Help: my N61JQ does not boot after BIOS upgrade!

My Asus N61JQ-A1 was running ok except for it getting way too hot even though it is in Battery Save node... On a few occasions it suddenly shut down when it got really hot.

After reading some posts suggesting that a newer BIOS may help alleviate this issue, I went to the Asus site and found that BIOS 212 is the latest. I downloaded it and flashed it with EasyFlash according to these instructions

Everything seemed to go well but after it finished it tried to reboot and the screen would not show anything, the fan ran very high, and the caps lock light was on. There was nothing I could do on the keyboard. After a few minutes, I forced power off by holding the power button down. After that, when I now try to turn the laptop on it shuts down after a few seconds.

I called Asus support. The guy who answered had no idea and seemed to be reading from a script telling me that the BIOS I flashed was probably incompatible with my model! It did not seem to matter telling him that the BIOS 212 I downloaded had my specific laptop model name! His advice was to ship it to them... or to take to any local technician in my city (Vancouver). When I asked him if taking it to someone other than Asus would void the warranty, he said Yes!

Is there a way I can restore the old BIOS. e.g. download it on a memory stick and "somehow" be able to force flash the laptop? I assume that is what Asus would do if I send them the laptop which I prefer not to do.

My extreme alternative is to buy another laptop (something that I was planning anyway, the Asus G74SX). Can I easily move the hard disk to the new computer or copy my data from it?

Thanks for your advice!

 

Unfortunately you will have to send it back to Asus. You can restore BIOS or download it to a memory stick and force restore only if the laptop is still functional and you can see what's on the screen and you can control the laptop.

But if the laptop is functional and you can see and control the laptop then you don't even need to do the BIOS restore.


Remove hard drive on N61 series is just as easy as G74SX:

 

of course you can restore BIOS even in this situation. gentech lase don mislead people or depress them if you dont know smth.

It is called blind flash or recovery flash.

At first you need a FAT 2GB or 1GB flash drive. sometimes needs to be fat32.
I may just assume what type of bios did you have. do you remember smth written in bios like phoenix or ami or else name?
you need to put it in computer and then prss power button and the specificbutton...

 

Thank you Ken and James for your replies.
Ken: do you know if Asus would accept if I ship the laptop without the hard disk?

James: I do not recall if the Bios was Phoenix or AMI, but I am intrigued by your suggestion. Can you provide more details (or a link) on how to try this?

 

Hi everyone,

I've read hints here and there that it is somehow possible to "blind flash" a non-bootable laptop whose BIOS is not working.

My N61JQ laptop does not boot following a successfully run EasyFlash from BIOS 206 to 212.

If you have successfully done this before, please share your know how. I do not have a USB floppy at hand so the technique has to use a USB memory stick.

Much appreciate any and all help!

 

A blindflash is not always possible, only if the bootblock of your BIOS has not been corrupted and allows booting from removable media.

Some examples of BIOS recovery can be found here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/174395-bios-update-guide-asus-notebooks.html#post2519525

James D, you should not make Shogun50 optimistic. BIOS recovery is not usually successful. In fact some of the only known methods for recovery on ASUS notebooks have been posted here by Ken @ GenTech, so I am sure he knows what he is talking about with this model.

 

>> A blindflash is not always possible, only if the bootblock of your BIOS has not been corrupted and allows booting from removable media. <<

Thanks ALLurGroceries, that makes sense!

I spoke again with Asus today to do an RMA, and the guy kept telling me that this was my fault for installing the latest BIOS "for no good reason"! He turned a deaf ear to me describing how hot the laptop gets and that it would suddenly shutdown, not to mention that my bios was (version 206) 6 updates behind! I stood my ground and got the RMA but I am now having second thoughts about buying another Asus!

 

Then he forgot about it because Ken has written that it is impossible to restore any notebook if it is not functional. at least I have such feeling.

I remeber that asus owner had to take away battery. unplug laptop. hold power button for at least 5 seconds. put a flashdrive with written bios there with specific name. then hold Home button or else like fn home or alt home or alt esc or fn esc etc and holding that special button press power button. hold pecial button till you see how led of flash drive starts blinking very seriously. wait for couple minutes or more and here you go.

speial name you can find using hex editor. open hex editor and open bios file with it.search string value for .rom. if there will be nothing then use special tool to find recovery names of bios. I dont remember that tool. will tell you when will be at home.

Ask here and here

That tool must be here

 

Blind flash only works if it's just the incorrect vBIOS in the system BIOS, the system still bootable and it was just MB BIOS trying to look for a different video card:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/348865-v1j-failed-bios-flash-screen-will-not-come.html


Your issue is completely different, not even able to perform blind flash.


Yes you can ship back to Asus without hard drive.

 

Thanks Ken. Are there known problems with the heat sink on the N61JQ? Should I be asking Asus something specific about fixing the heat issue?

 

Sorry Ken but you are wrong. All we need to recover BIOS is just not corrupted boot block and present revery way in boot block. some manufacturers dont leave any way for recovery like sony but I know for sure that Asus laptops were recovered.

 

It's probably not the heatsink problem, it's the thermal paste. you can try apply IC Diamond on both CPU/GPU.