Acer Aspire E5-571-5940 Black Screen After BIOS Flash

Hi All,

I've commited the cardinal sin of flashing the BIOS of a working laptop... this isn't always a terrible thing, until it is. I upgraded from version 1.04 to 1.09 just fine with the goal to go flash 1.11, 1.27, and 1.32. I wasn't sure if skipping some would prevent an update, but it doesn't quite matter at this point.

Anyway, after the 1.11 flash finished, it attempted to reboot and never POSTed/turned the fan down. I waited for a while and gave up on the black screen of doom. I decided the only thing left to do was power down via holding the power button. In the last 2 days I have read a TON of articles, with no luck. Firstly, I could have sworn I had the Award system BIOS, but the flash tool was the Insyde H2OFFT utility and further confirmation points to Insyde because Fn+ESC activates the laptop the same way the flash utlity did. I also analyzed the fd firmware using the phoenixtool250 from bios-mods dot com, but that only tells you the firmware you're trying to flash to... it was also Insyde.

So far in my trials I noticed the black screen isn't static. Under normal boot, and with Fn+ESC it flickers from OFF black to ON black. In normal boot there's no fan ramp up; it just stays on. Under Fn+ESC, it ramps the fan up, then cycles the screen OFF/ON black indefinitely. By re-naming the original fd file to Z5WAHX64.fd and powering on w/ Fn+ESC, it will cycle screen, wait for something, turn off. The laptop ON light never indicate anything besides a solid blue in either case.

I was hoping the Acer experts could lend some 571-5940 specific advice on the proper USB flash procedure, BIOS naming convention, or a discount on repair.

Thanks!

-Claus

Accepted answers

All comments

JackE

Hi Claus. A few questions. Did you format your USB stick to FAT32? What utility did you use make it visible to the BIOS chip? Jack E/NJ

ClausVonKocener

JackE,

I formatted the USB drive to FAT32 through windows. I was under the impression the Fn+ESC recovery boot would search for an fd file on the drive. Do I need to setup a WinCris disk?

Thanks,

Claus

JackE

Yes, Claus, a crisis package should be copied to the stick. Google "crisis_disk_v1" with the quotes. A McAfee Stinger-scanned download of its zipfile from the fans ru site seems to be clean. Unzip it and copy it to the USB root. The Z5WAHx64.FD must also be the only FD file on the stick's root. First try the earliest FD file that you have that's closest to 9.44MB in size. Jack E/NJ

ClausVonKocener

JackE,

Thanks for the crisis disk info.

There are no fd files closer in size to 9.44MB. Versions 1.08 to 1.11 do not have any fd files and versions 1.24 to 1.32 all appear to be the same size at 9.64MB.

After poking around in the 1.32 platform.ini file, I noticed the following settings:

[MULTI_FD]
Flag=1
FD#01=ID,Z5WAH,HSW.fd
FD#02=ID,A5WAB,BDW.fd

What's odd, is that the original file name for all the fd files I've seen is BDW. I was going to attempt a flash with A5WABx64.fd, but figured I might as well ask for your thoughts on the matter.

Thanks,

Claus

JackE

>>>Versions 1.08 to 1.11 do not have any fd files >>>

Do you see any ROM, BIN or WPH extensions with the Z5WAHx64 filename? If so, you can try to rename the extensions to FD.

>>> was going to attempt a flash with A5WABx64.fd>>>

I wouldn't mess with it right now cuz a Z5WAHx64 binary is what's specified for the E5-571-5940 model. The .ini file you looked at might allow the Windows BIOS package to flash a different chip if detected. While it likely wouldn't do any harm, I wouldn't risk it at this point cuz your BIOS still seems to be responding OK to the FN+ESC combo. Maybe as a last resort when nothing else we can think of seems to work, then I'd probably try it. I don't think we're there yet. But it's your call.

Jack E/NJ

ClausVonKocener

Unfortunately, there's nothing with the ROM, BIN, or WPH extension or even a file sized appropriately that could be re-named. My assumption is the BIOS is embedded into the H2OFFT-Wx64.exe and is extracted upon execution. The exe does not extract.

v1.08
271,872 BiosImageProcx64.dll
105,886 Ding.wav
232,448 FlsHook.exe
195,584 FlsHookDll.dll
225,560 FWUpdLcl.exe
837,632 H2OFFT-Wx64.exe
801,280 iscflashx64.dll
49,416 iscflashx64.sys
46,102 platform.ini
1,892,352 xerces-c_2_7.dll

v1.09
271,872 BiosImageProcx64.dll
105,886 Ding.wav
232,448 FlsHook.exe
195,584 FlsHookDll.dll
225,560 FWUpdLcl.exe
837,632 H2OFFT-Wx64.exe
801,280 iscflashx64.dll
49,416 iscflashx64.sys
46,102 platform.ini
1,892,352 xerces-c_2_7.dll

v1.11
271,872 BiosImageProcx64.dll
105,886 Ding.wav
232,448 FlsHook.exe
195,584 FlsHookDll.dll
225,560 FWUpdLcl.exe
837,632 H2OFFT-Wx64.exe
801,280 iscflashx64.dll
49,416 iscflashx64.sys
46,102 platform.ini
1,892,352 xerces-c_2_7.dll

I will attempt the WinCris flash using the filename Z5WAHx64, and report back.

Thanks,

Claus

JackE

So where did you get the original .FD file that you renamed Z5WAHX64.FD? Jack E/NJ

ClausVonKocener

JackE,

Versions 1.24 to 1.32 have a BDW.fd file that I'm re-naming to Z5WAHx64.fd. For firmware versions 1.08 to 1.11; I'm almost wondering if the flash utility is using a backup version of the existing BIOS and then modifying a portion with stored updates.

-Claus

JackE

Google "BDW.fd" Not real encouraging reads. You may be right. The usual DOS subdirectory with the full binary is gone at least from the download I made. I assume you looked thru all of the downloads and still found no DOS subdirectory. If you google “Z5WAHx64.fd" there is a bios_mod report that this zip download has an isflash.bin that may work when renamed http://global-download.acer.com/GDFiles/...SC=EMEA_13 It's a bit vague on exactly how it was done. Jack E/NJ

ClausVonKocener

JackE,

Okay. Thanks for the search suggestion and the link. I managed to find a post from mclarke2355 @ bios-mods where he suggested running the Insyde updater on a different modeled laptop. The program will then leave a temporary folder in the users AppData\Local\Temp\7z*****.tmp directory with a bin or fd file. What's interesting is the 1.09 BIOS firmware file is isflash.bin and the 1.11 firmware file is HSW.fd.

I'm beginning to wonder if I need to re-name the file HSW.fd in order for the flash to take. However, it did fail on the 1.11 flash.

Any thoughts? Or should I try and create the WinCris disk with the isflash.bin file?

Thanks,

Claus

JackE

>>>Any thoughts? Or should I try and create the WinCris disk with the isflash.bin file?>>>

I'm not sure the WinCris & Cris_Disk_v1 activate the BIOS boot section the same way since the former was specified for Phoenix & the latter for Insyde. I guess we're getting to a point that anything's worth trying. A few weeks ago, another guy had a similar issue with a stubborn Phoenix bios that repeatedly failed the Phoenix Bios Recovery WinCris.exe method despite meticulously following directions. Undaunted he kept trying till it worked. Why? Due to a full moon seemed like the best explanation. 8^) Jack E/NJ

qoop

JackE, thank you su much, your hint finally saved me when I was really about to give up. So here is a summary of what worked for me
(Acer Aspire V3-572G-50E4 Z5WAH)

Format a USB Stick with FAT16 (therefore, use a stixk with max 2 GB)
make it bootable using diskpart, see https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj200124(v=ws.11).aspx
download bios 1.11 from acer website. This comes as an executable, extract the files from this with some unzip tool
copy all the extracted files to the usb stick
rename the .fd file on the USB stick to Z5WAHx64.fd
put the USB stick into the Laptop (i used the port on the right-hand-side)
Press Fn+ESC, press power, let go of power, let go of Fn+ESC

Comments

no wincrisis or the like needed
workef for me only with the 1.11 bios, not with any of the higher versions!

Hope this hels. Good luck!
qoop

JackE

qoop---Thanks for reporting the successful flash process on your machine. As Claus implied, messing with the BIOS firmware of a working machine isn't always a bad thing --- until it is. Happy to hear that you got your's fixed! Hope Claus got his fixed too! Jack E/NJ

Mirou_hml

Hello I have the same problem with E5-576G-514F I hope you can help me solve the problem
https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/566595/acer-aspire-e5-576-514f-black-screen/p1?new=1

JackE

Mirou_hml

Don't try to flash. First try to turn the screen on with the FN+F6 toggle key combo. If no luck, then HDMI out to a TV screen and try to turn the TV on with the FN+F5 toggle key combo. Jack E/NJ

MrMikeL

My thanks to qoop for his solution to fix a bricked Acer Aspire. Mine is an E5-571. It bricked during a BIOS update to v1.32. Following all the advice on this thread, my laptop came back to life, as evidenced by me typing on it right now! So very grateful to tenacious users who find clever ways to fix complex problems.

Nigella

Hello all,
I have a problem with my Acer Extensa 2508 laptop. It started flickering on starting and restarting after an upgrade to Windows 10. I try reinstalling Windows OS but it's not solving the problem. I even tried Windows 8.1 Pro but still nothing is solved.

What might be the problem? Please help with the solution, I've tried everything. Thanks.