Toshiba Satellite A215-S7437 BIOS UPDATE FAILED!

I did a BIOS update to the latest version and somehow it must have failed because now the laptop seems "bricked".

When I turn it on with or without a battery the screen remains blank and never comes on. I can hear the fans humming and the CD Tray can pop out if I press the button, the keyboard keys also seem to work but no display and from what I can see no real computer activity.

I was wondering if there is any chance I can do a BIOS recovery.

I have a USB Floppy Drive that I can use as well as many other tools. Any help is appreciated!

- Cladius

 

Have you tried connecting an external monitor? Also another thing to try is there is a way to reset the bios by shorting out a solder spot on the mainboard to a ground, but I don't have the link with me now. It will be Sat. night or Sun. morning before i can post it.

 

Jernkar: Thank you for the response..

I tried the VGA port on the laptop and it won't work either but the power comes on. It's really strange.

The fans are running and there is heat being emitted from the side of the laptop.

Let me know if you need anything else.

 

Sounds like a Dead chip
Is it under warrenty still?

I Hope you get it fixed

 

So anyone have any ideas? It sucks that the display won't come on... then at least I could fiddle with the recovery flash method.

 

Sounds exactly like what happened to my Sager, except I didn't try to re-flash the BIOS, it just died on its own. Once a laptop can't POST that's the end of any hope of recovering it. I hate to tell you the next part, but there is a new laptop in my sig...

The good news is the rest of your components should be fine, e.g. if you get an enclosure for your hdd you will still have all your data.

 

Yep, I decided to order a replacement motherboard and see where that takes me.

Thank you everyone for the responses! I appreciate it.

 

Did you ever got that laptop to work after the motherboard replacement?

 

I have a P205 that failed the update for the BIOS. The recovery CD method didn't work either. I contacted Toshiba and they wanted to replace the motherboard. Search the web, there are places that recover the BIOS. I used aqstech.com and they charged $100 for the service.

 

A215 Bios problem too,
there´s an updated bios in toshiba´s site, and after installed my laptop get´s a brick, somoane has same experience?

 

I'm just about to run into this nightmare myself. I will never buy another toshiba product again and the last thing I ever wanted to do was send it in to somebody and have a missing laptop, as well as deal with customer service from an international computer company.

I had problems with a family members A215-S7437. For months it had been running very hot and shutting down. So, rather than jump threw hoops I thought I'd try an external cool - here ya go newegg - FLUSH*sound of wasted money down toilet*. Then I updated the drivers for the fan and it kicked on, but did nothing to cool the product. I had two different temp monitor programs that were pushing 88-92 C within a few minutes of windows running. So I FINALLY find out that there are BIOS updates available that MAY help me with this problem - but I didn't find out about any updates through Windows Update or Toshiba's Update manager but through google searches to other forums and finally to a link at toshiba's site which after a little more looking appeared to have BIOS updates for my computer - I still had drivers and BIOS with a date of 2006 as of Feb 20th 2010! (NOTE: This is why I had trouble with the Fan because of trying to find the drivers - not laziness - simply click on the hardware devices and having it search the web for drivers told me 2006 was the last updates my computer ever had)... So, I tried to use the windows "WinPhlash" and then the computer restarted and BIOS loaded up, while still reviewing what the different options were the screen went black and a few seconds later windows loaded up. I thought I would try to run WinPhlash again through toshiba's exe file. This time WinPhlash said I already had the same update and some sort of problem had occurred last time I had tried it through windows. I checked various sources and it still showed the 2006 date, so I decided to make a bootable CD - but not until after a 2:30 am run to the store for disks (was a late night and family didn't have any cd burnable media). I get back and find out I need to burn an ISO file, so of course I had to also download an Image Burning program. So I make it to this point and shut the computer down. I then power up the laptop and it freaking asks for the BIOS password - which I had earlier decided not to enter one and just hit enter as I had seen as an option the first time it showed up but then turned off after a few seconds while I was still reviewing the BIOS options.

AHHHHHHH. You've got to be kidding me! Then, furious, I use another computer to find out what to do next, and I see that apparently I either try to take the thing apart and touch the freaking thing with a soldering iron to a part which I've not found pictures of online showing me the exact location, or send it to Toshiba. I read somewhere that one of the problems with the older versions was that the older versions of BIOS has this problem and makes up a password that I didn't ever set a password to.

Toshiba says on it's website that it will cover the cost of the repair for this BIOS problem until Dec 31st, 2010 (which I gather is under a type of warranty because it was Toshiba's fault in the first place since they had multiple problems with the BIOS loaded on the machines that they put on the shelves). As if this doesn't suck enough, I read an account on Toshiba's forums about an experience one owner is having, and now the certified repair guys he sent it to have decided that they don't want to touch it because they feel they might void the warranty. Lets not forget that this whole time we are with out a computer and have an expensive paperweight.

 

I have the same problem with my A215-S7437. I just called Toshiba and they said they would reset my BIOS password, but thats not the problem.

se7en5269, where did you find on Toshiba's website that they will fix this BIOS problem until December 2010? I need to get this computer fixed.

So far I have tried to the boot-block method with the crisis recovery disk with no luck and I have taken it to a Toshiba certified technician who said the motherboard was bad. But the symptoms show a bad BIOS:

The laptop fan runs when the power cord is plugged in. the charging and battery light flash and the power light comes on in orange. the screen stays off and the computer keeps running for a minute. The cd-rom drive and harddrive do not function.

Thanks,

Abhi

 

If your laptop set a random bios login password then Toshiba will repair it as per this post. This only covers certain models of which yours is included. You find that information at the Toshiba Support Site for your model under Support Bulletins.

Incorrect power-on password prompt -- with older BIOS versions