MSI 1036 Won't POST

Well, I've got a 1036 I just got last week, been having a couple of small issues with it locking up when it tried to go into standby or after powering it down, so I decided to try and flash the BIOS to the newest firmware.

The flash went well (I think), saying that it erased, wrote and verified the image and boot block without errors, then it put out a couple blank lines, and appeared to hard lock. After a couple minutes, I tried caps lock to see if it was locked and sure enough, it wouldn't respond to the keyboard at all... or even the 4 sec power button being held down. So, I disconnected the battery and AC, waited a minute and hooked it back up. Now, all I get is an orange standby light (steady on), and the screen won't light up at all.

The trick of holding CTRL+Home doesn't seem to work, for one the keyboard doesn't respond at all, and for another there really isn't a dedicated home key... there's one on the numpad 7, and one if you push FN+PgUp.

Any ideas? Anyone know how to force it to re-read a new BIOS image from USB floppy or CD? So far it doesn't seem to even be trying the USB floppy at all. I tried calling MSI, who just told me I'd have to call my reseller, but I can't reach him right now. I'm hoping to be able to somehow reflash the chip instead of having to send the unit anywhere... this sucks :/

 

I've seen several posts from people saying they were able to reflash broken BIOSes.... anyone care to share? One mentioned using Nero to make a flash CD, but didn't say if he just put it in or had to hold anything down. As before, no key combinations are working... but the CD drive does power up and initialize so I think if I can get it to boot that or check the CD for an AIMBIOS.ROM file it might fix it... any ideas? anyone?

Seriously wishing there was an MSI repair center in Utah :/

 

MSI support confirmed that the boot blocks were erased based on the way the machine is acting, and that the only action left is to RMA the machine.

Some info I've gathered:

The CTRL+HOME failsafe should work on any of the AMI based MSI laptops. If this fails, for any reason, and there doesn't appear to be any activity going to the USB floppy drive, the BIOS boot blocks are hosed.

In the 1036, and likely most if not all of the other MSI NBs, the BIOS is, in fact, soldered directly to the motherboard. So, the only option in that case is to RMA it. Those who were able to reflash their BIOSes are lucky.

 

sorry we couldn't be of much help, but thanks for the information, just in case someone else ever runs into this problem. hopefully, msi will get your notebook back to you as soon as possible and as good as new.