Asus U30Jc + flash bios 215 = DEAD

Hi!!
Yesterday, i flashed the 210 bios to the 215. Used the integrated bios utility, for safety confused . Power cord + battery (charged at ~100%) pluged.
Flashed ok. Shuted down. Never started up.
The frontal leds for power connection don't show anything. Tried with the battery pluged and unpluged, with no change.

If someone have any idea, please post it!
And the rest, be carefull with this last bios version...

 

Powerplug out .. battery out .. hold power button 10s+ .. battery back and pray that it works.

 

A little off-topic, but why did you flash your bios?

I know some desktops mobos have a turn on button on the actual motherboard, maybe you can try that? I doubt a laptop would have that, but am just trying to help. Also how old is your pc? I heard asus made it even easier to flash your motherboard using.... meh i dont even know... i just heard it somewhere.

 

Done, but didn't work. Any necesary religion for the pray to make it work?

An old and sickly habit, to always be updated...
It hasn't any power button or jumper. And it's pretty new. Around June 2010. Can't send it to rma, because asus don't have any support in argentina, for this product.

Thanks anyway!! Any other good ideas, are always welcome!!

 

Well.... just to report that almos 4 weeks later, and still the autorized service from asus, just say to me "call the next week". So, don't know if they have any possible solution, or it's just dead notebook...
As soon i get any news, will update it here...

 

Tux Tupo, my friend!

Did you flash it using the BIOS 215 file stored on your HDD? If so, that seems to cause a bricked BIOS (using AFlash utility in the internal BIOS+ storing the BIOS update file on the NTFS HDD.

To avoid this, the ASUS site says that file must be on an external flash drive or card.

It's not the 215 BIOS update. I have the U30Jc and I've flashed it to BIOS 215 with no problems. (I think we spoke of this in another thread.)

But I used WinFlash, disabled all apps+programs incl my AV. The flash went smoothly as it has every time for me.

NOTE: Oh, I see where you posted on this in the U30Jc thread. Sorry, I forgot. You already know all of this, but I'll leave this post for others who may read it later. The 215 BIOS is fine on the U30Jc. It is how the flash is done that is the problem.

Sorry to hear that ASUS Support isn't getting to repairing your laptop. Technically, they don't have to since you flashed the BIOS at your own risk and didn't follow their instructions to only store the BIOS update file on an external drive (user-caused damage). But they have helped out several who have bricked their laptops with a bad BIOS flash in the past. So hopefully they will help you.

I know you live in Europe (Spain?), so you don't have the 1-year Accidental Damage Warranty like we do in the US?

 

Hey Quatro!
No, i live in Argentina, so no accidental warranty. Actually, no warranty at all. Our service works only for notebooks imported by them. I imported it by myself, so no warranty

A little question... where it is sayd about the use of external flash drive or card? cannot find it
Thanks!!

 

maybe this is stupid but any way you can get it to boot to a flash drive. have the flashdrive run a script to install the bios without any user interaction. i thought someone in this forum did that and it worked. i cant remember where i aw it though. it was called something like auto flashing asus or something.

 

No boot at all. Battery and/or wall-plug connected, no power led signal at all. As good as dead...

 

you could try opening a support ticket on the asus support forum, they're not the quickiest but they might know a trick or two to get it up and running w/o sending it in.

 

There is a thread HERE on the ASUS here at NBR that states a bad flash (bricked) is still covered by the warranty. ASUS will cover it. And ASUS is worldwide, even if you bought it in the US and carried it to Argentina.

On the flashing, ASUS' flash page states:
"AFLASH.EXE (unzipped) can only be executed in DOS mode and not from MS-DOS Prompt in Windows O/S. As a result, no matter if you wish to backup or update the BIOS content, you must create a new boot disk. Please copy AFLASH.EXE into the disk which you wish to boot the system. In addition, in the BIOS device boot sequence, you must set boot from "Floppy Drive" as the first device in the order of boot sequence."

The key phrases (which should be made more clear) say that you can ONLY use AFLASH from DOS. DOS does not recognize NTFS drives (at least not very well). Hence they tell you to create a boot disk (external) which means something like a flash drive or an SD card to boot up on. By necessity, the BIOS update file would need to be on that external drive. This isn't a problem as you supposed to be ignoring the HDD and flashing the BIOS directly.

 

Thanks for the link.... good news for the ones in the worlwide!!
Sadly, when i asked to asus, they response me, that the service in argentina only cover products that are only imported by them. Any product imported by myself, has no warranty. Funy thing is that when i buy it, there was a lovely image about asus providing worldwide warranty (maybe asus thinks that argentina is outside the world?). The asus support told me that this is beacuse they have only an autorized service (3rd party service, no asus service for real). So, next time, Dell notebooks for me, because thye have real worlwide support (or they know that argentina is in this world).
The mail that asus send me (in spanish):
(removed by moderator)

About the Aflash, i used the one that is inside the bios. No DOS or Windows involved.

 

Some kind of fresh news!

Today the asus service told me that they are awaiting the response from asus int. for changing the motherboard.... 9 weeks so far...
Finally something different that "don´t know, call next week".
Hope to have better news the next week...

 

Today finally get an official response:
For the change of the motherboard, have to wait 3 or 4 months. The motherboard must be asked from Asia. The cost is stilll unknown.
In the meantime, i will recover the notebook, for try to fix it by myself
Cyas!!!