"Dead" Aspire V5-472

IvanB

Hi All,

I have an aspire V5-472 that is showing very few signs of life. Here are the symptoms, along with what I have tried so far:

-Turns on, I get a backlight on the LCD and the power and battery LED's illuminate appropriately, but nothing else happens, the screen is black

-I can plug in a usb keyboard, and the caps lock, numlock, etc all work.

-I performed the "crisis bios recovery" on it. After lots of sleuthing I found the correct .fd file to put on my USB stick. I don't know if this worked or not...I got the power LED flashing during recovery, and then some time later it rebooted to the same blank, but backlight screen

-no output ever shows up on the HDMI out(the monitor does not detect the signal)

-I can sometimes get a beeping from the speaker if I unplug the power adapter

-I can hear the fan spin up

-I have removed the CMOS battery for a time (5mins?), and reinstalled it.

Any other ideas about what to try? I think it's quite a slim little machine, and I'd like to bring it back to life, if possible.

Thanks, 

JackE

Did you try to turn the LCD and HDMI screens on with the FN+F5 & FN+F6 toggle key combinations? 

IvanB

Yeah, sorry, I should have mentioned that. FN+F5/F6 toggles the backlight on and off on the laptop, but nothing changes on the external monitor. No signal is detected.

JackE

>>>nothing changes on the external monitor.>>>

Not good. Did this happen suddenly for no apparent reason? These results suggest either the BIOS chip and/or the integrated graphic adapter have been physically damaged. 

IvanB

Full disclosure, I can't give you much history on the unit as it was disposed of, and I don't know the previous owner. It was disposed sans hard drive.., the back cover removed (but present), and a couple of screws missing. There does not appear to be any damage to the mainboard though. I tried the bios recovery, but I'm not really sure that it worked...*something* happened, but the end result is the same. Does the Mini-DP ("Acer Converter") port work to output video at startup? or does it only work once the OS is loaded?

JackE

The DP port should only convert the HDMI signal --- if there is one ---- to a DP signal. From your description of the FN+ESC flash with the pendrive with the ZQK.FD or ZQK_x64.FD or ZQK_210.FD  file (must try all 3 if no MBR FAT32 pendrive LED activity)  and the machine rebooting itself, it probably was successful. So I'm leaning more toward the integrated graphics adapter being the issue than the BIOS chip. The CPU/GPU pins are soldered to the mainboard in what's called a solder-ball array. It's possible that one or more of the array's balls have cracked or loosened from the mainboard's copper traces. In this case, a solder reflow might bring the thing back to life. Can be done with a heat gun aimed at the CPU's solder balls or baking the whole board on an aluminum foil cookie sheet for about 10-15 mins in a toaster oven preheated to about 430*F.  If a reflow fails, then connections inside the CPU/GPU slab itself are gone. Jack E/NJ 

StevenGen

1. Do you get a post boot screen?

2. Its very unlikely that your graphics don't work, as the graphics chip the intel HD 4000 is integrated into your CPU, so if the graphics don't work your CPU won't work. As your V5-472 hasn't got a dedicated graphics e.g. GeForce or Radeon, if you have quoted the right model and its not the V5-472G, which has a GeForce integrated graphics. It could also be your LCD monitor cable, check that its not damaged and/or that the plug is properly plugged into the motherboard (the LCD cable and plug is under the top cover, situated in the left hinge area, see caption). 

3. Can you get into the BIOS (by pressing F2 or F12)? What BIOS .fd file version did you try to install with the "Crisis Disk BIOS Recovery"? Is it the latest v1.15 2018/10/16 or the 1.09 2014/12/18?
4. Did you do this when you installed the "Crisis Disk BIOS Recovery" see here for the full procedure of the "Crisis Disk BIOS Recovery" : https://www.acerrepairblog.us/aspire-8935g/bios-recovery-by-crisis-disk-bios-recovery-boot-block.html

1. Plug USB storage into USB port.
2. Press Fn + ESC button the2014/12/18n plug in AC power. The Power button flashes orange once.
3. Press Power button to initiate system CRISIS mode.
4. When CRISIS is complete, the system auto restarts with a workable BIOS.
   

If you did all that correctly then, It seems to me that your V5-472 BIOS is corrupted and your BIOS chip needs replacing, purchase a new plug and play, flashed BIOS chip (from eBay or Amazon) they are very cheap (about US$15.00, see caption below) and its easy to replace. Then try to boot the computer and see if it boots and all is well.





Note: There are allot of variables to your problem, the best solution is to do a process of elimination as I've pointed out, starting with solutions 1 to 3 and then eliminating the rest systematically. Hope this helps, cheers.

IvanB

All good suggestions, thanks! To Steven, I have never received the ACER logo or anything on the screen. I have tried various F key combinations to get into the bios, but nothing happens.  I tried flashing with ZQK.FD, but I didn't try the other filenames, I'll try those when I get back to it later tonight. A few questions:

1) How can I tell the MBR is being accessed by the thumb drive? Is there a different flash sequence, assuming it has an activity LED?

2) I read in some places that the thumbdrive should be FAT, others say FAT32, I tried both. But the thumb drive I used was 4GB...should I have tried something smaller, is there a max size limit?

3) The bios looks like it's a QSPI flash. I'm an EE, so I'm confident I can unsolder, flash, and resolder the bios to the board. Are there any recommended  programming tools to purchase for this?

JackE

The flash drive itself should be MBR partitioned FAT32. The FD file should be the only file in its root directory. The flash sequence is as follows

(1) Laptop off. Charger removed.

(2) Insert flash drive in USB port. If it has more than one USB port, you must try each one in addition to the other two FD filenames.

(3) Press and hold FN+ESC keys

(4) While still holding FN+ESC keys, insert charger plug. The blue power LED should flash once.

(5) While still holding FN+ESC keys, press the power button to turn the machine on

(6) Hold FN+ESC keys till you see the USB drive LED activity. Then release

(7) If successful, the laptop will automatically shutdown. It may or may not reboot by itself.

If your first flash was successful, which I think it was from your earlier description of it auto rebooting, then it won't flash with the same or earlier version the 2nd time.

IvanB

Hi all, 

I thought I would give an update. I have decided to shelve this project until I receive my CH341A programmer. I feel that the bios recovery procedure has too many unknowns for an untested laptop in order to be reliable. I've ordered the programmer from China, so it may be a few weeks out still. I will provide updates when I get it and start programming. 

On that note, does anyone know if there are instructions on how to take the .fd file and load it onto the flash with an external programmer? All the instructions I have seen so far are for different products, and use the normal .bin file, is the .fd file just a renamed bin file, or does it require some other conversion?

Thanks, 

JackE

AFAIK, FDs are just re-named bin, rom or wph extensions. In some cases the binaries seem to be the same for different models. The only difference being the filename that the BIOS boot block seems to respond to. 

IvanB

Good to know. I'm curious, I have found two flash devices on the board, I believe the bios is on the W25Q16,  and the W25Q32 is something else. Which of these devices would contain the bios? 

Thanks, 

Shaharyar

Following 

JackE

OK, thanks Shaharyar. Please let us know how you guys make out with these CH341s. Jack E/NJ

StevenGen

IvanB said:

All good suggestions, thanks! To Steven, I have never received the ACER logo or anything on the screen. I have tried various F key combinations to get into the bios, but nothing happens.  I tried flashing with ZQK.FD, but I didn't try the other filenames, I'll try those when I get back to it later tonight. A few questions:

1) How can I tell the MBR is being accessed by the thumb drive? Is there a different flash sequence, assuming it has an activity LED?

2) I read in some places that the thumbdrive should be FAT, others say FAT32, I tried both. But the thumb drive I used was 4GB...should I have tried something smaller, is there a max size limit?

3) The bios looks like it's a QSPI flash. I'm an EE, so I'm confident I can unsolder, flash, and resolder the bios to the board. Are there any recommended  programming tools to purchase for this?

Firstly, thanks "IvanB" and I hope you have or are solving your problems. Anything to do with BIOS mods and recoveries are not permited on this site but, as I dont recommend modding or altering any BIOS (its only suitable for the very experienced tech's)  if you want any answers on intricate BIOS questions, go here and it will answr most of your BIOS questions at: http://hipstermag.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-i-brought-dead-motherboard-back-to.html or here at: https://www.bios-mods.com/

Also, in as far as answering your question 
3) The bios looks like it's a QSPI flash. I'm an EE, so I'm confident I can unsolder, flash, and resolder the bios to the board. Are there any recommended  programming tools to purchase for this? 
Have a look here: http://hipstermag.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-i-fixed-my-dead-motherboard-bios.html

Warning: Altering and/or reflashing a BIOS wrongly or not knowing how and what you are doing is "NOT RECOMENDED" and is a very easy way to TURN YOUR COMPUTER INTO A BRICK or your computer dead and unworkable "BE WARNED"!