Locating the BIOS chip on a Vostro 3700

Hello everybody,
I flashed my Vostro 3700 with 3700A12.exe from DELL under Windows 10. The screen went black and the fan was at highspeed.

After I disconnected the power supply, it didn't boot up anymore. The fan starts, the LEDs are flashing from left to right and back, and after a few seconds it keeps restarting. The display is all black.

I tried to recover the BIOS using the End key and tried many prepared USB sticks. No luck. The USB sticks aren't accessed at all, all USB sticks' LEDs keep dark.


Does the Vostro 3700 have an AMI BIOS? The Phoenix WinCrisis wouldn't help here, right?

Where is the BIOS chip located? Can I see it when I remove the back panel? Because I found a chip labeled MX25L3205D (motherboard label U6202). I would like to try to solder a new BIOS chip.

 

The 32Mbit / 4Mbyte size of that chip does indeed make it the 'prime suspect' for being the BIOS.

That being said, you'll need a (working) "dump" of a good Vostro 3700 BIOS to write into the new chip with a dedicated programmer.

Soldering in a new, blank chip won't help you with anything, i would think.

First thing i'd try would be to flash a known-working dump into the current chip, before replacing the chip itself. You'll likely also need to know the mainboard model (in case there have been several variants used in that laptop; the BIOSes may not be inter-compatible between them).

 

Thanks for your reply KhronX.

I forgot to mention that the chip will come pre-programmed. The cost for a new programmed chip is lesser than buying the tools to reprogram the chip.


Regarding the specific BIOS chip type I found following at https://schematic.eletronicabr.com.br/index.php?action=dldir;sa=details;lid=11938 :

As far as I understand, the chip at U6203 would be too small to fit the BIOS, right?

 

U6203 contains the firmware for the "Embedded Controller" (EC). The BIOS update you applied may or may not have contained updates for that too, you'd have to check the release notes / change-log.

 

As far as i can see, its always better to go with a preprogrammed chip, but they dont always work, i do recommed getting a raspberyy pi or a eeprom programmer!! And program the chip yourself!!
I did the same thing with my msi gt83vr 7re
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/gt83-bios-bricked.811924/

 

The BIOS Version A12 changelog says:

The "BIOS bypass function" sounds cryptic to me. Could someone elaborate on this? As far as I can remember there was an option to bypass the bootup password when the system was warmbooted.