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21973
bios upgrade failure
upgrade 220 with E7300/2.66 GHz vostro mb, running XP, amibios dg65 0376 chip
during loading computer hung/locked up. forced machine to turn off.
Now: boot to what looked like low resolution screen log in but no mouse or keyboard response, the had to power down. Then no booting, or safe boot half way, then nothing, sometime keyboard and mouse dead to log in..
Remove cord and back up battery for 1 hour. Then has sum check error. BIOS is 1.3.0 the updated one is on the screen. Made a bunch of beeps (not sure the number of beeps).
How to fix? Load back old BIOS by USP but how?
osprey4
4 Operator
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December 9th, 2010 06:00
Hi Dave2001ads,
What's the model? Are you still under warranty?
And what hardware exactly did you upgrade? Did you try to update the BIOS before, during or after the hardware upgrade? It's kind of hard to tell from your message.
dave2001ads
6 Posts
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December 11th, 2010 13:00
Hi, I couldn't log in for several computers.
The model is a Vostro 220 desktop with processor listed but don't have the model of the MB. It was with a Vista downgraded to XP sp3.
I ran the PC tools regrister fixing a few day before upgrading the the Dell bios version 1.3.0. I don't remember upgrading the bios before 2 days ago, but Dell may have during a repair session. How much time should a bios upgrading take?
I tried a USB drive boot up with win 98 OS and it would execute the bios 1.3.0 using the xxx.exe for the bios programs from the dell driver site and tried a lower grade that would over write the pen drive but not the amibios upon reboot up. Any fixes?
How to reprogram the bios on the MB from the flash drive. The machine is one year out of waranty.
shesagordie
10 Elder
10 Elder
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December 11th, 2010 16:00
Dave2001ads
Remove the CMOS battery on the motherboard, wait 20+- minutes, replace it and see if the PC starts.
If this does not fix the problem, then the solution is to replace the motherboard.
Bev.
dave2001ads
6 Posts
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December 14th, 2010 21:00
Thanks Bev for the suggestion.
Done helps but still a problem. CD doesn't work. Loaded bios by USB stick but doesn't save to MB nor allow reading of HD. Will try to copy HD to another computer and then try to reload system files without loss work files and programs in HD. Will have info on other computer if erases all.
Anybody know how to load bios from USB stick?
rdunnill
6 Professor
6 Professor
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December 14th, 2010 22:00
The USB stick has to be formatted for booting. Boot using the stick, and then from the command prompt run the BIOS updater. Not all USB sticks seem to be compatible; with my 220s a newer one was not but an older one was and the BIOS update succeeded.
dave2001ads
6 Posts
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December 15th, 2010 21:00
Hi rdunnill, The 1G USB stick seems to boot in win98 but I can get the computer to read the HD. I bought a HD SATA to USB connector and will try to down load my files. I afraid that the problems are growing. Yesterday the Dell gave a RAM memory error that was fixed by removing the ROM and reinserting the memory. But only fixed the ROM issue. Is the bios .exe verision 1.0.4 to over write the 1.3.0 on the MB? It looks like the only over write the files on the USB stick.
dave2001ads
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December 18th, 2010 16:00
It seems like I was unable to down grade the bios. It would not allow it. I copied most of the personal files except some of the most critial would not allow me access. Place HD back into the computer and was able to do a window recovery after 6 attempts. All seems to work on the computer now. One very bad thing on reloading is that the mouse and keyboard stopped working and password could not be entered. One time mouse worked and went to an limited account that did not require a PW.
dave2001ads
6 Posts
1
December 18th, 2010 17:00
Bios is okay but HD is corupt. Need to repair XP, but keyboard and mouse issues during repair. lucky to have one mouse click that worked. Then keyboard and mouse usage were repaired upon restart.
titaniumplate
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March 8th, 2012 10:00
I just did as rdunnill suggested and used an older USB stick for the process. I started off using newer 4GB stick and it did not work. I found an old 128 MB stick and while it ran much slower, it worked no problem at all.
Hope that helps.
speedstep
8 Wizard
8 Wizard
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47K Posts
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March 9th, 2012 12:00
Some Bios wont boot FAT32 but will boot FAT16 just fine. That means 2 Gig or smaller USB Flash drive.