The same exact bios nightmare happened to me last night. Everything went to according to plan until the reboot after the bios flash. Now I have no video, no hard drive activity, only thing I do have is a power light and a split second hard drive activity indicator flash as the system is first being powered on.
After contacting Dell about this issue they have informed me I need a new mainboard. Excellent since absolutely everything with the flash process went smooth and according to the flash program itself, correctly.
I'll be contacting Dell via phone tomorrow to talk to a rep. I strongly feel the bios file that I've gotten from Dell was corrupt and is the one at fault here. The flashing of the bios went without a glitch.
I have contacted another company that claims to be able to replace the bios chip and flash the new chip with the latest bios. I'm currently waiting for a call back. I'll let you know what I find out from Dell and the other company.
If Dell had put removable bios chips on thier boards this would be a fairly simple fix. Order a new chip and replace the old or remove the old and flash it with an external unit.
Good luck to you, let me know if you find out anything.
you are right bronze. I also have exactly the same activity of power light and the hard dick access for a second, fan and CD ROM if there is a CD, but nothing else.
by now i dont know if there is any solution at all. i have retrived my data from the hard disk though. let me know if you get any ideas.
do you dell service pack?
Whooot I have found a fix for my problem, hope it helps you as well.
In my case It was the memory that stopped my system from posting. I had to install the original memory back into the machine and once I done that the system booted no problem. I then went on to flash the bios to A31 and now my two 512 memory modules work flawless.
good news. congrats.
but unfortunately It did not work in my case. I had tried to do several combinations of memory but for no gain. May be there is real bios problem in my case. Dont know yet. I will give it some more time later.
Same exact problem as original guy. I called Dell and spent one and a half hours on the phone trying to resolve the problem. Half way through the Dell guy told me that since my computer was no longer under warrenty he couldn't help me. I sternly replied that it was their flawed BIOS update that up messed up my computer in the first place. Oh by the way, eight other people (on this specific forum) reported the same problem. I had to take him through all of the Dell web pages that talked about the upgrades (A22 first, then A32) and this page. Finally he told me that I was "approved" and to call an 800 number. A carrier would come pick up my computer, take it to depot and fix the problem.
Good News! I fixed it myself without having to go through the pain of sending my computer to Dell for an undisclosed amount of time (my best estimate = 2 years). I reinstalled my original RAM chip, fired my computer up, quickly removed the CD and it booted just fine. I then ran the A32 update which worked without a hitch. I then turned my computer off, reinstalled the new RAM chip again, and everything is working fine.
If that solution doesn't work for you call Dell @ 800 624-9896. Demand that they fix your computer and show them this web page if necessary."
If you have to send your computer in make sure
you get a signature from the delivery driver! I was not at home when they picked up a mother board from me. I paid them for a new one and returned one they sent me by mistake and now they are trying to charge me for two mother boards.
I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER DELL AGAIN! I agree....Sony looks like a better bet :smileymad:
After reading the previous post of opidus, i realize that probably taking out CD might not be important. putting the original RAM was the key. anyways its good it works now. I am surprized there are so many cases like this and DELL has NO IDEA of this kind of problems to help out their customers. atleast dell should write something like this in their BIOS update instructions files...
Hey rkrietsch,
thanks a lot man. I did the same thing that you wrote. I installed the old RAM. powered on the laptop and quickly removed the CD. and IT WORKED perfectly. I am really excited about it. Thank very much once again for your post. by the way, how did you come up with something like this?
well, i am going to put $20 for the breast cancer research for getting my laptop back.
The very same problem happened to me last night. This is the full story:
My wife's laptop was acting strange, especially when getting in and out of Standby mode. BIOS update looked just just as the right fix.
Two months ago I upgraded memory in that machine to 2x512 333MHz chips.
After update of the BIOS to A22 version the same problem occured. Machine is dead and gives no error codes.
Lucky me to find this forum :)
I had my old memory chips, which I used to boot up the machine and run another BIOS update to A32. The chip that worked for me was:
256 MB DDR 266MHz CL2.5 this is PC2100S-25330 chip.
Before reading this form I also called Dell and they also suggested that I'll buy new board for my Inspiron. So, before you go ahead and spend the money, first try to find (buy) one of these old memory chips. Maybe this will work.
I have two Inspirons 5100 and 8200. Knock on wood, other than the BIOS problem, there were no other issues with these two machines. I think that the DELL support team is incompetent and incapable of solving problems outside of the give to them instructions.
Obidus
4 Posts
0
September 10th, 2006 15:00
The same exact bios nightmare happened to me last night. Everything went to according to plan until the reboot after the bios flash. Now I have no video, no hard drive activity, only thing I do have is a power light and a split second hard drive activity indicator flash as the system is first being powered on.
After contacting Dell about this issue they have informed me I need a new mainboard. Excellent since absolutely everything with the flash process went smooth and according to the flash program itself, correctly.
This is really frustrating!
hanskg
6 Posts
0
September 10th, 2006 20:00
Obidus
4 Posts
0
September 10th, 2006 20:00
hanskg
6 Posts
0
September 10th, 2006 20:00
by now i dont know if there is any solution at all. i have retrived my data from the hard disk though. let me know if you get any ideas.
do you dell service pack?
thanks
Hans
Obidus
4 Posts
0
September 13th, 2006 21:00
Whooot I have found a fix for my problem, hope it helps you as well.
In my case It was the memory that stopped my system from posting. I had to install the original memory back into the machine and once I done that the system booted no problem. I then went on to flash the bios to A31 and now my two 512 memory modules work flawless.
try different combinations of your memory.
goodluck
hanskg
6 Posts
0
September 13th, 2006 22:00
but unfortunately It did not work in my case. I had tried to do several combinations of memory but for no gain. May be there is real bios problem in my case. Dont know yet. I will give it some more time later.
take care.
Obidus
4 Posts
0
September 14th, 2006 00:00
rkrietsch
1 Message
0
September 22nd, 2006 23:00
Same exact problem as original guy. I called Dell and spent one and a half hours on the phone trying to resolve the problem. Half way through the Dell guy told me that since my computer was no longer under warrenty he couldn't help me. I sternly replied that it was their flawed BIOS update that up messed up my computer in the first place. Oh by the way, eight other people (on this specific forum) reported the same problem. I had to take him through all of the Dell web pages that talked about the upgrades (A22 first, then A32) and this page. Finally he told me that I was "approved" and to call an 800 number. A carrier would come pick up my computer, take it to depot and fix the problem.
Good News! I fixed it myself without having to go through the pain of sending my computer to Dell for an undisclosed amount of time (my best estimate = 2 years). I reinstalled my original RAM chip, fired my computer up, quickly removed the CD and it booted just fine. I then ran the A32 update which worked without a hitch. I then turned my computer off, reinstalled the new RAM chip again, and everything is working fine.
bertman99
5 Posts
0
September 25th, 2006 01:00
hanskg
6 Posts
0
October 5th, 2006 22:00
hanskg
6 Posts
0
October 5th, 2006 22:00
thanks a lot man. I did the same thing that you wrote. I installed the old RAM. powered on the laptop and quickly removed the CD. and IT WORKED perfectly. I am really excited about it. Thank very much once again for your post. by the way, how did you come up with something like this?
well, i am going to put $20 for the breast cancer research for getting my laptop back.
_piotr_
1 Message
0
October 30th, 2006 19:00
My wife's laptop was acting strange, especially when getting in and out of Standby mode. BIOS update looked just just as the right fix.
Two months ago I upgraded memory in that machine to 2x512 333MHz chips.
After update of the BIOS to A22 version the same problem occured. Machine is dead and gives no error codes.
Lucky me to find this forum :)
I had my old memory chips, which I used to boot up the machine and run another BIOS update to A32. The chip that worked for me was:
256 MB DDR 266MHz CL2.5 this is PC2100S-25330 chip.
Before reading this form I also called Dell and they also suggested that I'll buy new board for my Inspiron. So, before you go ahead and spend the money, first try to find (buy) one of these old memory chips. Maybe this will work.
I have two Inspirons 5100 and 8200. Knock on wood, other than the BIOS problem, there were no other issues with these two machines. I think that the DELL support team is incompetent and incapable of solving problems outside of the give to them instructions.
jondee1
1 Message
0
December 1st, 2012 04:00
time and date 7:46am 12/1/2012
wow! thank you rkrietsch !
i recently purchased the dell 5100 in an ebay auction and it was currently running ubuntu.
and so i wanted to put vista on it but i was unable to get it to boot to the dvd drive and so i knew i would have to
setup the bios boot order but was unable to access bios. so i like many have done before me, i burned the iso to cd and tried to
flash to A22 but the cd wouldnt even load! arrrrrrrrrh!! so did exactly as you described and boom! it flashed to A22!
thank you!