Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Aspire One AOA110/AOA150 BIOS mod - a disaster and a solution

Here I'll tell you how to revert back to the latest official BIOS of Acer Aspire One if you have this kind of trouble with the modded one.

The story:

Ok, a couple of days ago I decided to search for a modded BIOS, for my AOA110, with more options available in the menus. I came across this. I was happy, very happy with this discovery and I rushed to flash it! Flashing (under Windows) went fine. The new BIOS had many new options available in it, just what I wanted! I spent maybe 10 minutes poking around the BIOS - checked every option's meaning. Then I changed a a couple of them, that I thought will give a boost, and rebooted. Windows started loading and suddenly upon welcome screen my Aspire One powered off! First thought - some of the options I changed are making the system unstable. So I decided to go to the BIOS and switch option by option back to it's original state, to see which one is the one to blame. Yeah, right! I entered the BIOS, found the first option I changed and when tried to change it back to it's original state, the netbook powered off again! In fact the fan was spinning at it's best! This means the CPU is working too hard and it's overheating, leading to power off, to prevent it from burning. Ok, I though I'll load BIOS defaults, as this could be done really fast. I did it :) But no result :( Then I noticed the last comment, from mad_max, in the thread I downloaded the modded BIOS - he had exactly the same problem as me! If only had read that earlier... not that would have stopped me from trying :D So, while searching the internet for a solution, the netbook apparently cooled off a bit, as when I run it, I had a bit more time to work before power off. Still not enough to flash it. Then I though - I'll cool it in the fridge! So I did that :) After 3 hours of cooling I run it and this time I was able to open My Computer before power off :D Ok, the time needed to do that is about 40-50 seconds (haven't really measured it), which may be enough to flash the BIOS, but I wouldn't try it yet. I wanted a bit more time, so I froze my AOA110! It worked and I was able to flash it back to it's latest official BIOS version :)

The procedure:

1. Put your netbook to your freezer and leave it there for 30-40 minutes. As zstand from Reddit suggested, "Place the laptop in a large, sealed ziplock bag before placing it in the freezer/fridge. The humidity might cause some damage".
2. Meanwhile download the latest official BIOS and prepare an USB flash drive using this tutorial.
3. When you get your netbook out of the freezer, act as fast as you can - plug the power and the USB drive and flash using the same procedure mentioned in the article for preparing the USB drive.
4. After flashing check if the BIOS is the official or not. If it's not, put the netbook back in the freezer and try again. Sometimes this procedure doesn't work from the first time. If the BIOS is the official, your flashing was successful. Shutdown the netbook and let it warm up naturally.

Update 2014:

Since the links in the forum are dead, I took the liberty to export the modded BIOS from my AOA and share it here. I used Insyde Flash Utility for InsydeH2O Flashit V1.2j IHISI V1.7.2 downloaded from the official website of Acer. I made all the 5 dumps the utility allows, but first (G) is what most people want. Still, I never know, so I attached all of them:
AOA_3309_mod_G.bin /G Save current BIOS to file (from IHISI).
AOA_3309_mod_1.bin /1 Save current BIOS to file (1Mbits from memory)
AOA_3309_mod_2.bin /2 Save current BIOS to file (2Mbits from memory)
AOA_3309_mod_4.bin /4 Save current BIOS to file (4Mbits from memory)
AOA_3309_mod_8.bin /8 Save current BIOS to file (8Mbits from memory)

USE THIS AT YOU OWN RISK!!! I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU BRICK YOUR DEVICE!!!

24 comments :

  1. Hehe always fun to play around with hardware :)

    That being said this sound a bit dangerous to me. The risk of condensation water building up, possibly shorting some of the electronics is big when coming directly from -18C.

    Another much safer way is using the BIOS recovery function (I'm actually surprised you didn't know about that, since the AAO is all to famous for messing up it's BIOS, I have already recovered mine twice).

    There is a guide here about how to recover the BIOS should you get a seemingly dead AAO:
    http://www.leosquarez.com/acer-aspire-one-bios-recovery-acer-aspire-one-zg5-screen-not-working/

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  2. This is exactly what I used - as said in step 2 ;) Even with this step the time wasn't enough, so I froze it. If you do not freeze it, you probably will brick it :( It takes seconds for the CPU to reach very high temperature and shutdown operation. Even with this flashing method you'll need at least a minute to complete and you don't have one without freezing it first.

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  3. Hi, the download link is no longer available...

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  4. Download link? What download link? I never posted any download links. It's just a description to what I did to fix my netbook. No download links. Only links to other sites (both are working).

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  5. ahh, sorry... is it possible for you to upload the modded bios? The forum link is no longer work....

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  6. Sorry, I deleted the files long time ago (right after recovering from this BIOS). I never wanted to flash this BIOS again, so I deleted the files. Never thought anyone will ask for them. Have you tried asking the author of the mod? Or ask in the thread in on the forum ;)

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  7. in case you get this problem with "sudden shut down & fan working crazy" try just to take out the battery and boot without it and everything will be just fine :) good luck

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  8. LOL so true !!!

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  9. Do you happen to still have the modded BIOS for download? I've been looking for it, but the rapidshare link on the forum is dead already, and I cannot find it anywhere.

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  10. Unfortunately I don't have it anymore. Fortunately I still have the Acer and I can dump it and share it here. I'll need a week lets say, though, because I'm away now. When I go back I'll backup the BIOS and put a link. Stay tuned.

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    Replies
    1. Added links to the BIOS in the article. Good luck!

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  11. Regards! Friend wanted to install someone of these MOD porq wanted q the ventilator it can only flushed always or to form other things! But do not I find for ningun place the file " InsydeH2O FlashIt V1.2j IHISI V1.7.2 " Podria to raise it? I imagine q only I need this file to be able to install the ueva BIOS? Can It Do a Tuto Rapido? Thank you For the Attention rubenwever@hotmail.es

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    1. Sorry, cannot understand you. Can you try explaining again?

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    2. Explain to me the way of applying the file ".BIN" and I do not obtain the file " InsydeH2O FlashIt V1.2j IHISI V1.7.2 "

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    3. I don't know the exact commands for flashing the BIOS, but you can read all the available commands when executing flashit.exe /? You can download flashit.exe with the latest BIOS from Acer's website, but instead of flashing with the downloaded BIOS, use the dump I have. If you don't know how to flash a BIOS, better don't do it, because you can brick your netbook. I don't take any responsibility for eventual damage that can happen to any computer, as I wrote already on post.

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  12. Hello

    Is it possible ti upgrade the ram memory ? What the max possible ? is it 8 go whith the flash bios AOA_3310_mod_8.bin ? I don t undestand english good..

    Greeting

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    Replies
    1. Hello. As I said before, if you don't understand what are you doing, don't do it - there is a big chance to brick your netbook. Memory is not upgradable through BIOS. Max is 1.5GB and this BIOS won't allow you to add more.

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    2. Hey I did try your bios AOA_3310_mod_G.bin /G Save current BIOS to file (from IHISI). However the version is not 3310 but it show as 3309 once it is flashed. Do you have the 3310 modded version?

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    3. Sorry, naming is wrong. I remember flashing 3310, but now I checked and it's 3309 with me too. Apparently either I remember wrongly or the site from which I downloaded it mislead me. I'll fix the names in a bit. Unfortunately, I don't have 3310 :(

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  13. Okay. I tried to look for a 3310 modded with AHCI feature but I couldn't find it. I tried the official one but my SDD has horrible performance in IDE. Do you know the differences between the bios you posted, any release information? I only tried the mod G which works fine. With which one did you have troube?
    AOA_3309_mod_G.bin /G Save current BIOS to file (from IHISI).
    AOA_3309_mod_1.bin /1 Save current BIOS to file (1Mbits from memory)
    AOA_3309_mod_2.bin /2 Save current BIOS to file (2Mbits from memory)
    AOA_3309_mod_4.bin /4 Save current BIOS to file (4Mbits from memory)

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    Replies
    1. Unfortunately you are trying to find the impossible - AHCI is part of SATA specifications and is not available in ATA - the SSD in AOA is ATA, so it doesn't support AHCI. One thing I can offer you to improve the performance is to reflash SSD's firmware (checkout http://metal03326.blogspot.com/2012/04/samsung-p-ssd1800-firmware-update.html). The flasher checks for bad blocks and stops the SSD from using them, thus improving performance. You can keep reflashing every time your SSD gets too slow, but keep in mind that you lose all your data when reflashing and the reflashing is just a temporary solution to the problem. Hope that helps.

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    2. I don't have this SDD. Originally when I purchased my zg5, I had a 160go Hard drive but I upgraded it with SDD Samung Evo 250 (it has already its latest firmware)

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  14. from the overheating restart just shut down the computer. keep your fingers on both
    (fn) (esc) then press the power button to start wait 5 seconds for the power button to flash then take your fingers off of (fn) (esc) no freezer needed. mine booted into recovery mode and successfully finished the flash. where do I find the benefits of doing a .3310 bios update? and how do I program the bios to disable the onboard ram?

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