed the instructions, and the last upgrade worked fine several months ago.

 

What can I do about this?

IronFly

unplug the AC power cable, open the case, look for the CMOS battery (CR2025 battery) if any or for 3 pins marked CMOS or CMOS reset.

if you have the battery, take it off, wait 5 minutes, put back the battery, replug your AC cord and try to boot.

if you have the 2-3 CMOS pins, short this pins, wait 20 seconds, then unshort it, replug your AC cord and try to boot.

 

if it still beeps, disconnect HDD, DVD and try to boot to BIOS (press F2 at boot)

if it still beeps, disconnect 1 ram stick and try to boot to BIOS

BaronHK

None of that worked. I'm stumped.

 

Thanks for trying, though.

IronFly

Try one last thing.

 

take off and re-insert your VGA, take off all ram, no HDD or DVD connected, try to boot to BIOS.

 

if it doesn't boot.....something went wrong doing BIOS flashing.

BaronHK

I have an R9 270X graphics card, and it's a big card. I can't remove the RAM modules without removing the card anyway. It's an upgrade.

 

I'll try that really quickly though.

 

The BIOS update was the last thing I did before the system stopped working though. The last update was done in August in exactly the same way. I opened the Windows flasher program, opened the BIOS ROM, and pressed "flash" and then rebooted the computer, entered the BIOS, loaded the default settings, and restarted.

 

This is the part where the computer is now going to a blank screen and beeping though. Acer has posted some kind of broken BIOS update and it seems to have killed my system. I might have to buy a new motherboard thanks to this. Their power supply is also useless if you buy a new motherboard, because it's proprietary.

 

IronFly

so you loaded defaults and then died.

normally a CMOS reset would help.

 one last thing, does your Predator have an on board VGA?

BaronHK

Yes, I loaded the defaults, hit "Save and Exit", and then the black screen with the "beeeeeep" of death.

 

I apologize for the confusion.

 

It does have onboard VGA, or so it would seem, but Acer put a plastic boot over it with a sticker that says "This port has been disabled.". It looks like they secured the boot with some tiny bolts. I could probably pry it off, but there's no telling if there's a functional port underneath that.

 

 

BaronHK

Also, just to make sure I'm understanding you properly, the CLR_CMOS jumper should be moved to cover the two pins to the right instead of to the left (default) and then left there for a little bit, and then move it back to the left pins and plug the computer in and turn it on?

 

That's what I did, anyway. I tried removing the CMOS battery for five minutes first.

 

I moved on to removing the graphics card. Still get the beep of death.

 

So I removed all RAM modules and got the beep of death again.

 

Put everything back in and got the beep of death.

IronFly

Dead mobo.

BaronHK

I don't suppose you'd know if/where I could buy a replacement? 

 

Argh.

 

Do these things have any nasty surprises that would stop me from using a standard non-Acer motherboard?

 

I haven't built a computer in so long that I don't know what the power connections are supposed to look like. I replaced a PSU on my last computer in 2012, but that was easy because I just matched up the connectors from the one I just took out.

IronFly

Since 2012 PSU connections didn't changed so much.

If you can find the mobo part number, you can search it on the web.

IronFly

BaronHK

I took it to the computer shop anyway. They said they could try to hook up an external flasher to it.

 

If all else fails, it looks like I'm going to be ripping the thing apart to replace the motherboard and the power supply.

 

Acer uses non-standard power supplies, so the connectors coming from their power supplies only work with their boards, and vice versa.

 

I don't know why they do this. Wouldn't it be easier on everyone if they just used standard parts? Even one of Acer's major competitors uses standard parts these days. Granted that hasn't always been the case. I seem to remember some of that competitor's old (like Pentium 3-era) stuff where the connections were the same, but the internal wiring of their PSUs were different. You'd swap out the PSU and end up frying your computer to death.

IronFly

Ok, probably with an eeprom programmer they can arise the BIOS.

Good luck

BaronHK

I found a possible answer to why the flashing may have gone wrong.

 

The instructions say that you should copy the ROM file to a USB stick before the flash. I didn't do that.

 

Apparently, it's a known issue that WinFlash sometimes tries to move some of an NTFS directory structure into the EEPROM that contains your BIOS, so you should move it to FAT32 before the flash.

 

It would have been nice if the instructions said WHY you are supposed to put it on a USB stick.