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    Messed up my m15x help!!

    Discussion in 'Alienware M15x' started by khetik, Jul 29, 2011.

  1. khetik

    khetik Notebook Deity

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    I may have severely harmed my precious m15x. I had bios A06 and was flashing to A08 using a boot disc and during the bios update I got some strange errors. I downloaded the A08 file, extracted, the utitily started and I opted for the image on a disc as a boot disc.

    I restarted and entered into the cd boot option. The message came up about bios flashing and prompted me to hit "B". I hit "b" (don't think that would make a difference). Anyway, it was doing its thing, didn't sound like the cd was spinning (may have been but just quietly). Then I got an error message "i/o error reading drive c" with 3 options "abort,retry,fail". I tried retry same error came up, I tried abort same thing came up with another error saying something about "c:\autoexec.bat like 36", then I tried fail and proceeded on to the EC. The same error came up "i/o error reading drive c" and 3 options "abort,retry,fail". I hit 'f' for fail and it said "c:\autoexec.bat line 41" and came up the prompt "c:\A08>".

    At this point I freaked out and searched a bit online on another laptop and decided to turn off my computer, haven't tried to turn it on yet, but I seriously need help!!! What Should I DO!!
     
  2. khetik

    khetik Notebook Deity

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    UPDATE: I got the courage to turn my computer on, it turned on everything seems to be working fine, but it seems a bit slower than before performance wise. I used CPU-Z and it shows that I'm still on bios A06. Any idea what went wrong or why that error message came up because I would really like to get up to A08.
     
  3. Kratzen

    Kratzen Notebook Consultant

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    Why do you want a08 instead of a09?
     
  4. khetik

    khetik Notebook Deity

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    there werent really any major fixes made in a09 and from what i read around forums a08 was a much easier flash than a09. a lot of people had problems having the ec flashed.
     
  5. Indiran

    Indiran Notebook Evangelist

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    Juz try it again, or flash straight to A09 if not working. Bios is really better not to play with.
     
  6. The Revelator

    The Revelator Notebook Prophet

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    Remember that when you boot from a CD, the CD becomes the c: drive. So the I/O errors are CD errors and the autoexec.bat errors are read errors on the CD. It did not flash the bios; it never got that far. You have either a bad CD drive, a bad CD or a bad CD burn. In any event, burn another boot-flash disk and try again. Though I agree with others -- go straight to A09. The only problem there is the EC flashing, which only occurs in some instances and can be easily worked around. Your computer is fine.
     
  7. khetik

    khetik Notebook Deity

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    Yes i understand that playing around with the bios can be risky and unnecessary, but i am updating to fix the throttling issue for my gtx 260m. Wasnt aware that the cd drive becomes the c drive- thanks for that bit of info. I might just flash to a09, found the ec flash work around
     
  8. ASCI_Blue

    ASCI_Blue Notebook Consultant

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    the one time I've done a bios update I used a tool that ran through Windows. if it failed just try, try, try again. from what I remember it took me two tries and it worked like a champ. big thing is don't turn the computer off or reboot till it said successful.
     
  9. khetik

    khetik Notebook Deity

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    Updated to A09, used Revelators fix for the ec flash which was "dflash ec_w670.118" without the quotes. worked beautifully took only 3-5 minutes from download to reboot.

    All I can say is wow, feels like my laptop is like new.
    - the stealth button no longer enters text
    - the stuttering/throttling problem seems to be fixed for the gtx 260m as well
    - tested splinter cell conviction, couldn't even run this game without stutters/freezes on its
    1280 resolution (my native is 1920x1080) on all low setting no aa or af. Now the game is on
    all high, max res which is the 1280 one, and 4x af, 2x aa.... absolutely no stutters or freezes

    Thank you all