Be careful if you brick Sony laptop because of BIOS.

Hi. I have bricked Sony vAIo F. I just want to tell you guys that it is a big pain in the deep hole if you bricked its BIOS and have no warranty left.

I guess there is almost impossible to recover BIOS using usb flash drive. I tried everything including CD drive. I found the recovery name using HEX editor but still...

Also it is hard to recover using flash programmer. Yesterday I went to a guy from Service Center and just using rom file to flash it is not the way! Besides at first you need to get that rom file from packager. I already don't remember how I did it before. Smth like using strange software I found some name, then googled that name and found another exe file with this name on Sony Europe site. Than using 7zip I got that file.

Also that 4MB flash on the motherbpard is soOOOOO slow!!! that it takes for ever until it writes or reads. Multiple it on 2 because of data verification.

Also it was easy seen that dump file we got from flash is different from BIOS rom file I have. I will try to modify that 4MB file. Maybe it will help. i HOPE SO!

I will update info if I have success with it or I need another same laptop in my bag to recover BIOS.

So be carefull guys. it will take 15 minutes to take a chip and melt it back. 5 minutes to take away and screw the laptop's cover back. But it takes ages to understand that software tricks of Sony. Arghhh...

 

Is it a VPC-F11?

 

I have VPCF-12 but all new models (at least 1.5 years old) look to have troubles with recovery.

P.S. Nice processor you have. How does it perform? Do you know how far it is loaded when gaming?

 

Just checked the official BIOS upgrade files from sony for your machine. There is no 'soft recovery' implemented (sony does that BS recently for almost all series). So you need to program the flash on the hard way. I2C flashing should be not that much of a trouble at all. Perhaps some other user can dump its F12 for you so you get a good image to make your laptop work again.

 

That would be super if someone really gave me that image but I am 99.99999% sure that no one will. People who is close to things like this do not buy Sony exactly because of that BS Sony likes to do. Only Apple is more experienced in this... because Sony at least doesn't melt CPUs to motherboard.

We tried yesterday to hard flash it but it doesn't work without a proper image.

 

^^ wait unti you see the smaller vaios


Of course, Insyde H20 BIOS/UEFI (if your comp has this) have a hard, dead recovery mode, just I really don't remember how to activate it. One of the SA/SB/SC BIOS issue threads had the solution.

 

You might want to try posting to some of the more techie-type forums, like anandtech.com, others whose names escape me. Just posting the request in a lot of places betters your chances that someone with an F12 will help you out. Good luck.

 

anandtech is more techy? Well..... Anyway I can't register there. Because they afraid of spamgosts. I mean that my email address is banned while when I contact administrator they like to put their head in a sand. Only GSKILL forum let me register (even registered me themselves)

I am 100% that I won't get it because even was on... forgot its name

 

Pyr0 here is quite techy and has already torn apart your bios file to let you know that there is no recovery method short of a physical flash.

 

well I actually searched "recovery" using WinHex and found many recalls about it inside BIOS file however who knows. All I know that I really couldn't do it.
Tomorrow will update info.

 

so, the goal is to get the image from an F12 BIOS from an owner

So, spread the request around...

Of course there is not better source of advice than Pyro, so best to follow his idea: get a BIOS image from another F12 owner

If you want to get on these, you can use a new email address and, if you are still using the same ISP at the same location, perhaps log on via a proxy server. You might even want to start a new thread here as well with a title like: "Help! Desperately need help from a Sony F12 (must be F12) Owner! Good luck.

 

Can't help the OP but I will comment that I bricked my SA just by changing a Bios option. It's back at Sony for repair.

Pretty poor show that there is no recovery.

 

did you try to unplug BIOS battery, battery and AC, hold power button for 10 seconds and then power it back? it resets CMOS, and brings back to default settings.

 

This method was pretty reliable for old computers/laptops but the current models e.g. the Z save the BIOS values into the flash rom. And this is a non-volatile memory.

 

Man, Sony sucks big time on this part. You are lucky to have someone who can do I2C flashing cause I have no idea how to do it. If I were you I would buy one of those chips of ebay and solder it on my mb.

 

you will buy totally clean chip using its part number. I can't find any f12 chip on ebay. Any vaio bios chip for any F model at all.

@pyro. I just know that battery exists so it must be there for some reason. Most likely temporary settings are on volatile memory while default and fail-safe settings are on non-volatile

 

If you watch the bottom right corner on your desktop, you will find the reason for the battery. That's why it is called RTC battery.

 

so you say that most likely if I repair laptop, put correctly modified unlocked BIOS where I can change settings when I go to bios and if I change smth wrong then simple unplugging battery won't help me?

P.S. I don't have desktop.

 

Prove me wrong, but yes, that's what I'm saying.

 

ok, so here is update.
I have just got that dump file. As i see Sony put 4MB chip on motherboard. And also there are 2 rom files in BIOS packager. 1 is main 2MB one and another one is 128KB one. forgot its type.
But anyway first half of chip is for that 128 KB while main BIOS starts from mark 200000 in Hexeditor. I expected this and am happy that I am correct.

So now I put all original 2MB bios on the 2-nd half of chip. i checked that beginning and last hex data was the same as on my original BIOS so it should fit. I am 99% sure. If it doesn't work I will check it and maybe will edit only bios's block of settings instead of all 2 MB.

If laptop will be fixed then I will give correct bios dump to all comunity.

 

Highly doubtful that a simple BIOS option change would brick the machine. Was this done via the BIOS interface, or were you tweaking the BIOS?

Gary

 

I guess BIOS setup interface that was hacked (advanced menu hack). These hacked BIOSes often reveal unsupported or unimplemented functions thus changing the wrong item may render the machine unbootable (e.g. enabling RAID mode on a laptop that does not have a RAID option rom).

 

My suspicion as well. Its bad enough the rep Sony gets with the way they crippled our BIOS options, without someone attributing a bricked machine to a simple BIOS change putting the Sony rep further in the dumper.

Me thinks some one was playing with the BIOS.

Gary

 

It would be interesting to know what really happened because I would like to know how to unlock advanced menu options. For some reason even if you set all directory tree to USER you still do not get access to hied menus like Advanced #2 and Chipset. You can unlock only optoins which are in unlocked menus like Boot etc.

 

Is it possible that laptop doesn't boot if keyboard is not connected? Guy said that he wrote that dump but still nothing. But i know that he checked it without connected lapop.

 

Dunno for a F, but a Z does not work without keyboard since you cannot even turn it on (power button is connected to the laptop through the keyboard assembly).

 

laptop has same symptoms now what I saw when pulled all RAM from it. It turns on and in 10 seconds starts to blow fan like crazy. That is why I just assume that smth is not connected. Looks like now it is not just BIOS problem because I believe I sent proper dump.

 

Well this "Tomorrow" lasted longer than I expected

BUT I HAVE RECOVERED IT. I did it last week or so. As you see it took 9 months to find a good guy who agreed to help me with I2C flashing (soldering and desoldering BIOS chip and program it). Previous ____er just told me the same thing for months "yeah man, I will help you. Just call me tomorrow".

If you want to know how did it happened you can read this post http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...s-owners-thread-part-6-a-265.html#post8821954

If you want to know how to create proper BIOS image ask me or read this post http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...s-owners-thread-part-6-a-264.html#post8819332
You will need bios backup or (even better) bios dump file from the chip.
Will create How To thread later.

 

Nice to hear man.
Congrats
Alot of work to get a laptop working again.