Gt83 bios bricked!!!

Hello,
My cousin's msi gt83vr bios has bricked, he tried to flashed bios which turned out to be of bios of gt73vr, and also his gt83 is out of warranty, anyone who could help here,
Btw the laptop now boots to nothing, neither bios nor os,
I heard it has dual bios chip but not sure, but if it does how do iget it started??
Thanks for any help.
@Phoenix @Mr. Fox @Prema @Papusan @pat@XOTICPC

 

If you have 4 sticks of RAM, remove ONE or TWO of the sticks (on the top side of the mainboard).
ALWAYS DISCONNECT AC POWER BEFORE SERVICING THE LAPTOP!!! Unplugging battery is also HIGHLY recommended before servicing the laptop !!

Then whether or not you could remove one of the top seated RAM dimms, hold down the power button for 45 seconds+. Then release the power button. Then press it on.

Then wait 60 seconds. The power LED should turn off and on after another 60 seconds.
then wait again.

You should see a boot loop after another 60 seconds and the MSI logo appear. It may be copying the backup Bios over the main Bios. This may take two "45 second" presses (make sure you do the full wait, which takes around 2-3 minutes before anything starts happening, before trying again).

Does this work?

 

Did exactly as you said fam, did it with 1 8gb ddr4 ram stick but nothing happened, no msi logo no nothing, not even the boot loop also, just the black screen!

 

If someone with a programmer and an alligator clip can pull their GT83VR BIOS and save it to a BIOS.BIN file and send it to you for your cousin, you can use a programmer and an alligator clip to program the corrupted chip. It only takes a few minutes to do as long as the chip is easily accessible. Confirm the location of BIOS chip to make sure you do not accidentally flash a chip that is not the BIOS.

 

Ok you need to hardware flash it like this.
Follow these instructions.
Sorry but it WILL cost you money. But even a monkey can do this, as long as you use PROPER ANTI STATIC PRECAUTIONS!!!!

Skypro:
https://www.amazon.com/WINGONEER-hi...=1513568720&sr=8-1&keywords=Skypro+programmer


Pomona IC clip:
https://www.amazon.com/CPT-063-Test...F8&qid=1513568755&sr=1-1&keywords=Pomona+5250


Jumper wires for hooking up the IC clip to adapter:
https://www.amazon.com/Haitronic-Mu...&sr=1-1-fkmr1&keywords=Zoostliss+jumper+wires

1.8v adapter (THIS is not needed with mainboard Bios chips, afaik System Bios use 3.3v, but still buy this. Very useful, and you can hack your video cards in the future to TDP mod them; Vbioses are 1.8v and require this adapter to avoid blowing out the vbios chips).

https://www.amazon.com/WINGONEER-ad...8&qid=1513571287&sr=8-1&keywords=1.8v+adapter

You won't need to use the 1.8v adapter on system bios chips unless the flasher says its required but it usually ONLY says this for VIDEO BIOS chips. So don't use it. Just buy it.

You can wire the Pomona clip to the SPI flasher (or Pomona clip to 1.8v adapter if flashing video card Bioses) easily:
take note of "pin 1" which is marked on the devices (top left orientation).
Then hold the Pomona clip so the "pins" are in the same lineup as the flash device female holes, going counterclockwise, pin 1 at top left, pin 8 at top right. Then wire the color coded cables (whichever color you choose) to match and line up. That's all.

Then download the Skypro software from coright.com, install, hook up your device, look for PIN 1 on the bios chip. Pin 1 has a small INDENTATION (depression) in a corner. That indentation may NOT be at the same location as the painted dot! The dot only tells you that "this is a bios chip". That is where pin 1 is and should line up with pin 1 on your Pomona clip.

Then hook the clips to the bios chip via pin 1.

ON THE GT73VR, THE PRIMARY BIOS CHIP IS BELOW THE MXM VIDEO CARD SLOT. THE VIDEO CARD MUST BE REMOVED.

I do NOT know where it is on the GT83VR but probably in a similar location. Try to find a disassembly guide with pictures. The second bios chip is on the backside.

Once that is done hit DETECT.
If the software detects the device right away, that's good. Then do a READ of it.

Compare the READ to the Bios file you downloaded. It should be at least slightly similar so you know that is indeed the Bios chip.

If the read is only 128k bytes, then this is the EC firmware chip, not the bios chip, and you will have to FLIP the mainboard upside down to access the other chip. The read should either be 6144k bytes or 8192k bytes.

Then just click auto, and it should program the bios.

 

Be careful with that paint dot thing as well. It is true, but there are other "BIOS" chips that look exactly the same with a painted dot. One example is the Thunderbolt chip. The paint colors are usually different, but as far as I know there is no industry standard for the colors. Another example could be the vBIOS chip on a system with BGA GPU.

 

Yep that's why I told him to do a 'read' of it first. Once he does a read, he can easily do a hex dump and compare it with the official downloaded file. Even if its from a GT73VR vs a GT83VR it should be obvious it's a Bios

The EC firmware is 128k in size.
The Intel ME is part of the main Bios.

 

Yes, I agree with your advice. It's spot on. Hardware programmer is definitely the best solution for a case like this. It is fast and easy.

It is important to confirm the location of the BIOS chip before flashing to avoid making a bigger mess than you started with. But, it is not something that warrants any fear, because it is the closest thing to foolproof you can do in terms of flashing. Measure twice, cut once.

 

Edit: thank y all for help and support but reprogrammed the bios chip by soldering it out and using raspberry pi, and the resoldering it into mobo,
However i had to reinstall windows, tho

 

So it's working now?
Where was the Bios chip located? Under the video card? Or somewhere more accessible?
Glad you already had the tools to fix this. I can't solder so..... i mean I DO have a hakko desoldering gun with ONE TIP, and a cheap soldering iron....

 

Great job!

What happened to the Windows installation?

Sure you can. I do most of my BIOS chip soldering with a cheap pen type soldering iron with a small tip on it from Walmart (like $9.00 or something silly like that). After some nudging by @Prema and @t456 below is the basic technique I followed my first time, and still follow to this day. BIOS chips are the easiest because the legs and solder pads are so big compared to the other things. Flux and solder wick are your friends. Use them liberally.

 

Yep, now its working!!
And nope it wasnt located under gpus, and it wasnt located on accessible place, had to remove battery heatsink gpus, to get it out, it was located somewhere at mid left of mobo.

Dont know what happened to windows tho,
After fixing i booted bios, everything went fine, but windows showed BSOD, so i installed one from recovery drive.

@Falkentyne @Mr. Fox
Also incase this crap dosent happen another time, can you suggest me how do i backup my cousins gt83vr's bios and vbios, incase he curses them again and i have to get my solderer and pi out another time(which i dont want to)??

Yep and dont forget to wear gloves and cover your face with a towel or smthing, or else sweat will drip on the circuit(happened to me once)

 

Why don't you just buy what I linked earlier? While you still have to disassemble the laptop, it's still faster than soldering and desoldering. And safer, too.
As far as backing up...you already have the bios from the MSI website.
A bad flash means all the backups in the world won't do anything--you have to still hardware flash it.

There are ways to blind flash a backup automatically (still, the official file from the website), with booting to a USB Drive and having the bios file renamed as something, BUT no one knows how to do this with MSIbooks or if this even works with any current MSIbook or not. The last instructions I saw about recovering from bad flashes were for Alienwares. There were some names like AMIBIOS.bin and AMIBOOT.bin for Ami bios and I saw AFUDOS.BIN for Asus back in the day, but I don't know if this works anymore. In the past, you had to find the key "rename" you had to do to the file, put it on a BLANK FORMATTED USB flash drive, then UNPLUG ALL HARD DRIVES, SSDs, and all but ONE STICK OF RAM (may not be required, I don't know if you need to unplug RAM or keep all sticks in or not, sorry), then insert the USB drive and turn on the bricked laptop.

 

Hey, i had to do it with raspberry pi because i live in india, and the thing you stated werent availabe at amazon india nor at local generic pc shop, and my cousing was getting horrified, so pulled out like this!!
I actually had to!!
Btw my brother's face was even more horrified when i was soldering out ic from mobo(it was his first gaming laptop around 5499$) !!!

 

Edit: i actually found programer tho,
https://www.amazon.in/gp/aw/d/B018D...rammer+kit&dpPl=1&dpID=51SJ4crqQlL&ref=plSrch

 

My GE73VR is BIOS bricked.

With the requisite hardware mentioned before in this thread, can I flash the BIOS file from MSI's website? I posted about my problem in the Ask the MSI Rep thread and @Mr. Fox had told me I would need a dump of the BIOS from off another GE73VR in order to use this method to flash.

@OfficialTheDragon ...did you flash the file from the website or was it a dumped BIOS that you flashed on your brother's laptop?

 

I flat out asked MSI about blind flashing and they gave me an RMA number.

 

Don't email them. They're clueless. Call them on the phone and ask for someone at higher level and be very polite, and make sure you act like you know what you're talking about.
Their Taiwan engineers know how to do this. That's if the laptop has provisions from booting from boot block.

 

I downloaded from msi website, but be sure about the laptop models, bios are even diffrent for diffrent ge72s!!

 

Thanks! Just ordered everything I need. I am overseas working and hardware probably won't arrive until around the new year, but will try this as soon as I get the stuff in. If this doesn't work then I will go through the trouble of shipping my laptop back to HIDevolution and possibly be without my laptop for 2-3 months depending on if they can fix it or if they will have to RMA to MSI.

Fun part will be finding where the BIOS chip is on my motherboard. The GE73 model has not been out very long and I have not found a complete tear down yet that shows where the chip is.

ETA: Going to try Falkentyne's advise and call MSI as well. If they are any help on blind flashing I will post for the good of the board.

 

That's actually the easy part:

Spoiler: (v)bios eeprom examples

Look for any of those IC types (dimension format is SOIC8). The start of the part number is always 25*** or *25**, this designating it as SPI (the bus interface). The second number gives you the size is Mbits, all 32Mbit/4MB in these examples. There's only one large eeprom such as this on the mainboard and you can also find out the size by looking at the bios files downloaded from MSI. The file should be a multiple of 1MB; i.e., the number of bytes being divisible by 1,048,576. If it's not then you're looking at a packed or padded file and the binary needs to be extracted first.

The arrow indicates the 'dimple', which is pin #1. Most mb's also have a painted arrow or rectangle on the pcb at the #1 corner, so you wouldn't be able to misorient with these. Yet some boards have no markings at all, meaning you have a 50% chance of inverting the chip and killing the eeprom if you didn't bother to make a note of the proper orientation (making a pre-mess photo is a good precaution).

The alligator clip is easier, of course, but not every system supports this method. It depends on the eeprom and the mb-wiring of the 'write-protect' and 'hold' pins. De-soldering always works, so that might be preferable if you're ok with an iron.

 

Thanks for the info!!!

 

Often the vendors don't want to give up their "special Fn" key combinations, like the one that unlocks the BIOS.

Here's some legacy threads, maybe some insights there...:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/help-has-anyone-ever-attempted-a-blind-bios-flash.340173/

"Ok this is for ACER laptops but might work for you or give you some ideas.
Check the threads below, blind flash using a USB drive. Caution: it seems like the USB drive should be small, 256mb or less to make it work using these methods!

INSYDE http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=284686
PHOENIX http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=328328 "

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=256728.0

"I've found that on the web.... Is there someone who knows what button to press for my laptop?

method 2

In case of a BAD flash, a blind-flash will be required.

1. Remove any files from your USB that aren't the necessary bootable DOS files.

2. Pick a ROM you want to flash (doesn't have to be the original), but it MUST be one for your notebook specifically.

3. Rename the file.ROM to AMIBOOT.ROM and put it on your flash drive.

4. Plug in your flash drive in a USB 2.0 slot.

5. As soon as your notebook turns on and nothing is displayed, spam Ctrl + Home (In my case, the MS-16F2 is Ctrl + Fn + PgUp or Ctrl + Shift + NumPad 7).

6. You should hear four (4) beeps and the BIOS should begin flashing itself"

" Quote from: jeromeplourde on 22-June-15, 04:40:17
5. As soon as your notebook turns on and nothing is displayed, spam Ctrl + Home (In my case, the MS-16F2 is Ctrl + Fn + PgUp or Ctrl + Shift + NumPad 7).

I guess no matter what combination it might be, you need ctrl+home key to trigger the blind flash."

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthre...ng-issue-G751JY-Bricked&viewfull=1#post563381

" Ctrl+Home+Power works! REALLY!
For it to work on G751JY:
1.have a FAT32 formatted usb stick handy,THIS IS A MUST. NTFS FORMATED STICK WON"T BE READ BY BIOS.
2. Put the bios file on it in root of directory structure, rename it G751JY.bin put the original G751JYAS.211 with it, I used both, not sure which one worked,
3. insert usb stick into any usb port + connect laptop to power brick and p-brick to mains, battery neeeds to be charged 90%, it will not let the bios flash if it is less,
4.press and hold right Ctrl+Home and than press Pbutton and release. Keep holding Ctrl+Home until EZFlash appears on screen. Release Crtl+Home.

If you like to put bios file on HDD/SSD, the bios file MUST be on the first partition of the HDD/SSD. Note that from factory G751 has a small, if I remeber correctly, 128MB UEFI partition as first, it is FAT32 formatted.
But do not take my word on it, confirm that with partition manager of your choice.And you have to put the bios file there. Can you break something if you do that? Maybe.

As I see G752 has NTFS driver in the bios, maybe with G752 NTFS formatted stick also works. But this has to be confirmed by G752 owner,as I am not him.

YOU DO FLASHING OF BIOS AT YOUR OWN RISK! I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE IF YOU BRICK YOUR LAPTOP!
Happy flashing
Someone can make this sticky for other to easly see it."

 

Any luck getting your laptop back to working state?

 

Still waiting on everything to come in from Amazon.

 

How much did you pay though?

 

$64.20 USD

Programmer: $32.99
Jumper Wires: $6.98
1.8v Adapter: $9.99 - don't need (this is for flashing v-bios on nvidia cards) but thought I might could use it later on down the road.
Clip: $14.24

I am at an APO (military) address so I paid no taxes and have Amazon Prime so I don't pay for shipping either.

 

Sick!!!!

 

So, did you do it, did you laptop boot?

 

I ended up having to go spend a couple of month on another military base and the programmer did not arrive until after I had left my home station. I just now got back to my home station and I am about to try this right now.

Fingers crossed!!!

 

Well, there is nothing to worry about, as till as you dont pick a wrong IC or a incompatibe programmeable IC.

 

You need a BIOS dump, the download update BIOS from the site are not the FULL image that is on the chip, its an 8MB flash and the BIOS file that you download from the site is only 3MB, there is a LOT missing.

 

Full BIOS is 8MB, if it's 3MB then it's just partial BIOS.
http://download.msi.com/bos_exe/nb/E1815IMS.10A.zip