Acer Pedator Helios 500 PH517-61 Ryzen/Vega BIOS update 1.09 failure no POST

deksman2

Hello everyone

My machine as you can tell is the Acer Predator Helios PH517-61 with Ryzen 2700 and Vega56 (using win 10 x64 home version with latest updates).
Last night, I downloaded the latest BIOS update for this machine (yes I picked the correct one for this machine), and ran the file to update it to latest 1.09 version.

The installation of the BIOS went on fine (there were no interruptions during the installation), but once it finished and restarted, the machine refused to POST.
It turns on of course, but there is no Acer Logo (the screen remains dark/non functional, keyboard LED lights reverted to factory default and overall just sits there doing nothing) and I CANNOT get into the bios by pressing F2 button at the very beginning.

About a few months ago I installed the 1.08 BIOS for this machine just fine (which worked - and was needed to ensure the AMD hw would work correctly with latest Wind 10 updates), but this latest update seems to have killed my machine (and, obviously I need the machine for my college work).

I discovered an option online for a potential BIOS recovery by pressing FN+ESC keys upon startup and a USB drive which has an extracted exe contents of the 1.08 BIOS onto it (chose that one because it was the last one which worked).
But, the problem is, while the blue button blinked as it was described, the USB flash stick never turned on and the BIOS didn't recover itself.
The stick is an 8GB USB flash drive formatted to FAT32 and nothing on it but the extracted 1.08 BIOS contents for this machines.
I don't have a 4GB stick, nor do I have the option in Windows to format the USB stick to FAT16, but admittedly, I had issues before with boot sticks for this laptop when I wanted to see if I can do a clean Windows install, and for some reason, the machine always refused to boot from the stick (there was no option in BIOS to set up the boot parameters from the stick itself, I think its because the stick needed to be formatted precisely to a format the UEFI bios would detect it... could that be causing the problem here?).

Are there any suggestions I can try before asking Acer for RMA?
Also, the laptop is still covered with the warranty, but I hope they won't ask money off me to repair a BIOS problem (though I think I can cover the courier expenses if they ask me to send it to them), because quite frankly, rigt now, I'm a poor student and cannot afford to fork out large sums of money.

XdxD

Better ask Acer since your PC is still under warranty. I don't think they will charge unless you had forgotten the BIOS password which is not the case here.

deksman2

Since the laptop is under warranty, I first called PC World (I originally ordered it online from them) and explained the problem.
The guy was quite helpful and said that the warranty would cover that no problem.
So, after a brief chat, I took it to the nearest PC World shop and they mentioned that I may be able to get it back in 7 days (of course, this may not happen, depending on what they need to do).
Hopefully, I'll get it back ASAP as I need it for my college work.

I also spoke with Acer's customer support prior to that, but the guy at the other end barely knew what I spoke about (and I could barely understand him). He thought the motherboard was 'fried'.
I told him that wasn't the case, that it simply underwent a bad BIOS flash and then he told me to take the laptop to the shop I bought it from.

But I also don't get what could have gone wrong this time around. The previous two bios flashes went perfectly fine (so, version 1.08 was working).
Someone else from these forums managed to upgrade their Acer Helios 500 with Ryzen/Vega (same model as mine) to BIOS 1.09 without a problem though... so I don't understand how is my machine different and what could have caused the BIOS flash to go horribly wrong.

XdxD

deksman2 said:

Since the laptop is under warranty, I first called PC World (I originally ordered it online from them) and explained the problem.
The guy was quite helpful and said that the warranty would cover that no problem.
So, after a brief chat, I took it to the nearest PC World shop and they mentioned that I may be able to get it back in 7 days (of course, this may not happen, depending on what they need to do).
Hopefully, I'll get it back ASAP as I need it for my college work.

I also spoke with Acer's customer support prior to that, but the guy at the other end barely knew what I spoke about (and I could barely understand him). He thought the motherboard was 'fried'.
I told him that wasn't the case, that it simply underwent a bad BIOS flash and then he told me to take the laptop to the shop I bought it from.

But I also don't get what could have gone wrong this time around. The previous two bios flashes went perfectly fine (so, version 1.08 was working).
Someone else from these forums managed to upgrade their Acer Helios 500 with Ryzen/Vega (same model as mine) to BIOS 1.09 without a problem though... so I don't understand how is my machine different and what could have caused the BIOS flash to go horribly wrong.

Only if there had been some software differences, like Windows Update messing with firmware updates, could be the culprit. Maybe the firmware was old in Device manager and you tried to install the newer one before Windows could even detect the changes with old firmware from Windows Update.

xapim

@deksman2  you definitely want to blame windows updates and microsoft wanting to take over all the drivers and manufacturer's firmware updates over windows update my best guess you send it back to get it fixed there are ways to get it fixed but i wouldnt go there only as last resort just tell them the bios update sent by windows updated bricked your laptop its useless now needs to be reflashed manually via crisis recovery by acer engineers at the repair center and thats it

Ps: i doubt pcworld will do much for you they only want to sell if they refuse to do anything ask for a refund or swap see what they say

deksman2

xapim said:

@deksman2  you definitely want to blame windows updates and microsoft wanting to take over all the drivers and manufacturer's firmware updates over windows update my best guess you send it back to get it fixed there are ways to get it fixed but i wouldnt go there only as last resort just tell them the bios update sent by windows updated bricked your laptop its useless now needs to be reflashed manually via crisis recovery by acer engineers at the repair center and thats it

Ps: i doubt pcworld will do much for you they only want to sell if they refuse to do anything ask for a refund or swap see what they say

No no.
I already spoke with PC World technical support and the guy said that a BIOS update gone bad is well within the warranty, so no issues there.
He also mentioned they will do the re-flashing in appropriate lab... probably sending it to an Acer authorised shop which has the tools for re-flashing unless the Pc World technical support has its own labs for this.

At any rate, I should have the laptop back in about a week or so... but if they need to replace the motherboard (which seems silly), then it would likely take 3 weeks total.
Dunno, will see.
Hopefully, it will be returned soon.

xapim

deksman2 said:

xapim said:

@deksman2  you definitely want to blame windows updates and microsoft wanting to take over all the drivers and manufacturer's firmware updates over windows update my best guess you send it back to get it fixed there are ways to get it fixed but i wouldnt go there only as last resort just tell them the bios update sent by windows updated bricked your laptop its useless now needs to be reflashed manually via crisis recovery by acer engineers at the repair center and thats it

Ps: i doubt pcworld will do much for you they only want to sell if they refuse to do anything ask for a refund or swap see what they say

No no.
I already spoke with PC World technical support and the guy said that a BIOS update gone bad is well within the warranty, so no issues there.
He also mentioned they will do the re-flashing in appropriate lab... probably sending it to an Acer authorised shop which has the tools for re-flashing unless the Pc World technical support has its own labs for this.

At any rate, I should have the laptop back in about a week or so... but if they need to replace the motherboard (which seems silly), then it would likely take 3 weeks total.
Dunno, will see.
Hopefully, it will be returned soon.

deksman2 Humm replace the motherboard to reflash a bios due to a failed flash that seems to strange to me lol but ok if your gonna be sorted i guess its fine they can do whatever they feel like to as long and you get it back working

deksman2

xapim said:

deksman2 said:

xapim said:

@deksman2  you definitely want to blame windows updates and microsoft wanting to take over all the drivers and manufacturer's firmware updates over windows update my best guess you send it back to get it fixed there are ways to get it fixed but i wouldnt go there only as last resort just tell them the bios update sent by windows updated bricked your laptop its useless now needs to be reflashed manually via crisis recovery by acer engineers at the repair center and thats it

Ps: i doubt pcworld will do much for you they only want to sell if they refuse to do anything ask for a refund or swap see what they say

No no.
I already spoke with PC World technical support and the guy said that a BIOS update gone bad is well within the warranty, so no issues there.
He also mentioned they will do the re-flashing in appropriate lab... probably sending it to an Acer authorised shop which has the tools for re-flashing unless the Pc World technical support has its own labs for this.

At any rate, I should have the laptop back in about a week or so... but if they need to replace the motherboard (which seems silly), then it would likely take 3 weeks total.
Dunno, will see.
Hopefully, it will be returned soon.

deksman2 Humm replace the motherboard to reflash a bios due to a failed flash that seems to strange to me lol but ok if your gonna be sorted i guess its fine they can do whatever they feel like to as long and you get it back working

I was told I should have the laptop back in 7 days... so, by next Tuesday.
If that changes, they will let me know.
I know that replacing the mobo for a simple bios flash gone bad seems silly... but I don't know what engineers there do or if they even bother with a BIOS flash... to them, a mobo swap may seem simpler (but if I am going to get the laptop back in 1 week anyway, then it seems to me that they wouldn't be able to wait so long for a new mobo, etc).
A simple reflash is all I need to get 
I also called and asked them to try and flash the LATEST 1.09 bios as some people were able to install it without a problem, but if not, then at least flash the 1.08v (because the 1.06v which shipped with the laptop is too old and doesn't have security/stability patches in place).

deksman2

xapim said:

deksman2 said:

xapim said:

@deksman2  you definitely want to blame windows updates and microsoft wanting to take over all the drivers and manufacturer's firmware updates over windows update my best guess you send it back to get it fixed there are ways to get it fixed but i wouldnt go there only as last resort just tell them the bios update sent by windows updated bricked your laptop its useless now needs to be reflashed manually via crisis recovery by acer engineers at the repair center and thats it

Ps: i doubt pcworld will do much for you they only want to sell if they refuse to do anything ask for a refund or swap see what they say

No no.
I already spoke with PC World technical support and the guy said that a BIOS update gone bad is well within the warranty, so no issues there.
He also mentioned they will do the re-flashing in appropriate lab... probably sending it to an Acer authorised shop which has the tools for re-flashing unless the Pc World technical support has its own labs for this.

At any rate, I should have the laptop back in about a week or so... but if they need to replace the motherboard (which seems silly), then it would likely take 3 weeks total.
Dunno, will see.
Hopefully, it will be returned soon.

deksman2 Humm replace the motherboard to reflash a bios due to a failed flash that seems to strange to me lol but ok if your gonna be sorted i guess its fine they can do whatever they feel like to as long and you get it back working

I was told I should have the laptop back in 7 days... so, by next Tuesday.
If that changes, they will let me know.
I know that replacing the mobo for a simple bios flash gone bad seems silly... but I don't know what engineers there do or if they even bother with a BIOS flash... to them, a mobo swap may seem simpler (but if I am going to get the laptop back in 1 week anyway, then it seems to me that they wouldn't be able to wait so long for a new mobo, etc).
A simple reflash is all I need to get the thing working again.

I also called and asked them to try and flash the LATEST 1.09 bios as some people were able to install it without a problem, but if that doesn't work, then at least flash the 1.08v which I had running fine before that (because the 1.06v which shipped with the laptop is too old and doesn't have security/stability patches in place).

deksman2

Well it seems the repair team said they need to order a new motherboard. 
After assessing it for a few days they determined that it wouldn't POST (which is exactly what I told them initially and was determined by the guy who wrote the note for the team).
And now they need to order a new motherboard... Which in all probability will arrive with the outdated stock bios from Acer. 

Great. So not only I need to wait for extra week or more to get the laptop back, I will also get an outdated BIOS. 

Just what I was afraid would happen

xapim

That is indeed really weird never seen this issue happen before due to a bios update failed

deksman2

xapim said:

That is indeed really weird never seen this issue happen before due to a bios update failed

Apparently, PC WORLD are not authorized to do a BIOS reprogramming. That's why they ordered a new motherboard. 
I'm hoping the mobo they get from Acer will have the latest bios flashed but it's utterly unlikely because manufacturers usually ship spare mobos with stock bios. 

I had @ similar problem with asus gl702zc. It kept breaking down due to Asus not implementing cooling properly (a design flaw) which had the repair team having to replace the motherboard, and every time, the motherboard was shipped with a stock bios from initial launch. Needless to say I requested a full refund due to constant failures and got the Helios 500 that also had all AMD hw inside but more powerful obviously and far superior in cooling execution. 

Except for this bios failure. 

I'm weary of any future bios update on this laptop as I need it for college and I cannot afford potential delays. If there might be a need to upgrade the bios to at least 1.08v is there something I can do to try and recover the previous BIOS in case the update fails again for whatever reason?

xapim

The bios should only be updated if you have any issues that the update itself would solve apart from that never update the bios and disable Windows updates permanently when u get it back to avoid the same issue to happen again if you need to update anything do it manually this is my best advice 😊

deksman2

xapim said:

The bios should only be updated if you have any issues that the update itself would solve apart from that never update the bios and disable Windows updates permanently when u get it back to avoid the same issue to happen again if you need to update anything do it manually this is my best advice 😊

Unfortunately, that presents a possible problem.
The BIOS updates Acer released (at least up to the 1.08v which I had running) contains modifications for AMD hw to ensure it will work with latest Windows, and I actually need latest version of Windows for other things I was working on.

I never disabled Windows updates before and haven't had issues.
It was this latest 1.09 bios update that created problems for me.
A colleague of mine suggested it may be a problem in the Acer utility itself which could cause random problems with the BIOS while updating it, even if you did everything right.

xapim

deksman2 said:

xapim said:

The bios should only be updated if you have any issues that the update itself would solve apart from that never update the bios and disable Windows updates permanently when u get it back to avoid the same issue to happen again if you need to update anything do it manually this is my best advice 😊

Unfortunately, that presents a possible problem.
The BIOS updates Acer released (at least up to the 1.08v which I had running) contains modifications for AMD hw to ensure it will work with latest Windows, and I actually need latest version of Windows for other things I was working on.

I never disabled Windows updates before and haven't had issues.
It was this latest 1.09 bios update that created problems for me.
A colleague of mine suggested it may be a problem in the Acer utility itself which could cause random problems with the BIOS while updating it, even if you did everything right.

Well hopefully youll get it back and working soon and even if its on an older bios you can always update it manually via acer support file

deksman2

xapim said:

deksman2 said:

xapim said:

The bios should only be updated if you have any issues that the update itself would solve apart from that never update the bios and disable Windows updates permanently when u get it back to avoid the same issue to happen again if you need to update anything do it manually this is my best advice 😊

Unfortunately, that presents a possible problem.
The BIOS updates Acer released (at least up to the 1.08v which I had running) contains modifications for AMD hw to ensure it will work with latest Windows, and I actually need latest version of Windows for other things I was working on.

I never disabled Windows updates before and haven't had issues.
It was this latest 1.09 bios update that created problems for me.
A colleague of mine suggested it may be a problem in the Acer utility itself which could cause random problems with the BIOS while updating it, even if you did everything right.

Well hopefully youll get it back and working soon and even if its on an older bios you can always update it manually via acer support file

I suppose I can do that (but I'm extremely wary of updating the bios now)... However, is there anything I can do to recover the BIOS myself on this machine in case of another update gone awry? 

XdxD

I'd recommend you to do these things:
1. Keep your network as metered. This way, no updates will ever install against your wish.
2. Wait for some feedbacks in this community about the newer BIOS versions. Although all machines are different, this will atleast give you some idea about what to expect from the BIOS installation.
3. Maybe (only if you want to) try to install the current BIOS again but with the .fd file to check whether this process works or not on your model. 

deksman2

I would consider installing 1.08v of the BIOS (not the latest 1.09v) as that's the last one that worked. However, I am unsure as to how I use the .fd file to check whether the process works or not my model... I never heard of this.

Obviously, other people installed 1.09 update without problems... only I (thus far) experienced a problem.

XdxD

deksman2 said:

I would consider installing 1.08v of the BIOS (not the latest 1.09v) as that's the last one that worked. However, I am unsure as to how I use the .fd file to check whether the process works or not my model... I never heard of this.

Obviously, other people installed 1.09 update without problems... only I (thus far) experienced a problem.

When you go to the outlet to take your laptop, ask them to update your BIOS. That way, if problem arises, they can contact Acer for correcting it.

deksman2

XdxD said:

deksman2 said:

I would consider installing 1.08v of the BIOS (not the latest 1.09v) as that's the last one that worked. However, I am unsure as to how I use the .fd file to check whether the process works or not my model... I never heard of this.

Obviously, other people installed 1.09 update without problems... only I (thus far) experienced a problem.

When you go to the outlet to take your laptop, ask them to update your BIOS. That way, if problem arises, they can contact Acer for correcting it.

The thing is, I was told they cannot reprogram the BIOS or something to that effect, but I could try.

deksman2

Just wanted to post the update.
Been waiting over 28 days for the repair and still nothing. I called PC World to complain about the long waiting time and they confirmed that it shouldn't take that long for repairs. Apparently, they don't have the motherboard in stock and it needs to be delivered... a process which went unchanged since 5th October.

I was offered a replacement or a refund.
Given that PC World have no Helios 500 Ryzen/Vega replacements in stock  (nor is there for that matter one available in the whole of UK), I had to take the refund.

So, now I'm contemplating on ordering the identical laptop off Amazon US website.
It would actually cost me £160 less compared to this one (even with import and delivery fees)... I paid £1500, the Amazon USA one would cost £1340 with delivery and import fees included.
But there's a potential problem with that.
If something happens with the laptop and it needs to be repaired or replaced... what is the warranty coverage like?
I know Amazon has a UK website, but would I be able to go through them if something happens? How would hypothetical repairs/replacements work?

Its either that or get something else, but there's nothing in the same price range that comes close to the CPU and GPU power of this thing.
Most other comparable laptops are either more expensive or paired with underpowered CPU's (and since I do content creation at college, I kinda need the horsepower).

I was contemplating on getting a much cheaper gaming laptop with 4c/8th and RX 560x or another GPU in the range of up to £800 and then just wait for Zen 3 or Zen 4 to hit the market before I upgrade to a much more powerful laptop again (unless of course Intel and Nvidia release something interesting).
The weaker laptop would obviously 'tie me over' for a year or two, even though I planned to use the Helios 500 for 4 or 5 years (possibly more).