HELP!! Laptop screen blank after BIOS update!

[London Geezer]

Well, it just HAD to happen to me!!

Got my Vista upgrade pack from ASUS (make of my laptop) with a nice BIOS update disc too... to be done before installing Vista... Unexpected, i thought they would just send me Vista... Obviously i felt safe so i updated the BIOS as instructed - and for once i really did follow ALL the instructions, but....

... after the BIOS update, and after re-booting, to my surprise, the laptop screen just wouldn't come on. and it still doesn't. I can hear the system booting up fine and enter windows, but the screen is just blank.

I'm usually quite good at fixing things but this time i've been beaten. I can't see anything - not even DOS screens - so there is just nothing i can do. I've tried making boot discs with flash bios updates but it just won't do...

Any ideas before i send the laptop off to be repaired - or i just go down to a shop and pay to do it...?

Thanks guys!
Oh and... Hey guys!

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

Have you tried to use another monitor? There should be a VGA or DVI port for that.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Did you try booting into safe mode? Just hitting F8 like a madman whilst it boots?

 

[London Geezer]

Have you tried to use another monitor? There should be a VGA or DVI port for that.

Yep and it doesn't work...

Did you try booting into safe mode? Just hitting F8 like a madman whilst it boots?

Yep... doesn't work... the screen (and both the DVI and VGA ports) is just off, it probably does go into safe mode but i can't see it cause the screen is off...

Nothing like this ever happened to me, in the centuries i've had computers!! very odd...

 

[Zaphod]

Yep... doesn't work... the screen (and both the DVI and VGA ports) is just off, it probably does go into safe mode but i can't see it cause the screen is off...

Did you try the hotkey for switching LCD/External display (Fn+F8 on most Asus models)?

 

[London Geezer]

Did you try the hotkey for switching LCD/External display (Fn+F8 on most Asus models)?

Yep... nothing happens...

 

[digitalwanderer]

Try any abusive/aggressive language yet? :|

 

[Richteralan]

Seems like a bad flash or incompatible BIOS flashed.

It's time to call CS.

 

[Frank]

Many recent Asus MBs have a BIOS recovery function and utility. You might try to locate and use that.

 

[mito]

Try any abusive/aggressive language yet? :|

LOL!

 

[London Geezer]

Many recent Asus MBs have a BIOS recovery function and utility. You might try to locate and use that.

Finally someone with something useful!! Is it something i can find on the net?

 

[Frank]

Finally someone with something useful!! Is it something i can find on the net?

Yes, you should look on the Asus site, and see what they offer as downloads for your laptop.

If you tell us which one it is, we could help looking.

 

[mito]

Finally someone with something useful!! Is it something i can find on the net?

Who says this will be useful?

 

[SugarCoat]

short of sending it in it sounds like you may be stuck doing a blind flash. If thats the case you'll need a disc with bios that worked or work for sure and the exact commands to hit, then you need to do all this without seeing it.

im pretty sure the bios recovery is exclusive to desktop models but could be wrong.

 

[the maddman]

Try downloading another bios for the laptop, and making a floppy with an autoexec.bat that'll do the flash. Bad news is that it sounds like since this is a laptop, it's a combo motherboard/video bios. It might just be broken beyond repair.

 

[London Geezer]

short of sending it in it sounds like you may be stuck doing a blind flash. If thats the case you'll need a disc with bios that worked or work for sure and the exact commands to hit, then you need to do all this without seeing it.

im pretty sure the bios recovery is exclusive to desktop models but could be wrong.

That's what i was thinking, i'd need to know exactly what buttons to press at exactly the same time... Mmmm... heard that before...


fine i'll send it in...

 

[popman]

I have the same problem.

I have a asus v1jp model. I refreshed the bios to version 305 and then the screen does not work.

london-boy, have you find a solution to fix this problem?
Did you give asus a call?
Let me know if you find something. my email: neo_temp@hotmail.com


Thanks.

 

[popman]

I have got it fixed



Finally, I got it fixed.

Here is the way I took to fix it.
Since the OS is up running, so
1. Tried to remote in to the system.(This is very important).

2. Once you log in to the system, run the winflash.exe or winflash.exe /force to refresh the bios again. /force means that winflash is forced to load the bios image file and refreh the bios. I have to use this switch because the original versin of bios is for v1j, not for v1jp. winflash won't update bios if image files don't match.

3.click the exit button to reboot. machine is back to normal.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Very clever, nice.

 

[London Geezer]

Heh, well i had to send it back to Asus, who repaired it. Changed the motherboard. Got the laptop back, starts turning itself off on its own. Angry. Very angry. Few days later, genius me thinks "Mmmm those idiots didn't plug the bloody CPU fan back properly". So i opened the laptop, the fan was in fact unplugged. Plugged it in. Works.

Installed the right BIOS. Installed Vista.

Love. It. Amazing. Whatever people say, absolutely love it.