IFL90 BIOS problem

Hi there.

ill try to expose my problem the best way i can.

Okay, so one day, there i was, doing my usual stuff, and rebooted the laptop, and tried to acess BIOS, and to a shocking surprise, cant use the keyboard inside the BIOS...

a few days before (and I know im gonna be "crucified" for this) I opened the laptop for a usual cleaning, and decide to open a bit more to inspect the rest of the machine and try to replace the graphics card thermal paste (unsuccessfully), and the next time I boot up, Touchpad doesnt work anymore (stupid me). Tried to fix the problem, by checking the connections, but couldnt see anything wrong.

Now, again with the BIOS: ok, so the touchpad thing is a bit annoying, but nothing too big, but as I was selecting the Start windows normally (had shut it down with power button before, instead of normal shut down), couldnt use the keyboard... very wierd.

Rebooted, acessed the BIOS to see if anything was wrong, but again, when inside BIOS, nothing works... only solution is power off.

Inside Windows, keyboard works normally, no problems at all (except the touchpad thingy).

Tryed to do a CMOS clear, and everything I could remember, but nothing...

I've applied some Artic Silver Ceramique on the chips, because the other paste was stone dry, and i might have applied a bit too much, just a bit.

So, long story short, I can acess BIOS and the Boot Device Selection, but cant move in it. And i cant use a PS/2 keyboard to try again, because i dont have an adapter.

BIOS version is 1.13 (dont remember flashing the BIOS to that version, used to have the 1.06).


Any help would be nice, because I wanted to format the computer back to vista (on 7 right now), but since i cant change the boot device, cant format through CD. And if anyone knows how to re-activate the touchpad would be nice too, it would help to sell the laptop


Ty in advance

Cheers

 

btw, for some reason USB ports dont provide the same energy as they used to... my external HDD used to work fine with just the normal file transfer cable, giving out 30mb/s easily, but now, without the extra power cable, it just gives around 5mb/s, floating to 500kb/s...

 

Have you tried an external keyboard? I know it means more money but it's worth a shot.

For your USB ports, does the hard drive have trouble spinning up? That's the most power-intensive thing on a hard drive. Trouble would involve clicking or something similar.

 

nope, havent tried the ext. keyboard.

usually, it doesnt have a problem, but in some positions, with a normal 1-way USB cable, it does start clicking or just spins up for a bit, then its almost stops and does the same thing over and over again, till I mess with it and place it in the right position.

 

The latest bios is 1.18, The 1.13 is quite old... Try using that: http://www.compal.com/Download/NB/JFL92_JFT02/BIOS/JFL92118.zip

 

I did try to flash it, but I as said I cant work inside the BIOS... tried using a USB bootable, but no dice... tried selecting it through the advanced boot device selection, but keyboard still doesnt work...

my next step is going to be to try to flash the BIOS through windows using Phoenix Winplhash Utility, still using the USB bootable, but it might take a while...

and how did you get that link??? i cant acess the drivers from Compal, the website is having troubles, probably due to discontinued support...

 

Power is not going to affect the drive's transfer speeds. Either it provides enough power, or it doesn't.

 

If you go that way I'd suggest you go buy a usb floppy drive as the odds of hosing your laptop completely while flashing in windows are pretty high....

 

well, thanks for all your comments and help, but i finnaly figured out what happend.

had a little time off, and decided to open my laptop, and apply some pressure on the connection cables.

problem solve. I know have full BIOS access and the touchpad is back online.


thank you all.

 

Good to hear--I guess just be a little more careful of connections next time you tinker