Travelmate 5520 Corrupt Bios

Hey all...hoping for some new ideas...as I have looked at this for too long and my eyes are going.

My girlfriends travelmate 5520 had some issues (old work laptop...too much crap) so she just asked me to wipe it and rebuild it. No problem.

Then my acer madness started. No boot menu on bios to select boot from CD, then found out the bios was password protected...ok...got past that with hash code.

Now 3-5 seconds after I got into the bios it would just just shut off. I was able to be speedy and enable the boot menu...but whenever I would select boot menu it would power off...

Now the laptop still worked just booting into Windows with no problems...as far as power goes...

So I figured...bios could use an update...it was 1.16 and acer had 1.17 on the site.

Downloaded and flashed it in windows....and.....brick.

Now it's a black screen. Power it on and the HDD (which I have pulled at this point) light blinks 17 times, then both power lights blink simultaneously. And nothing after that.

What I've tried so far:

I downloaded 1.16 and 1.17 from Acer and have tried both with these using a USB key AND an external USB floppy.

This is step-by-step BIOS recovery which is works for me & most Acer notebook:-
1) Download Crisis Disk maker above.
2) Create Crisis Disk using WINCRIS (need a floppy disk or usb pen drive/usb flash drive).
3) Remember to replaced the "BIOS.WPH" file with yours. It is important to rename the BIOS file to "BIOS.WPH".
4) Make sure the battery and the power cord are connected to the laptop. Also laptop need to be in power-off state.
5) Hold in Fn+Esc and then press the power button (without releasing Fn+Esc key).
6) The USB floppy drive/pen drive/flash drive light will flash as it reads the BIOS file from the disk. You can release Fn+Esc key.
7) While in recovery process, display will always blank.
8) Recovery process will take a while (a minute or two). Laptop will automatically restart when recovery process succeed. You should see POST after restart.

2nd version step-by-step BIOS recovery which is works for some Acer notebooks:-
1) Download Crisis Disk maker above.
2) Create Crisis Disk using WINCRIS (need a floppy disk or usb pen drive/usb flash drive).
3) Remember to replaced the "BIOS.WPH" file with yours. It is important to rename the BIOS file to "BIOS.WPH".
4) Make sure the battery is connected to the laptop. Power cord must be disconnected from the laptop. Also laptop need to be in power-off state.
5) Hold in Fn+Esc then plugged in (AC) power cord. The Power button flashes orange once.
6) Then press the power button (without releasing Fn+Esc key).
7) The USB floppy drive/pen drive/flash drive light will flash as it reads the BIOS file from the disk. You can release Fn+Esc key.
8) While in recovery process, display will always blank.
9) Recovery process will take a while (a minute or two). Laptop will automatically restart when recovery process succeed. You should see POST after restart.

I also tried a bootable CD as the crisis disk.

Nothing so far.

When I've been using the USB key or USB floppy I've noticed that they never spin after boot. Have tried with fn esc, fn 2, win b, nothing held down, holding them down for several minutes.

So have I missed anything short of replacing eeprom or mobo?

Appreciate any input!

Cheers,

BT

 

I had a similar problem on 3820TG and after many tries managed to repair it. Here is a little guide i wrote:
Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820T/3820TG BIOS recovery

Try it on different USB flash drives and make sure they are less than 2gb. When you create Crisis disk do it on Windows XP.

 

prikolchik,

any other ideas?

Tried your way step by step...but still the USB key (tried several - imation, kingston, and a dell stick) never appears to be read...

Appreciate your help,

BT