Carnival of Wank

Well, this may be the end.

When I last left you (See Aspire One BIOS of DOOM – Update), I had discovered a write-error on the flash chip. After a little more poking around, I found the ‘/e’ switch for the flashit.exe program included with the BIOS ROMs.

WARNING! BIG MOTHER-OF-ALL-FUCKING WARNINGS!
****DO NOT RUN THE FOLLOW COMMANDS – THEY WILL BRICK YOUR LAPTOP WITH NO CHANCE OF RECOVERY****
****I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU FUCK IT UP BY TRYING WHAT FOLLOWS HERE****

The Insyde H20 BIOS flashing program, flashit.exe, has a switch that allows you to specify extra options when flashing. The command is as follows:

flashit romname.fd /e: offset,filesize,address

Offset: In hex, the start of the ROM file (typically 00000000)
Filesize: In hex, the size of the ROM file (for the 1MB Acer ROMs, 00100000)
Address: In hex, the memory address on the flash chip where the ROM resides (on the Aspire One, it appears to be FFF00000)

So, after putting two and two together, I decided the following must be true:
1) The memory location with the write error seemed to be the first block of writable flash memory (FFF00000)
2) The command syntax of the command above allows for you to specify where the start of the ROM file is, and the start of the writable memory is
3) If I skip the first block, I’ll bypass the problem!

So I ran the following command:

****LAST WARNING: THE WILL BRICK YOUR LAPTOP!****

flashit zg5ia32.fd /e:00000001,00100000,FFF00001

The flash process proceeded as normal, then promptly errored out with “Error: IHISI 14h write failed. Address: FFF00000″ (Or something close to that), and turned off.

Sighing, I inserted my Recovery Flash Drive, held Fn+Esc, then hit the power button.

Nothing.

I tried again, with the same result. Starting to worry, I unplugged the power and removed the laptop. Leaving it for a few minutes, I plugged the AC adapter back in.

The power and battery lights light a beautiful orange, and then promptly faded. And that was that.

Apparently, in skipping that first block, I completely mangled the BIOS to the point where it didn’t even know what to do with electricity. Sweet.

So I called Acer, explained to them that my laptop wouldn’t turn on, and got a service request number so I could send it in for repair. I shipped it off yesterday using UPS, and upon checking the tracking number today, found the following:

CONTACT UPS FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION / ALL MERCHANDISE DISCARDED. UPS WILL NOTIFY THE SENDER WITH DETAILS OF THE DAMAGE

I called them, and they told me another local delivery computer had the box, and they didn’t know what had happened because the local office was already closed for the day. I have to call the local guys tomorrow to find out what happened, but it’ presumably a write-off.

I think I’ll replace it with an MSI Wind.

Update: UPS is pissing me off!

Apparently the local shipping company never touched the box, and they think it was just a scanning error, but no one at UPS has any idea what the actual status of my package is, as it’s now in transit again. I suppose I’ll find out Monday when Acer gets it.