Aspire 9300(-3375)

Don't ask how to hack password. (BIOS Passwords)
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GraVmaN
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I have an Acer Aspire 9300 and had a bios flash failure. Now my laptop is dead and the usual recovery procedure does not work.

My next choice is to build a programmer (already done) and connect to the board externally and reflash. My problem... Acer puts a sticker on the bios chip and when I peeled it away I found that not all of the chip info was present. I could only read that it is an MX chip, model number beginning with 29LV80 and the rest is gone (I see enough to know there is more).

I can get my hands on another working machine if I could find a utility that could identify the bios chip type and model. I've already tried CPUID-z and it just tells me vague bios info on this machine. On my desktop it tells me everything. I need something else, any ideas?
GraVmaN
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Discovered the chip ID to be MX29LV800T and have reflashed machine and working again.
cyberdyne
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I too have an Acer Aspire 9300 which has suffered a bad BIOS flash. The laptop had v.1.14 BIOS and their web site said there was an update available - v.1.20
I downloaded and ran the update and the process was totally automated. Unfortunately, when the laptop rebooted, it would not POST, nor show any BIOS info. There was simply a flashing underscore '_'

How did you flash your BIOS please and would you recommend I do the same?
Thank you
cyberdyne
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Can anyone offer any advice on this please?
Thank you
cyberdyne
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This can be closed, have found help elsehwere.
GraVmaN
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I do apologize for not getting back to this sooner (missed emailed post notifications somehow).

I discovered that the v1.20 bios has had support for 4gb memory removed. I had to pull a 2gb strip of memory out and the system fired up again. 6 months I was without my machine because of the morons at Acer making such a stupid move like this. I flashed back to orginal that I had backed up and put memory back, everything has been fine since. I will say that I will NEVER buy an Acer product again.
cyberdyne
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GraVmaN wrote:I do apologize for not getting back to this sooner (missed emailed post notifications somehow).

I discovered that the v1.20 bios has had support for 4gb memory removed. I had to pull a 2gb strip of memory out and the system fired up again. 6 months I was without my machine because of the morons at Acer making such a stupid move like this. I flashed back to orginal that I had backed up and put memory back, everything has been fine since. I will say that I will NEVER buy an Acer product again.
Thanks very much for this. The issue of v1.20 not supporting 4gb of ram was exactly what was wrong.

Many many thanks
GraVmaN
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Glad I could help, unlike Acer who is clearly incapable of doing anything useful.
cyberdyne
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GraVmaN wrote:Glad I could help, unlike Acer who is clearly incapable of doing anything useful.
I wonder now if they'll release a version higher than 1.20 which will hopefully support 4gb again.
Such a pain in the backside to be honest as this has cost my Dad over £700 for a new PC when in fatc, it turns out he didnt need one.
GraVmaN
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Put in a formal complaint to Acer like I did. I guarantee you'll also be ignored like I was. They just don't care.

I wish I knew more about the bios myself, the coding and so forth. I'd mod one of the updated versions.
cyberdyne
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GraVmaN wrote:Put in a formal complaint to Acer like I did. I guarantee you'll also be ignored like I was. They just don't care.

I wish I knew more about the bios myself, the coding and so forth. I'd mod one of the updated versions.
Maybe we could ask someone to do it for us.

Edit: I have now done so elsewhere.
I'll let you know if there are any results.
cyberdyne
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By the way, have you tried v.1.7 or v.1.9 for 4gb ram compatibility?
Thanks

EDIT:
Just tried them both and they're both fine with 4gb. Now using v1.9.
GraVmaN
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If I recall correctly, I'm using v1.14 with 4gb.
cyberdyne
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Well if you fancy trying it, v.1.19 does work with 4GB.

Just FYI, if you weren't aware, the reason Acer didn't warn of the 4GB RAM non-support in v.1.20 is because the 9300 was never meant to support 4GB in the first place: http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/notebook/0000/Acer/Aspire9300/Aspire9300sp2.shtml. I'd be interested to know if v.1.20 supports its' reported 3GB max though.
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