Darob

I Have an acer aspire 9304.. I believe this was manafactured about 3 years ago (i bought it new about 2 1/2 yrs ago). my problem is that it apears to be dead(ish) the power button/light will come on, the fan will work for a sec, and the Hdd light will flash (once), then nothing... the power can be switched off if the power button is held for a few seconds (i assume this is a Bios function so cant be totally dead?) just a guess, would the bios battery if dead cause this?? any other help invited..

night_shift

Try this first:

1. Remove battery.
2. Remove AC power.
3. Remove and reseat your RAM modules.
4. Replace your RAM modules.
5. Hold down your power button for 1 minute (Battery and AC still disconnected).
6. Replace your AC power (not battery) and turn on.

This is called a hard reset. If it works COOL, then replace your battery. If not then we will try something else. Good luck.

Darob

bios battery was @ 2.8V (this would still have worked) however, I found a ref to booting with alt+F10 (from power-up), tried it and Presto, It worked... Thanks anyway Nightshift

night_shift

Cool.

Darob

ah well... lasted 2 days, now its back to non responce mode... and nothings shifting it

fexie

Hello.

I've had got exactly the same problem with my Acer Aspire 5920G about 4 months ago, somewhere in June. I could not fix it, but I sent it back (still under warranty) after trying a lot of things. I even unplugged my CMOS-battery for a few minutes (someone claimed to assure me that was it). When it got back there wasn't even a note with my laptop telling me what they had done exactly, but they fixed it. I'm guessing it's a disconnection/malfunction in the wiring.

Hope I didn't discourage you too much...

Good luck with it

night_shift

Did you try the above?

Darob

done the above... no joy

one post i've read (cant remember where) described bios settings corruption but i've pulled the cell (overnight), that didnt reset either. i looked into re-flashing, but have no USB-floppy (whats a floppy ;p) and cant find any info about what files to put on usb mem stick, or CD

night_shift

Do you know who makes your bios, is it Phoenix?

fexie

Bios from Acer is indeed made by Phoenix.

Darob

yep - phoenix supplied bios

i found latest v1.2 (cant find out mine coz its dead) from
ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com/noteboo...bios/v1.20.zip

night_shift

I have had many successes flashing Phoenix bios with this method:

What you need.

1. First you need to get hold of an USB floppy drive and a formatted floppy disk. (Cheap on eBay).
2. Go to Acer web site and download the bios V1.20 in your case.
3. Unzip this file and you will have an unzipped file called v1.20, open this.
4. When you open this, find zip file GSB120US.
5. Unzip GSB120US and you will now have an unzipped file GSB120US, open this.
6. Inside that file look for a file called mam_v120.wph (this is the new bios file).

Formatting and setting up floppy disc.

1. This set up uses a small program called 268076.exe (zip file attached) to format a floppy disc and set it up to perform the flashing process. Unzip and extract the program. Connect your usb floppy drive with floppy disc to a host PC/Laptop and run this program.
2. When the program opens, there should be a tick in the box for the option “Writing on Floppy”. Click OK.
3. The program will then write some files onto the floppy. BIOS.WPH, MINIDOS.SYS and PHLASH16.
4. On the floppy delete the file named BIOS.WPH. Copy your bios file mam_v120.wph onto the floppy.
5. Rename mam_v120.wph to BIOS.WPH, yes that’s in capitals. It may give you a prompt about the instability of changing file extensions etc. just say ok.
6. Now go and connect your floppy drive to the laptop and follow these instructions.

1. Take out battery.
2. Pull out ac power cord.
3. Press Fn+Esc key together.
4. Holding keys pressed put in ac power cord.
5. Holding keys pressed (Fn+Esc), press power button.

The floppy disk light goes on and after a few seconds or so the bios image is reading, you will hear the floppy drive writing to the bios, you can let the Fn+Esc keys go now. You might hear a series of beeps as well, this is normal. After that there is no activity of any kind for about 20 seconds or so. DO NOTHIHG! – WAIT! Then your laptop will restart itself and the bios POST screen should appear. You have now successfully flashed your bios.
Let’s see what happens!

I was not very successful flashing from pen drives or cd's but the above has always worked if the correct bios file is used.

Give it a go, you have nothing to lose.

night_shift

Sorry heres a link to the zip file. I could not attach it for some reason as I have already attached in another post, but this should work.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/atta...oot-268076.zip

Darob

The 268076 file I already have... thx anyway, I dont have a usb floppy at this time and would have liked to try a plugable mem stick (i found an HP utility to make mine bootable) although the crisis routine (268076) wouldnt write to it [the stick] as a floppy, but would uncompress files to it.
one other question... When I plug in the power, the on/off button illuminates imediately. do i still press it?

night_shift

If the button only lights up thats ok, but you still need to press it to start the computer, is this correct?
Try uncompressing but as above remove BIOS.WPH off the stick, put your mam_v120.wph on the stick and then rename it BIOS.WPH and do as above:

1. Take out battery.
2. Pull out ac power cord.
3. Press Fn+Esc key together.
4. Holding keys pressed put in ac power cord.
5. Holding keys pressed (Fn+Esc), press power button.

Darob

will post back (on this thread) when I get a usb floppy