Travelmate 113 TMB113-E-10074G32tkk series splash screen

Quark1980

Hi,

I have an onder travelmate 113, TMB113-E-10074G32tkk.

After instelling Linux mint i was trying to install a different Linux distribution. And up until i charges some setting in the Bios everyting was fine.changed Eufi to legacy and reset some stuff to factory.

I figured i messed up, because after the changes could not get back I to the bios, and it hung on the acer splash screen... found out that I could reset the cmos by shorting 2 pads on the main board just besides the memory slot, labeled cmos.

Tried that to make things worse... the screens back-light comes up, everything seems to be working, but I cannot get into bios, and the screen stays black...

I still think I messed up the bios, although I don't understand how, but I would like to try to fix the isseu by flashing.

Is there any info how to flash the bios in such cases?
Where can I obtain the correct bios (the one on the website is a zip file wich contains an exe wich I cannot use since I can't get into post let alone, any OS.... )

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Regards....

//Edited the content to add model name.

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billsey

Errors compounding on errors unfortunately. You should never have tried to switch to legacy mode, there are no current OSes that need it. Try this, remove the HDD and come up into the BIOS with it removed. That should bypass any attempt by the system to use the EFI image. If you can get into the BIOS from there switch back to UEFI boot with Secure Boot disabled and the F12 boot menu enabled. Once you have saved that shut down and reconnect the HDD for another attempt to boot to your old OS.

Quark1980

Thank you for your tips,

I did remove the harddisk, but unfortunately it made no difference...

I am quite stumped how easy it was to mess up...

The laptop powers on, after a short while I cab see the back-light coming up, but other than that.. nothing displays... no "press f12 of f2"for bios...

The bios was/is password protected, but since I know the password because i did enter it myself.. that was not the reason for clearing the cmos.

Is the bios corrupted somehow? Is that even possible by just messing with the settings and trying to install a Linux distribution?

billsey

It is actually pretty easy when trying to install a Linux distribution. The default grub often disables any wait time at bootup to allow for key presses. Compound that with the switch to Legacy, which would break booting from a GPT disk, and you have an issue where it doesn't boot and you can't get into the BIOS. That's why I was hoping that removing the drive would allow the normal access to the BIOS since grub wouldn't be loading to block access. Can you boot from the Mint install image?

Quark1980

Hi,

No. I cannot boot from the mint install usbdrive.
Just tried that..

Is it possible to rebuild the drive, for example, installing the drive in a different machine. Reinstall mint, and then reinstall it in the travelmate?

What puzzles me the most, Is that not even the acer splash screen is showing during boot... that was the main reason I thought the bios was messed up in someway.

Quark1980

FYI,

I installed the travelmate hdd in a different machine.
To my surprise the other machine did boot into mint...

So the bootdisk seems to be fine...

billsey

I wonder if you accidentally shorted more than the CMOS reset pins... It's sounding pretty dead.

Quark1980

Hi,

I can't really say for sure. I did take some care just touching the cmos-clear pins. So it would be a bit of a surprise if I did.... but can't rule that out either...

One thing what does happen when I plug in any USB stick (I tried the mint installer as suggested) is that the USB device does indicate activity for a few seconds after power up.
This to me suggested that the USB was accessed during boot for some reason. So there is -some- life still in there....

I did read on some forums that the bios should be flashable on a few models, with the key combination Fn+Esc during start... but I could not find much info about the needed file wich should be present on the USB device during that procedure.. I can obtain the files from the website and extract the *.fd files in the exe file provided ... latest version would be 2.20 if remember correctly... but I did also read that the filename should be a defined name dependent on the mainboard specific...
IF the bios is corrupted, in my kind that could be a way to fix... or so I thought, in this case...

Quark1980

Hi, I have a little hopefully a good, update.

Thank you for the help you already gave.

But as I typed my former message, I tough, what the heck, its doing nothing now.. what else could I mess up.... and just put the first bios on the acer site, I ectracted the installer and put it on a USB stick. Renamed the *.fd to bios.fd and booted the system without hdd with Fn+Esc pressed...

Result was that the screen stayed black with backlighting on, but, after some USB activity, wich kept going for about 20 seconds. I was greeted with 3 long beebs... it was unhappy, but in some way, alive..

I did something different, I assume the file I fed the laptop wasn't correct, or had the wrong filename or something of that order... if anyone has some Info on this flashing procedure, that would be great.

Quark1980

Last update:

i managed to Fix it.

after a quite deep search i found a specific bios file online, wich i could flash with the Fn+esc crisis recovery method.
did actually did resolve the issue, and the laptop came back to life and booted into mint just fine.

the only thing i had to find out trough trial and error, is that the provided bios file should be renamed into BIOS.fd wich is in fact case sensitive.
the 3 beebs indicated that the bios file at first was not recognized or faulty.

thank you for the help