Aspire E5-571-360C 3 Beeps and shutdown at boot. Any ideas?

CaptinWobbly

Aspire E5-571-360C

I'm trying to flash the bios using the USB esc/fn method, but all I get is three long beeps and then shutdown. (black screen throughout)
Anyone have any idea what it might mean?
Thanks
 Thread was edited to add model name to the title

JackE

What problem are you trying to fix by flashing the BIOS this way? This method fails more than 75% of the time. It can result in your mainboard having a bigger problem than whatever problem you started out with.

CaptinWobbly

Hi JackE

I should start by saying that when i bought the laptop it was set up as a hackintosh.
Having trouble with this I reformatted the HD and installed Linux mint.

The laptop just stopped booting one day and displayed only a black screen.
I tried booting to an external monitor via HDMI but got nothing

I pulled it apart, reseated the RAM and looked for anything obvious eg water damage (its my kids' laptop so anything's possible) but nothing.
Then I checked the (soldered in) cmos battery and found it was only putting out 1.6v.
I removed it, let it alone for several hours, then soldered in a new one.

Having concluded that the BIOS was likely corrupted I tried to follow the instructions posted by quoop here https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/500377/acer-aspire-e5-571-5940-black-screen-after-bios-flash#latest  

I say tried to, as i couldn't for the life of me find a BIOS file that contained an .FD file. I've had no luck so far with this method either, up to and including the "three beeps and your out" as per the thread title

Gotta say I'm baffled and would really appreciate any suggestions

Thanks

JackE

Did you try toggling the lid and external screens on with the FN+F6 or FN+F5 combos?

JackE

>>>Many thanks for your input JackE. I've tried both with no joy. Any other ideas? Any idea why the BIOS files contain no .FD file?
Am I doing something wrong?>>>

You said earlier>>>, the most major being that the update files (tried em all!) don’t contain any .FD file. Well, except one – the most recent BIOS_Acer_1.32_Windows.>>>>

Use the v1.32 FD file. The latest firmware should cover all previous versions.  In those version that don't have the FD, you must run the EXE on another different  computer to further extract the EXE file. And you may have to try it more than once.

This is the exact procedure.

1. Turn off machine and unplug the charger.

2. Use reset pinhole on the bottom to disconnect battery pack for about a minute. If no pinhole, then you must open the bottom cover to disco nect battery pack from mainboard.

3. Insert the USB MBR partition FAT32 format drive. The   Z5WAHx64.fd file must be the only file on the  drive

4. Press and hold FN+ESC

5. While still holding FN+ESC, plug the charger back in.

6. Keep holding FN+ESC. Then press the power button to turn machine on,

7. Don't let go of FN+ESC till you see USB LED activity.

Should take about 5 mins. If successful, LED activity will stop and the laptop may automatically shut down. If unsuccessful, repeat steps 1-7 for up to 2 more times.

CaptinWobbly

OK, so here's where it gets confusing for me.

When I extract the 1.32 zip, the payload contains three .exe files: H2OFFT-Wx64.exe, FWUpdLcl.exe and FlsHook.exe .

It contains only one .FD file: BDW.fd

To confirm, I should discard all the .exe files and copy only the .fd file to the USB root and then rename it Z5WAHx64.fd ?

Also, can the battery pack be left out during the process or should it be put back in?

Thanks again for your help

JackE

Try the filename FD both ways. It must be the only file in the root directory of a MBR FAT32 stick with an activity LED.  The battery pack must be in good condition, fully charged and plugged in.