BIOS Updates forum

I flashed the latest BIOS for this machine successfully, with AC adapter plugged in and full battery. However, I then tried to flash the Embedded Controller Program, which seems to be a second BIOS in these machines, and seems to be the first stage in the POST routine. The IBM-Lenovo website advises to flash in this order -- BIOS first and then Embedded Controller Program. Unfortunately the second flash procedure halted half way through. I could not escape out of the error screen, or turn off power, or anything.
Now the laptop will not boot up. No power LED, no monitor. The DVD drive is spinning up, however. Removed CMOS battery, hard disk drive, everything, but no success.
Is there any way to flash the chip again, or do I need to replace entire board? There is no floppy drive on these laptops.
Gerard.

Situation looks bad, because embedded controller takess care of many low level hardware initialisation functions. I suggest replacement of mainboard.

Sharedoc wrote:Situation looks bad, because embedded controller takess care of many low level hardware initialisation functions. I suggest replacement of mainboard.

Yes I think it's caput. My first BIOS update failure and I've done hundreds ... not a nice experience especially since the laptop is a friend's. The BIOS update would have fixed the issue he was having with it too.
I don't think it's worth buying a board for these -- the board is on eBay for around 200 euro while a replacement T40 is 299.
Thanks for your reply.