Acer 5520G. Is it dead

Hi there,

My friend has mess up his Acer Aspire 5520G. And I'm supposed to help him fix it. His laptop has a nVidia 8400 graphics card.

When the laptop is powered it keeps rebooting itselve evry 3-4 seconds, and nothing is displayed on the screen. I don't know what's wrong with my friend's laptop but I think it might be related to the BIOS been correpted in his laptop. He tried to flash the BIOS from VISTA.

Anyways, I got Crisis recovery disk, and the latest BIOS for his laptop, and I got also a USB floppy drive. I removed the harddrive and the optical drive to force the laptop to boot from the USB floppy drive. I removed the battery too.

I pushed Fn+Esc, plugged the charger in the laptop and powered the laptop. The laptop know doesn't reboot itself but doesn't detect the floppy drive either.

I used the floppy to make a boot CD and tried to flash the bios again using the DVD drive this time. Pushed Fn+Esc again. The laptop turns ON and try to read the CD for about 5 seconds and then nothing else happens.

1- Is it a BAD BIOS.

2- How to make a boot CD to use with Crisis Recovery.

Thanks

 

Try with different BIOS versions, you could try flashing with USB flash drive.

 

If the BOOT BLOCK is corrupted it is almost hopeless.
If it not you can attempt emergency procedure using thumbdrive as well.

 

I never used a thumbdrive to do the recovery. Can you explain the steps to me?

thanks.

 

Too lazy to type here.

 

thanks for the link

I tried two BIOS(s) with a CD and none worked.

question:
is there a way to test is the graphics card is OK?

 

Well, does the system boot the operating system? (is the hard drive working, is there sound, etc.)
The fact that he tried to do a BIOS update sort of leads to the conclusion that he's bricked the thing.

 

I'm with Suigi on this one.

The bios controls your hardware and does a POST (Power On Self Test). If you corrupted or broke the operating system that controls your hardware you can't load the software (it takes 2 to tango my friend )

Short of a motherboard replacement you are SOL (sorry outta luck). Please note that your data on the drive is still good, so if you have critical information on it still you can hook the hdd up as slave in a working computer and pull your data off.

Best of luck, and if you need more help just let us know.

--ssx--

 

SSX4life and TehSuigi

thanks for the additional info. Though, if you read the first thread, and the description of the laptop behaviour you would see that my friend's laptop right now does not display anything on the screen. The fan spins, and the power LED blicks (on and off every 2-3 seconds).

When I power the laptop while holding Fn+Esc the blicking of the power LED disappears. The power light is solid on. Also the laptop tries to read the containt of the CD inside the optical drive for about 5 second. Then nothing else happens.

When I try with a USB floppy drive nothing happens. I think that the laptop doesn't detect the floppy drive.

I haven't tried with a USB stick yet. If this doesn't work I'll have to tell my friend (the owner of the laptop) that he managed to transform his laptop into an expensive door stop .

 

I had a similar problem with my 5920G. I tried everything and the USB flash BIOS and it didn't work. In the end I took to an IT technician and he told me that the motherboard needed repair. So I bought a new laptop.

But in your case if the laptop was rebooting on its own that was probably because of overheating after the BIOS your friend tried to flash (it's something that can happen to anyone). So if you try to flash the BIOS again try with the previous version or with something older like the 1.07 or 1.21.
I don't think it's the graphic card since laptop should've gone to BIOS loading page even without graphic card.#
When you tried to flash the BIOS do you use an autoexe.bat file (with the echo off; I think the echo off is important, but I am not an expert) so flashing is done automatically?
Also try to use a new phlash16.exe, preferably use the one from the Acer BIOS folder. The reason why I am saying that is because I had another problem with the new laptop and I had to flash the BIOS back to the previous version. Only the phlash16 file from the Acer BIOS folder worked.

 

Hi nklive
thanks for your post (lot of valuable information)

I tried the BIOS recovery with bootable USB stick and no availe. It like the laptop doesn't recognise the USB stick.

I tried BIOS 1.33 and 1.32 sofar. I'll try again with an older version and see. I tried method 1 and 2 from here http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?t=2105

It is difficult to pin point the problem as I was not around when this happend.

I thought that if the GPU is faulty (i.e. dead) nothing will be displied on the screen?

 

I know for some people, it worked after using a couple of USB sticks.
So it might be the USB stick you used.
Did you remember to remove the hard drive and the battery? This is very important.
Another think to do in order to see if the USB is being used by the laptop is to modify the autoexec.bat file
If you right click the file and then select edit, the notepad will open the file.
In there you will see the two lines of code I think, so replace the last line

phlash16.exe /x /s bios.WPH

with this

PHLASH16 bios.WPH /mode=3 /X

This line will make the laptop to beep as the usb is doing to BIOS flashing so you will know if the USB is recognised and being used.

The credit should go to Frank1608 which suggested this type of modification
you will find his post #18 here and the thread about USB flashing
BIOS flashing

Now the important tips are to remove the hard drive and battery, to use a fresh phlash16.exe (preferably one from the BIOS update file), try different USB and BIOS and be sure you have rename the new bios file to bios.WPH

I remember once when I had removed my GPU and the laptop went to BIOS but then it crashed. If the GPU is faulty though, it might a different case. So you are right, I don't know.

 

I'll give it a go with another stick. Though, I don't think that there is anything wrong with it since it booted well (to DOS) on another laptop.
Also I tried a USB Floppy drive and it didn't work.

Both were removed before attempting to reflash the bios.

I'll try this this evening

This is the second time that I'm told that I could power the laptop up without the GPU. I'll try this tonight.

 

I tried without the GPU and same result. I think that the motherboard is dead.

Is there anyway to test the Graphics card?

 

In another MXM enabled laptop Sorry, that's the only option I can think of, that and some exotic solutions like: ASUS Splendid and ASUS Trinity

 

nice links. I guess the laptop is going back to its owner since I tried everything I know to fix it.

 

That laptop is dead, because you need to change the motherboard (damaged in time by high temperatures, especially on the MCP). The motherboard replacement costs too much, so try selling the laptop by parts on eBay.

Mine had the same behavior when it died and kept restarting even after I removed everything from it (CPU, VGA, cooling system, WLAN, DVD-RAM drive etc.). RIP for that AS5520G

 

Your 5520G is equipped with the nVidia MCP Unibridge Chipset. BGA Failure (Cold Solder/Cracked Spheres) is causing the issue you're describing. Common failure in that unit, sadly.

Only fix for it is a reflow (resolder) of the Unibridge BGA, which requires specialized equipment.

The reason you can't use Phoenix Crisis Recovery Mode is because the Unibridge is incapable of accessing the i2c Bus required to read the BIOS ROM, due to the BGA failure.

 

Guys, please do not bump old topics. Check the date of the most recent post before adding your thoughts.
This thread is almost a year old!

 

I'm sorry, my laptop died on 26 april 2010, so the topic it's pretty new for me. And I can testify that not the bios update caused the death of this crappy laptop, but the poor design of the cooling system. I posted because in time every AS5520G owner will find the post, when they will try to find an explination of their laptop death. I know at least 15 people in my country (Romania) with this problem on AS5520G, all bought from the same lot. Acer didn't recall them. Most of them died a little bit after one year. Maybe the post should be closed.

 

Well I had my Acer Aspire 5520G last March 2008 then it died around January 2010. But not actually died, the 8400M G card died then I bought a temporary gateway pc. Then Last Friday, I installed a brand new 8600M GT card on my 5520G and amazingly it was revived though I always get the MXM error 30 secs POST.

 

@johnrichard07

maybe you would need to update your motherboard bios to the latest version and it would work.

 

I started work @ Acer this week. I also got the impression that the Gemstone series wasn't the most favorite unit/series in the repair department.

I also had to repair ( replace the mainboard ) on about 3 of them already :S
Most of em come in with the "eternal" reboot problem. If that happens your Acer is probably (98.5% sure) gonna need a new one.

 

I'm selling an 8600m GT if you want to try that...check my sig...only 45 bucks...

Besides that...does the model have a CMOS battery? have you try disconnecting that and resetting the CMOS?