BAD Flash recovery solution for the C90S

Hello guys, these last 3 days have been really bad for me. I had a badflash bios and my C90S became a paperweight as we use to say in the past. No reboot, black screen, seems completly death except that it has some light activity from time to time. Therefore, I sent a tech requirement to ASUS. the problem was that ASUS answer those tech inquirements from Monday to Friday and after 48 hrs. So besides that I asked some people around the forum for help plus some other forums and even AMI. No one could help me. So I got with my wife and her friends who are electric engineer and proceed to COMPLETLY OPEN the notebook to check the BIOS chip waiting from ASUS inevitable reply of saying: SORRY, your chip is death so you need to replace it. Well, we checked everything on the C90S motherboard and we found that the BIOS CHIP was the famous mistery chip ALEX mentioned on his first review. The etiquete showed the first BIOS the machine had on it C90S0205 and it was solder to the board. It seems ASUS have been working since February with the BIOS for the C90S. Anyway, my friends new what to be done but they said, lets wait for ASUS reply because modern boards usually have a backup. I say OK. Tonight I received the news from ASUS support (who is always kind eonugh to reply in my own language, spanish) They gave me the solution I was hoping for so to dispear anyone to the ansiaty I had just in case you get under the same situation, here is why you need to do:

1.- You need a floppy USB or USB pen drive & another Computer
2.- you dont need a bootable the diskettte or usb pen (just need to have a valid dos media)
3.- Get the bios you want to recover such as C90S0601.ROM and renamed
C90S.BIN
4.- Copy the .BIN file into your disckette or usb pen drive
5.- Plug in the device into you notebook
6.- Turn On your C90S
7.- Press Alt-F2
8.- Wait, the light on your usb device will turn On and Off until it gets On all time.
9.- Press the power button again to turn it Off
10.- Turn On again you C90S and you will have your machine working again

I spare you the history about the bad flash (a sad one though) but let me tell you ASUS support no just came through as before but gain even more points. BTW, My C90S is reading 667 for my ram memory as it should, no battery issue, but still turbo gear issue but to tell you the true I dont care for now. I need to get some work done and Im really glad that my working machine is back on his feet again

best regards,

RG

PS: later I will show you the pictures of the C90S guts out

 

Reading as 667 with the 601 bios?

 

well, it just did it the first time I reboot it. For some reason, it went back to 533 this 2nd time.

On another note, I got another reply from ASUS tech support:

1.- Turbogear is for VISTA only
2.- Gpu temperature shouldnt go over 100 oC (GPU can stand temperature up to 100 oC)
3.- Definitly BIOS ver. 601 is just a revision so there are not real changes

 

Ah well seems mostly everything worked out for you. Getting my replacement c90 tomorrow, excited to play bioshock, moh, and wic demos.

 

good for you man, just check those gpu temperaturatures which they should not go up to 100 oC while gaming in standard mode. Im also glad that my turbo gear crashes on game mode didnt have anything to do with my system but just the fact Im running XP

best regards,

RG

 

Good thing the boot-from-USB section of the BIOS wasn't damaged otherwise this solution wouldn't have worked.

 

Hello, the boot system of the bios was damaged and that is why it didnt reboot and I didnt have any screen (black screen) therefore you could not even enter the CMOS setup. In the old days, for Desktop, we use to insert an addtional video card on the ISA port to look for the backup recovery instructions because it didnt run your main video card. Today BIOS have a recovery system, sometimes is in the boot block or sometimes it has an embedded backup BIOS as it is the case for some new gigabyte boards. Some of them even have a Quad Backup BIOS system. When I talk to American Megatrend they told me to use AMIBOOT.ROM file renaming the C90S0601.ROM file without any booting disckette or USB (just need to have a valid DOS media) but they also told that usually manufacturer changed their recovery system as ASUS did. The worst case escenary would be if your chip got fry, in that case indeed you have to change the chip (soldered chips are really painful)

 

sorry, didn't read the 1st post carefully enough.

Good to know there are backup BIOS rewrite solutions for those of us who kill our BIOS-es. Might have helped people with the bad V1J BIOS update for the V1Jp, in the past... (supposing all the newer motherboards have this feature)

 

Good to hear you're back up and running RGS.

 

Is the V1jp that old? Crash Bios Recovery have been implemented since 2005 by the major brands such AMI, Awards, etc. They only differ by the PC/Notebook maker because they adjust that by their own requirements plus some mobo makers add an extra chip for recovery. ANyway, BAD Flash could happen to anyone so this was the main reason I made this thread (at least for the C90S)

 

I have one on my Asus K8N4-E and I think my P4P800 has one too.

It's a good thing for you it worked

 

No, the V1Jp is from late last year I believe. I just didn't know about this crash BIOS recovery feature and how to use it, and neither did the two or three V1Jp users that managed to kill their BIOS due to a bad update from the ASUS Live Server, some time ago.

 

Sorry to bring this post back up but I just bricked my C90S with Asus stupid flash utility! The flash went perfectly fine and it completed and told me to reboot. When I rebooted the screen is completely black! All the power lights are on and the CD drive spins up but I can't see anything!

Is it possible to use a USB harddrive to recover the bios? Also what do you mean by dos media? Is it as simple as copying the renamed bios onto a pen drive and plugging it in? I don't need to format the usb drive or add any extra files?

Thanks!

 

Also does anyone know where the bios reset switch or battery is??

 

follow the directions in the OP. Its called doing a blind flash.

 

You need a flash drive that has been formatted correctly. Hp has a tool out that does it. Beyond that, follow the directions on the first page

 

I can't get this to work. My C90S has power to all the USB ports and CD-ROM drive but when I plug my usb flash drive in it blinks once and doesn't do anything when I press Alt+F2.

Does the flash drive need to be formatted a specific way?

Thanks again.

 

the usb ports work fine on a dead brick ASUS bios laptop but to recognising you hd usb under boot it would be more difficult. The instructions I wrote here were given by ASUS tech it self in their own way so I put them nicely in baby steps. In my experience worked fine with an usb pen drive. Form other experiences, it did work fine on CD. ABout using USB HD, it is the first time I got a request about that case. I suggest to get a CD with the bios in the format I explainned above or an empty pen with the bios file. Either way, it will work fine and you will recover your laptop...about the formatting, it just need to have a FAT32 partition,in few word no hidden or secure partition system

 

Hey RGS,

Thanks for the response! I went out this morning and bought a 2GB usb flash drive and threw the C90S bios file on it. When I boot my computer up and press ALT+F2 the usb drive does nothing, it does light up when the computer boots though.

I think either I formatted the drive wrong or I'm pressing Alt+F2 at the wrong time. Any ideas?

 

I used HP's "USB DISK STORAGE UTILITY" to format the drive with a FAT32 partition and told it to create a dos startup disk the MS-DOS system files. Does that sound correct?

 

you dont need a boot system, just a valid media. DOnt create a DOS starup system. Just do the format WITHOUT the boot system. BTW, if your USB has a valid media, you dont need to format the USB drive.
\
BTW, I get some amount of emails about this bad flash trouble. I guess a lot of people at some point get a bad flash but many just dont like to ask about that here. I think this thread should be an sticky somewhere but again I wrote this one so dont get my word for granted

 

Sorry to sound stupid RGS, but what do you mean by a valid media? I'm using Cruzer Micro USB flash drive. I'll reformat again as you suggested. Thanks a bunch for the assistance!

 

it is not problem to assist you cause I ve been there and no one could help me then so I was out of my laptop for almost a week until ASUS tech go back to me. Any readable device, in my case was a pen. BTW, you dont need to format your usb pen if you can read it on any other computer. If it is readable, just put the FILE in there and follow the first post instructions and you will be fine

 

Still nothing : / I reformated the usb flash drive as a FAT32 partition and made sure not to select another other options. I then downloaded the C90S bios file and named it "C90S.BIN" and placed it in the root of the flash drive.

Popped it in my C90S and power it up. The USB flash drive lights up once and then doesnt do anything even when I press Alt+F2. I'm really stumped at this point. Does anyone happen to know where the CMOS battery is located? Maybe I could try removing that.

 

I found the CMOS batter... It was right in front of me next to the notebook battery lol. I unplugged it and maybe it will help.

EDIT: Nope : /

 

Hi.

I found a nice simple page with info for recovering after a bad flash, print it out and keep it with your manual.

even make a recover disk, just in case.

http://www.biosman.com/biosrecovery.html

regards

John.

 

RGS,

Got your PM and I am following it to a T right now : )

Tinderbox,

Great site! Thanks for the info!

One more stupid question... Does the C90S use an AMI bios or an Award bios? I thought it used AMI but I need to be sure before something else goes wrong lol.

 

it is AMI and Biosman couldnt help me. AMI tech support was the one that told me that for laptops, each carrier adapt their BIOS recoveries to their own spec or style I ve been in all major sites about BIOS recovery back then. I learn a great deal though about Phoenix & AMI recovery because back then I didnt know what BIOS brand had the c90s (didnt pay attention to startups )

 

btw, here is a good page to find your BIOS Brand for people that just want to find out without restarting their cpu

http://scan.esupport.com/?r=36&CFID=2966211&CFTOKEN=46800373

 

UPDATE:

I tried everything I could with a CD, USB flash drive, and even a USB floppy drive and still had no luck : / I RMA'd it with Asus and luckily bios updates ARE covered under warranty!

In the RMA notes it says they replaced the motherboard with an F06 revision. However, when I cracked open the ACE door it looked exactly like my old board and it was still an F09 revision. Vista hasn't bugged me to reactivate my copy of Windows yet like it did last time I had to have the motherboard replaced either.

I think they have a sneaky bios recovery method that no matter what they wouldn't tell me. Anyway, all is fixed as far as I can tell.

RGS, thanks again for all the help! + major rep!

EDIT:

"Windows was deactivated due to a hardware change" Looks like they did in fact change the board.

 

Thank you m8 and sorry you couldnt find any help here. ABout the board, bios is on the surface soldered. Sometimes they dont change anything but take the bios and recover it by hardware. Anyway, Im glad you solved our problem

 

Yeah it feels really good to have my notebook back again! I won't be flashing my bios in Windows again.

As a last ditch effort before RMAing I ripped my mother board out in hopes that the bios chip would use a socket like many others, but as you said it is indeed soldered.

 

Hi question does this ALT+F2 procedure work for all asus laptops. Cause I have an m50vm and was going to flash it's bios with a modded bios. But saying something goes wrong with flashing.
I can still flash it's bios pressing ALT+F2 ? can someone help me out on this.

 

No, this procedure is NOT guaranteed to work with any ASUS notebook. I would recommend against using modded BIOSes unless you are extremely sure of what you are doing.