BIOS bootable disk, how to make one?

Acer Aspire 3050 laptop, bought knowingly as second-user from retailer as 3055 with Acer labels on box (presumably it was returned to Acer as faulty)

Mobile Sempron 3600+ processor, Vista Basic OS
Phoenix BIOS
System BIOS v 1.3309 (update available 1.3315)

Problem: acer aspire will be working fine, and then all of a sudden a blue screen flashes up for a couple of seconds, then it resets iteself. The blue screen doesnt stay up long enough for me to read what's there.

There is no option to disable automatic restart on system failure in the Phoenix bios, so I cannot see if anything is displayed during BSOD.

Running BIOS update from Vista, not unreasonably starts a DOS Window and fails, saying:
"CAN'T FLASH IF MEMORY MANAGER( e.g. EMM386 ) present"
"PRESS ANY KEY TO EXIT"

I suppose a DOS bootable CD with the BIOS update on it is required, but how do I make one?

 

You can see the error in Administration Tools->Event Viewe->System. Search for DUMP LOG or SAVE DUMP. Click on it, copy all the info and post it here.

This is because you use the DOS version of the BIOS installer. You have to use WINFLASH(WINFLASH.ZIP), unpack and run SETUP.EXE.


EDIT: Do you want to flash your BIOS just because of these BSODs? If Yes, don't do it, BIOS update won't solve your OS problems...

 

See if this helps....

 

Thanks for the prompt reply. Dump files attached as "minidumps.pdf"
The Aspire 3050 has kept on crashing so many times, that I've had to restart this a few times.
I changed the power setting to "Power Saver", and reduced the number of BSODs.


quote "You can see the error in Administration Tools->Event Viewe->System. Search for DUMP LOG or SAVE DUMP. Click on it, copy all the info and post it here."

I used Event Viewer before posting my question, at Event Viewer/Windows Logs/System/
This lists 16,000+ Events in the course of a few days.
There is no discernible dump.log or save.dump, so far as I can see, or that Windows search can find.
(This is not like access to verbose plain text reporting of XP BSOD dumps.)

There are simple summaries in the Event Viewer, presumably with enough error codes to cover every eventuality.

On restart, a couple of the Windows reporting boxes are as follows, with a path to a .dmp file that's in machine code:

_______________________________________________________________


Windows has recovered from an unexpected shutdown

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.2
Locale ID: 2057

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: d1
BCP1: 085BE124
BCP2: 00000002
BCP3: 00000000
BCP4: 849778BA
OS Version: 6_0_6000
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini070508-01.dmp
C:\Users\me\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-108156-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Users\me\AppData\Local\Temp\WER70E0.tmp.version.txt

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.2
Locale ID: 2057

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: a
BCP1: 00001A45
BCP2: 00000002
BCP3: 00000001
BCP4: 81FA4E79
OS Version: 6_0_6000
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini070508-02.dmp
C:\Users\me\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-49468-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Users\me\AppData\Local\Temp\WER898E.tmp.version.txt

___________________________________________________________


After clearing this box, the .txt files are empty, the .xml file has been deleted, and the Minixxxxx-xx.dmp file is not readable as plain text, it appears to be machine code.
I had to get, instal, and follow the rudiments of using Microsoft Debugging Tools for Windows, to view the the dump files. Attached here as minidumps.pdf file.

What these dump files show, is the errors as the OS/BIOS saw them. I'm not expert at this, but for this laptop I suspect it is the Event Viewer that is showing more useful information. My suspicion is that faults are being caused by heat problems. My description "Problem: acer aspire will be working fine, and then all of a sudden a blue screen flashes up for a couple of seconds, then it resets iteself. The blue screen doesnt stay up long enough for me to read what's there." is echoed by other people, when Googled. Their other comments include that this recently started, and is now happening more often.

The exhaust from the fan is very hot, but the fan runs irregularly so there are significant high temperature changes, and the CPU appears to be in the centre of the motherboard (the copper runs from close by the memory modules).
While the chips can stand the heat, the motherboard is heating and cooling too much to last very long, it would be better served by a continuously running variable speed fan. Bits of the PCI buses may fail in the heat, and the problem gets worse with ageing.

The most regular Event Viewer error recorded is for a group of 4 PCI slots, which must be responsible for most of the BSODs because there aren't enough critical events to account for them all.

I'm not uploading all the Events Viewer logs, just samples of the errors and critical events.


But first, the non-information events include several:

Error "The previous shutdown at xx:xx:xx on xx/xx/xxxx was unexpected"
[My comment: very helpful Microsoft, I know it was unexpected, some information would be useful!]

Details:
19:55:49
05/07/2008

921


D8070700060005001300370031005202D8070700060005001200370031005202100E00003C00000001000000100E00000000000008070000010

00000770E0000

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Binary data:


In Words

0000: 000707D8 00050006 00370013 02520031
0008: 000707D8 00050006 00370012 02520031
0010: 00000E10 0000003C 00000001 00000E10
0018: 00000000 00000708 00000001 00000E77


In Bytes

0000: D8 07 07 00 06 00 05 00 Ø.......
0008: 13 00 37 00 31 00 52 02 ..7.1.R.
0010: D8 07 07 00 06 00 05 00 Ø.......
0018: 12 00 37 00 31 00 52 02 ..7.1.R.
0020: 10 0E 00 00 3C 00 00 00 ....<...
0028: 01 00 00 00 10 0E 00 00 ........
0030: 00 00 00 00 08 07 00 00 ........
0038: 01 00 00 00 77 0E 00 00 ....w...

Error ACPI
19:55:49
05/07/2008


921

______________________________________________

[This below is the most frequent error - about 20 instances]

Error: "IRQARB: ACPI BIOS does not contain an IRQ for the device in PCI slot 7, function 0. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance.


+ System

- Provider

[ Name] ACPI

- EventID 6

[ Qualifiers] 49157

Level 2

Task 0

Keywords 0x80000000000000


- EventData


IRQARB
7
0
000000000400300000000000060005C0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Binary data:


In Words

0000: 00000000 00300004 00000000 C0050006
0008: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
0010: 00000000 00000000


In Bytes

0000: 00 00 00 00 04 00 30 00 ......0.
0008: 00 00 00 00 06 00 05 C0 .......À
0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........


_____________________________________________________________

Also got grouped with the above:

IRQARB: ACPI BIOS does not contain an IRQ for the device in PCI slot 6, function 0. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance.
IRQARB: ACPI BIOS does not contain an IRQ for the device in PCI slot 5, function 0. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance.
IRQARB: ACPI BIOS does not contain an IRQ for the device in PCI slot 4, function 0. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance.

This happens as a group of four PCI slot 4,5,6.7 failures several times.

In the: Device Manager/Devices by Connection/ACPIx86-based PC/Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System/PCIbus/
there are 51 devices listed with no errors against any of them.
But there are no slot numbers in the Device Manager and short of a service manual, I suppose that only a forum member with another Aspire 3050 stands much chance of knowing what's affected.

The 6T04 Adapter is the only faulted item in Device Manager. (Not concerned about that, after reading up)

____________________________________________________________

Critical - Kernel Power

The last sleep transition was unsuccessful. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, failed, or lost power during the sleep transition.

[Comment no details are provided - same things happens with hibernation, sometimes they work sometimes they don't.]

________________________________________________________________
Error DistributedCOM


The server {E10F6C3A-F1AE-4ADC-AA9D-2FE65525666E} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.

EventData

param1 {E10F6C3A-F1AE-4ADC-AA9D-2FE65525666E}

_________________________________________________________________



Error Service Control Manager Eventlog Provider [6 faults together, then the OS action]

The Terminal Services service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 60000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

The Telephony service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 120000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

The Network Location Awareness service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 100 milliseconds: Restart the service.

The KtmRm for Distributed Transaction Coordinator service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 1000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

The DNS Client service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 120000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

The Cryptographic Services service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 60000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

[Followed by]

The Service Control Manager tried to take a corrective action (Restart the service) after the unexpected termination of the Telephony service, but this action failed with the following error:
An instance of the service is already running.

[Suggests to me that a chip failed, probably the MB connection, then cooled enough to start working again but the software had not been flushed. So the attempt to restart the service was defaulted by a chip that started working again.]

__________________________________________________________________

Critical DriverFrameworks-UserMode

A problem has occurred with one or more user-mode drivers and the hosting process has been terminated. This may temporarily interrupt your ability to access the devices.
+ System

- Provider

[ Name] Microsoft-Windows-DriverFrameworks-UserMode
[ Guid] {2e35aaeb-857f-4beb-a418-2e6c0e54d988}

EventID 10110

Version 1

Level 1

Task 64

Opcode 0

Keywords 0x2000000000000000

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2008-07-03T02:11:32.511Z

EventRecordID 15677

Correlation

- Execution

[ ProcessID] 1232
[ ThreadID] 1584

Channel System

Computer me-PC

- Security

[ UserID] S-1-5-18


- UserData

- UMDFHostProblem

[ lifetime] {D5667F58-4135-4E49-AE81-B36ED1D96ED3}
- Problem

[ code] 3
[ detectedBy] 2

ExitCode 0

- Operation

[ code] 259
Message 6

Status 4294967295



[Together with]

Critical DriverFRameworks-UserMode

The device Microsoft WPD FileSystem Volume Driver (location (unknown)) is offline due to a user-mode driver crash.

Windows will attempt to restart the device 5 more times. Please contact the device manufacturer for more information about this problem.

+ System

- Provider

[ Name] Microsoft-Windows-DriverFrameworks-UserMode
[ Guid] {2e35aaeb-857f-4beb-a418-2e6c0e54d988}

EventID 10111

Version 1

Level 1

Task 64

Opcode 0

Keywords 0x2000000000000000

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2008-07-03T02:11:32.511Z

EventRecordID 15678

Correlation

- Execution

[ ProcessID] 1232
[ ThreadID] 1584

Channel System

Computer me-PC

- Security

[ UserID] S-1-5-18


- UserData

- UmdfDeviceOffline

[ lifetime] {D5667F58-4135-4E49-AE81-B36ED1D96ED3}
- DeviceInfo

FriendlyName Microsoft WPD FileSystem Volume Driver

Location (unknown)

InstanceId WPDBUSENUMROOT\UMB\2&37C186B&0&STORAGE#VOLUME#1&19F7E59C&0&_??_ENE#CB712#SECUREDIGITAL_MMC_DRIVE#


RestartCount 5

[Followed by]

Error DistributedCOM
The server {E10F6C3A-F1AE-4ADC-AA9D-2FE65525666E} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.

________________________________________________________________


quote "EDIT: Do you want to flash your BIOS just because of these BSODs? If Yes, don't do it, BIOS update won't solve your OS problems..."

From what the accopanying text files say for the BIOS updates, there have clearly been problems with the BIOS that would cause BSODs. I didn't intend to flash the BIOS immediately, it's just that I realised that I didn't know how to do it (only used a DOS floppy in the past).
The crash dumps may indicate that there are BIOS problems still, but I am asking first.

In fact if I'd seen this forum earlier, I wouldn't have bought the Aspire 3050 at all - it seems to me to be a fundamentally flawed design that has heat problems, that will almost inevitably create faults on the motherboard.

If the previous owner ran the Aspire 3050 at optimum performance power, I'd guess that it failed too often with BSODs, was returned under warranty, and short of a completely new motherboard and doing something about the fan,
the one I bought as an Acer 3055 is not fit for purpose (English legal term, that applies to my retailer)
The accumulated evidence of users getting BSODs and it happening more often, is persuasive, although I suppose Acer will deny it.

 

Minidumps.pdf has 9 instances recorded.
Should have included that about 50 BSODs occurred and only these 9 were recorded.
Adds to my reasons that it's more motherboard heat ageing than OS problems (although I'm not discounting OS/BIOS problems)

 

Hmm...I'd reinstall the chipset driver..It's seems that all BSODs are cause by drivers(PCI devices).
And yes, you're right, BIOS update could resolve some system BSODs..You may try that too.
You still have the recovery option? Tried to restore the factory settings?