My M15x Cut off during bios update Please Help!

Hello all and any help would be appreciated. As stated I was updating to bios a09 on my m15x with a cd and midway through flashing the computer shut off. Now the only thing it does is power on and the fans kick in for a brief second with no other activity from the screen or the laptop. I've been reading the thread on blind recovering a bad phoenix bios flash but it doesn't seem to have a specific set of instructions for the m15x like the right buttons to trigger usb booting. Also the cd that was being used to flash is still in there. Any help would be appreciated
Thanks

Keith.

 

Hello gekioh!

Before we go any further, let's rule out any basic issues. When I flashed my M15x to a09, I think I experienced something very similar to this, if not the same exact thing. The first thing I'd do if you haven't done it already is do a complete power drain on the laptop by removing the charger, removing the battery, and holding down the power button for at least 10 seconds. Then reinstall the battery and plug the charger back in and see if the laptop will boot. If the BIOS splash screen appears, immediately enter your BIOS and see if the version now displays as a09.

Also, this is a good thread to refer to if you haven't seen it yet. http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m15x/549258-m15x-bios-a09-discussion-thread.html

Please let us know if this resolves the issue or if you need any more help.

 

Thanks for responding As far as the basics go, I have done a complete power drain and started the laptop both with and without the charger. Bios will not post. I am pretty sure when i put the gt 240m in the laptop it wasn't seated correctly causing the laptop to shutoff to prevent damage. It was only meant to be in there long enough for me to flash to a-09 from a08 in order to retry the 7970m that i just got. Unfortunately it is now not doing anything but turning on and that's it. There wasn't a prompt during the initial flash in the reference thread but shutoff mid checksum. Right now i am just looking through the forums to find a way to recover the bad flash.

 

Assuming that the 240m wasn't seated properly, have you tried removing the card and reseating it? Also, have you tried completely removing memory from the system to see if it'll give you error beeps, indicating that the BIOS is still intact and it's just your display that is gone? I know these are very basic solutions but I'm not exactly sure where to even start when recovering from a bad flash.

 

Update: After 16 Hours of internet searching and multiple MULTIPLE forums with this issue I was able to get into the non writable part of the bios chip and restore it blindly.
Thanks ToxicTension for all your help. All of the basics i did last night and nothing was responding so i took a chance of renaming one of the official files in the dell bios utility once i confirmed it was actually the main file using Phoenixtools 250 and it worked

For Anyone having this issue here are the steps i took specifically for the M15x to fix the problem.

1. Download THIS version of Phoenix Crisis Disk Download Phoenix CRISIS DISK.zip from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way <-- this one has the newer version of PHFLASH16 necessary to write to our newer type bios. Extract it and put it in a folder.
2. Go to the DELL site and download Bios A09 (The one that's an executable in windows)
3. Extract it, Find the file folder, and look for the file named W6702MB.A09.bin . Rename THIS File to BIOS.wph and put it in the folder with all the phoenix crisis disk files.
4. Get a usb flash drive that you dont care about (I used a 4g stick) Reformat it to FAT in windows.
5. In the phoenix crisis folder run the wincris.exe file in compatibility mode with windows xp service pack 3 (Not sure if you can do it without compatibility) select the drive you just formatted and press start.
6 When it prompts you to reinsert do it and you should have 3 files inside PHLASH16.exe, BIOS.WPH, and MINIDOS.SYS. Now you are ready to flash

7.Unplug the battery, Unplug the laptop and do a power drain. Make sure there is no cd in the drive or anything else plugged into it. Insert the Flash Drive in the eSATA Port
8.In THIS ORDER! Hold Win key+B, Plug in laptop, Press power button. Keep holding until you see about 30 seconds worth of activity coming from your flash drive. once it stops blinking let go of the keys and walk away for about 5 to ten minutes .

When you come back you should have it hung up on the alien head bios screen not going any further. Remove the flash disk, turn it off and back on and you should be able to access the bios and find you have ver. A.01 installed.
Proceed to install A.02 then A.09 You have now saved your bricked M15x

I hope this helps anyone with the same situation I did. If it weren't for the many tech head sites like this one I would not have been able to piece together a solution for our aging beast.

Keith.

 

Nice! Thanks for posting. Process looks the same for the M17xR2 Phoenix BIOS. I am very glad you're up and running again. Excellent news!

How to recover from a bad BIOS Flash (Phoenix BIOS ONLY)

 

So glad you were able to figure it out! Sorry that I wasn't able to provide more information.

I've fortunately never had to deal with a bricked Alienware (and hopefully I never will). Bookmarked this thread for easy access in case I do run into it some day.

 

I hope no one else ever DOES have to run into this problem as it is the scariest thing i've ever dealt with. Now to attempt to flash the clevo 7970m to a dell one since it is currently only showing a white screen on bootup. Out of the frying pan and into the fire eh

 

It sure is scary, at least you could find a way to fix it. Thanks for sharing the guide.