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Service Forum support board, PC repair, unlocking solutions
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heroxbd Nou Venit
Joined: 16 Oct 2011 Posts: 3
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 4:17 pm Post subject: X41 Tablet Dump: not sure if it is clean |
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My X41 Tablet stops at POST, unable to get into BIOS, and with no CRC error prompts. capslock, scrollock leds are responding.
I have tried to dump the EEPROM file. Victor, Could you have a look to tell if it is corrupted (and needs patch)? Thanks a lot.
My EEPROM dump is here:
[removed]
PS: I used ft232rl to read the EEPROM, very convenient. I will post my schematics afterwards |
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victor S.F. Boss
Joined: 07 Mar 2004 Posts: 2581 Location: Staff
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 4:52 pm Post subject: |
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SVP is not set. Remove The 3V cell to reset CMOS and you're done.
Yes, we know all about that and we have our diagrams already, thanks anyway.
[Edit]
Oh, the dump is "dirty", these parts with UUID and signatures are missing. _________________ Victor Voinea
ALLservice HQ, Romania. |
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heroxbd Nou Venit
Joined: 16 Oct 2011 Posts: 3
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 5:11 pm Post subject: |
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victor wrote: | SVP is not set. Remove The 3V cell to reset CMOS and you're done. |
Thanks, Victor.
Yeah, I have no password set around that BIOS and I remember the first thing I did after this problem was to remove the 3V cell. I will try it again anyway.
The clue that led me to investigate EEPROM was:
1. the problem was caused by forced poweroff
2. last time (the same symptom) I hired a another guy to fix it for me, and he replaced the EEPROM.
PS: here was the complete description of the symptom
....
Video BIOS shadowed
UMB upper Limit segment address: DC00
Mouse initialized
without advancing into boot up stage.
At this point, Num Lock and Caps Lock work, PC Beeper works, and HDD LED sparkles, and pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del can restart the machine. If I press F1 to enter BIOS, or F12 to select a boot media, at the bottom of the screen reads "Entering Setup..." or "Preparing boot up devices..." but no any advances beyond those.
I have met with this exactly the same problem three times. When pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del when a Linux-2.6 kernel is booting, most of the times (N-3 times) the kernel closes spawned threads and happily reboots, but for 3 times the machine stalls at the last step of rebooting (namely after Linux print's "will now reboot...") and after long-pressing power button to power off the machine cannot pass self test like described above. |
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victor S.F. Boss
Joined: 07 Mar 2004 Posts: 2581 Location: Staff
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 5:15 pm Post subject: |
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I later edited: The dump shows that some parts missing. If that guy replaced the eeprom, then the replacement chip's data is corrupt/damaged.
I can generate that part with correct UUID and MAC, etc. all you need is the writer license.
But I am not sure if this will solve some other issues like some possible hardware problems.
With other words, the BIOS needs that part of eeprom - you gotta fix that, but I am not sure if all problems will be solved. _________________ Victor Voinea
ALLservice HQ, Romania. |
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heroxbd Nou Venit
Joined: 16 Oct 2011 Posts: 3
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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victor wrote: | I later edited: The dump shows that some parts missing. If that guy replaced the eeprom, then the replacement chip's data is corrupt/damaged.
I can generate that part with correct UUID and MAC, etc. all you need is the writer license. |
Thanks a lot, Victor. Hmm, I am willing to pay for that. You are doing a great job. Before I get your ready made eeprom, can I have some hints to (possibly) figure this out myself? Some publicly available resources would be very appreciated. I did some electronic practices at school and really enjoyed them. My classmate has a working X41 Tablet and I could dump his and try to compare the dumps to solve the puzzle.
victor wrote: | But I am not sure if this will solve some other issues like some possible hardware problems.
With other words, the BIOS needs that part of eeprom - you gotta fix that, but I am not sure if all problems will be solved. |
I guess other hardware problems come from my 2" Hitachi HDD. It was not for IBM and caused 2010 HDD error. And I flashed a IBM firmware following
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_non-ThinkPad_hard_disks
(it was 2009, the stripped BIOS has not come yet.)
Maybe the HDD with a non-native firmware caused hangs when powering off. |
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victor S.F. Boss
Joined: 07 Mar 2004 Posts: 2581 Location: Staff
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 7:01 am Post subject: |
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No need to tear another laptop apart. As I said, we can generate an UUID and build the missing zone based on the laptop correct MAC and serials. The service is a CRC repair and is a bonus with W24RF08, the eeprom writer license is $30
The HD firmware will not cause hanging when powered off. The hanging is at POST.
Anyway, If you can't find a HDD that can be easily updated with the IBM OEM firmware, then the best solution is to use a Fujitsu drive that can work at maximum speed even if they are reported to be non OEM. _________________ Victor Voinea
ALLservice HQ, Romania. |
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