So… The worst scenario came into play.
I bougth a couple GSkill Ripjaws for my laptop so i could upgrade from 16GB to 32GB, during the installation, i grounded myself and disconnected the BIOS battery and main battery pack from the motherboard to prevent any shorts or unexpected behaviour. After i plugged both batteries in, i lost my BIOS configuration (as expected, since i removed the battery for an extended period) and had to reconfigure my Dual-Boot setup (i've done this with rEFInd from my PopOS! installation).
When i had that done, i booted back into Windows and noticed it had some problems booting up the RTX4060, since it was showing a warning symbol on device manager, noticing this, i checked for driver updates on GeForce Experience for the graphics card and also checked for BIOS updates on Acer official page, expecting them to solve the issue.
When the BIOS update started, it rebooted the laptop into a black screen with a progress bar (as expected) and started advancing. I left the laptop by itself for a while (about 30min), and came back to a 22% progress, which i thought was kinda weird since i know BIOS updates take about 5-10mins, i decided to leave it there for some more time (about 2hs) and noticed it got stucked at 22%. After this, i already knew i was screwed, i couldnt even shut down the laptop since the power button seemed to be doing nothing, i had to unplug the main battery directly from the motherboard to shut it down (i know, it was not the best reaction).
So, i know my device is bricked, but it's not totally bricked, the EC chip still alive, since am able to enter BIOS recovery mode (Fn+Esc), turn on and off the laptop (with keyboard ligthning and fan response) and so, but no boot obviously.
I investigated a little by myself how could i fix this, since am not based in USA or near any authorized center (i live in Venezuela), and i saw it could be repaired using a EEPROM programmer as the CH134A, which basically connects directly to the bricked BIOS chip (a Winbond 25Q256JWEQ) to flash the BIOS image on it. I've downloaded the latest BIOS update from Acer official page (as stated before) and succesfully extracted the binary image from it, a file named abobios.bin that weigths about 32MB, but i've read that these binary used by automated installers (such as the insyde one) may have some overhead that shouldnt be flashed on the BIOS, so i need to know if this image i got can be trusted to flash the BIOS chip, or where can i get a clean raw image for this purpouse.
Another issue is i know my BIOS chip is in WSON8 format, and CH134A tends to be shipped with SOIC8 clips, which may be compatible but could produce disconnections during flashing.
To summarize, i need your advice to know if am trying to go too far by myself and can end up screwing up the whole device, or if on the other hand, i can fix it as i described earlier. For some context, i work as a developer and have decent experience fixing hardware related issues on laptops, since i've also worked as tech support.
Model | ANV16-41-R5K2 |
|---|
Mainboard Code | JH6FH |
BIOS Chip | Winbond 25Q256JWEQ |
EC Chip | GigaDevice 25LQ16ESIG |
