Aspire S7 BIOS upgrade killed PC

Jbihner
Jbihner Member Posts: 3 New User

I had a message to upgrade the BIOS on an S7 this morning so against better judgement said ok. Downloaded ok / looked like it installed ok then it went black. Can't get anything to come up / have hit little button on back to kill power to battery, held it for 30 seconds / try again and I do get the blue light but nothing.

 

Called and the guy who was several layers into tech support was at best mildly literate with computers, could hardly speak english and it took forever because their phone system was dropping about every 3rd word.. He said send it in (I need to pay) / only 4 or 5 months old and we will wide your hard drive and solve it, then he wanted my passwords.

 

There has to be a way I can boot this / USB or something anybody have options as I have zero confidence they can solve this


Thanks in Advance

 

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Answers

  • Ryanrr
    Ryanrr Member Posts: 831 Practitioner WiFi Icon

    Jbihner,

     

    I am sorry to hear that the system is no longer working and that you only have had it for 4-5 months. When you performed the BIOS updated did you have the system on AC power? Did the update ever get interrupted? If the update got interrupted that would have caused the problem. The only solution for this would be service as the BIOS was corrupt and needs to be flashed. This can be done by one of our service facilities.

     

    There is no reason to have zero confidence in our authorized service facilities ability to resolve this as that is what they are here for and they are capable of fixing the BIOS.

  • faithhhh
    faithhhh Member Posts: 5 New User

    You re very helpful (!) Thank yo. Maybe you can look other topics too,problem is new bios for s7 191  (v2.18) A major institutional coorporation like Acer updating wrong file to own server??

  • Ryanrr
    Ryanrr Member Posts: 831 Practitioner WiFi Icon

    I looked into this more and saw that it was a brand new BIOS and apologize that I did not see that earlier. I will definitely have this looked into and hopefully have an answer or explanation. Please allow me the time to have this looked into and see if we can duplicate the issue.

     

     

    Thank you.

  • Jbihner
    Jbihner Member Posts: 3 New User

     

    What I am really after is, is there a way to get this restarted short of sending my PC to Texas? Can I get a BIOS onto a USB and if I could will the device look to boot from it or ?????

     

    Thanks

  • faithhhh
    faithhhh Member Posts: 5 New User

    Thanks waiting for your reply...

  • jrm83mrj
    jrm83mrj Member Posts: 1 New User

    This happened to my aspire v5-551 as well. An automatic update killed my pc, now I have the formiddable black screen of death and cannot for the life of me figure out how to flash a bios file to update it.

  • Jbihner
    Jbihner Member Posts: 3 New User

     

    Someone asked if I had it plugged in / answer is "yes". I am trying to get someone to answer the question about getting a bootable USB and trying to recover it myself but nobody has responded to that and honestly I have been busy or I would have done more on that myself

  • Ryanrr
    Ryanrr Member Posts: 831 Practitioner WiFi Icon

    If you system is not booting any more and did not revert back to the previous BIOS version, then there is nothing at the moment that I can provide to resolve this issue.

     

    We are trying to research this issue and make sure it is not an isolated issue. So far we have tried the BIOS update once and got the same results as another user on the community. As the customer states it stays at the Acer lol then on reboot the system went back to the previous version and boots fine. I ask for a little more patience so we can determine a resolution.

  • Asj
    Asj Member Posts: 8 New User
    I've just experienced the exact same thing - ran official acer bios Update on my s7-392 with AC power plugged, and now it's dead. Both hdd/activity light and power light are on constantly and I can't shut the notebook down. Not even by Holding the power button Smiley Sad
    Please help... Can't believe this on a 5K $ labtop only 3 Month old!!!!!
  • Asj
    Asj Member Posts: 8 New User

    Just some additional information - Used the batteri reset button on the backcover using a paperclip, and the computer shut down. Opening the lid and it goes into same state - black screen (not even Acer logo screen), and constant light in "activity LED" and thats it. Shut it down again with reset button, and now I'm really clueless what my next step should be.

     

    Pleaase - it's my work laptop... 

  • ietguy
    ietguy Member Posts: 14 New User

    I tried to update a S7-391 from BIOS 2.18 to 2.18 end up with a black screen with both LED indicators on. But after I've reset the battery via the pin hole. TPOC came on with no bootable device....went in to BIOS and changed UEFI to Legacy ..all is well. Except, I still have the frequent random black screen while in use or not and on or off AC power. while both LED indicators are still on solid......wait a few minutes and screen flickers with black and white horzontal lines....and another few minutes it shuts itself down. I think my video chip is getting over heated. it has start to show signs of video issues. 

  • Asj
    Asj Member Posts: 8 New User

    ietguy wrote:

    I tried to update a S7-391 from BIOS 2.18 to 2.18 end up with a black screen with both LED indicators on. But after I've reset the battery via the pin hole. TPOC came on with no bootable device....went in to BIOS and changed UEFI to Legacy ..all is well. Except, I still have the frequent random black screen while in use or not and on or off AC power. while both LED indicators are still on solid......wait a few minutes and screen flickers with black and white horzontal lines....and another few minutes it shuts itself down. I think my video chip is getting over heated. it has start to show signs of video issues. 


    Atleast you get into the bios-menu. I'm stuck with the black screen and nothing. From 3½ months of use I've had zero problems on my S7-392 till now and this update (10 mins before my update-issue I declared how happy I was with the computer and then bang! Nemesis Smiley Happy

     

    Sounds bad with you heat issue - how old is your laptop?

  • ietguy
    ietguy Member Posts: 14 New User

    Asj, 

     

    You should have knock on wood, before the BIOS update : )

     

    MFG Date: 02/21/2013. from my research these few days, other people are having problems too with computer shutdowning down...mine seems to happen when the fans are running on high for awhile.

  • glimpse
    glimpse Member Posts: 4 New User

    DEAD-ON ,Jbihnernew ! The new bios for s7 191  (v2.18) is not working in my laptop ethier! AC have been connected and after restarting , it frezeeeeee in ACER scrren, i'v waited a long time, there is no way without cut the power down. 

  • carlospaz
    carlospaz Member Posts: 1 New User

    Hey, everybody my laptop is dead now, this morning i received an update notification from ACER, after click on the banner, i followed all suggestion about keep my laptop plugged to AC power and close all tabs... so after this process the laptop hasn´t started up again.

     

    Did anyone fix it this problem?, I contacted to ACER customer care and they just said that i have to send my laptop to Texas, (i am not in USA now), so the nxt solution was leave your laptop in a local service no belong to ACER (nosense for me)... I don´t understand why i have to do this last, if i´m holder of 2yr warranty, my laptop is 4 months old.

     

    Please ACER i need to fix it, your mistakes shouldn´t be our responsabilities.

     

    Why do we have to pay for shipping and reparation if your update packet doesn´t work correctly.?

     

     

  • shanaynay
    shanaynay Member Posts: 2 New User

    The same thing happened to me.  I was also connected to the AC adapter and I also hit the battery reset button to turn the computer off, but when I opened it,it remains black.  Please let us know what we can do to get this resolved.  Thank you!!

  • Asj
    Asj Member Posts: 8 New User
    Just been in contact with Local acer customer service and Ill send mine to service - abroad since I dont live in the service country... I'm quite dissapointed since it is my Work laptop, and now I need to be without it for god knows how long...
  • shanaynay
    shanaynay Member Posts: 2 New User
    Acer-Ryan, there has got to be better customer service. 5 months old, pay to ship it out, give all my passwords. Lose everything if they have to replace/wipe/reinstall. No way to back anything up since it doesn't start up. Without my laptop for a minimum of 10 business days. AND, I'm questioned why I downloaded BIOS. BECAUSE Acer prompted me to. I'm not feeling the love from Acer. If BIOS is so touchy and causes so many problems that you even have frequently asked questioned devoted to it stating not to update unless absolutely necessary, (unfortunately I read this after the crash) then why send the automatic updates? To the normal laptop user, they feel safe updating what Acer prompts them to update. And now we pay the price. I don't know what to do, I need my laptop, but I'm not really feeling confident about shipping it to Acer either.
  • Ryanrr
    Ryanrr Member Posts: 831 Practitioner WiFi Icon

    Dear Community,

     

    I do apologize for the long awaited response in regards to the issue of updating your S7-191's BIOS from 2.16 to 2.18. We have had this looked into and found that if you are experiencing the issue with no boot or unable to get back into Windows, we suggest you contact your local Acer service facility as this requires service. I understand this is not ideal but this is the only way we can flash your BIOS correctly.

     

    Also for other members that are experiencing similar issues on different models, the solution would be the same as we have not had any problems with the other models mentioned in this thread. Please contact Acers technical support in your region for assistance with setting your computer up for repair.

  • Asj
    Asj Member Posts: 8 New User
    Atleast a reply - Ryan. Still not a great situation huh?

    Hope you Cancelled the bios Update to avoid future costumers running Into the same trouble... Atleast till it's fixed.

    What was the technical reason for the update anyway?

    Regards
    Asj
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