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New Bios Broke My 8887!!!

post #1 of 10
5/17/03 at 12:33am
Thread Starter 
I just downloaded the newest BIOS for my 8887 from ftp://ftp.clevo.com.tw/888E/BIOS/88ES305_128.zip and updated just fine. I rebooted, went into linux and all was well. I rebooted again, went into BIOS setup, enabled all the options on the first menu (spdf out, and the others (i forgot what they were)). Now when I reboot it, after the first screen, it immediatly powers off. What went wrong? Is there some secret key combination I can hold down to force it to boot the floppy (so I can flash with my old BIOS and fix things)?
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post #2 of 10
5/17/03 at 3:12am
Check Beakmyn's post dated 5-15-2003. It implies you have to remove the chip and use an Eprom flasher.

EDIT:
The service manual shows in the Mainboard Overview-Top where the BIOS chip is located, but 'cher outta my league messin' with all this. Good luck!
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post #3 of 10
5/17/03 at 3:31am
Thread Starter 
I'm back in. Apparently the new BIOS detects a high temerature CPU and shuts down the computer, no questions asked.

My house was kind of hot, and right after I flashed it, is when it was exhibiting this shutdown behavior. I let is rest for about 10 minutes and it booted right back up. Went into Linux (still no acpi thermal_zone) and then into Castle Wolfenstein. After a few minutes of play, bam ... shutdown. This must be a new feature of the new BIOS.

As for keal's problem, that must have been different, cause mine was shutting down, his had a bad display (I did notice it was defaulted to crt (not lcd or lcd+crt)) when i first hit the bios setup.

Any ideas on how to make this thing dissipate heat better. Up until this new BIOS, I never knew that my lappy was getting too hot (although my right leg sweats alot when i use it in the johnny, which leads me to have to sit in an awkward position, which leads to other problems (not of such a technical nature))
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post #4 of 10
5/17/03 at 3:36am
Quote:
Originally posted by HoofHearted
Apparently the new BIOS detects a high temerature CPU and shuts down the computer, no questions asked.
That's going to be interesting. These babies run hot. Any documentation or Readme with that new BIOS? I'll be holding off on that upgrade 'til I hear from Adam or someone, but you're a brave soul!
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post #5 of 10
5/17/03 at 9:09am
Thread Starter 
Nah, I once blew a BIOS on another board. Got it to boot (somewhat with another chip from another board), hot-put-back-in my old BIOS, andf burned away. Everything was fine after that. I can always burn back the old BIOS if this gets too annoying. (At least I hope so, as long as they put so kind of date-cant-go-back-to-old checks in their flashing stuff)
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post #6 of 10
5/18/03 at 2:38am
Hoofhearted,

I haven't had the 8887 power down on me when it gets too hot, but a couple times when I had my Grand Theft Auto game set to 1600x1200x32 it did freeze up on me to where I have to hold the power button for a few seconds to power down, then boot up again. The heat was coming up through the keyboard, which normally doesn't happen on the 8887 like it does on other laptops (I suspect the right-side vent is doing a great job sucking out the hot air!).

I thought maybe it's the fault of DirectX 9, the Catalyst drivers, one of the numerous Windows critical updates I had installed, or maybe just the game itself that was causing the lockups, but now that you mention it, it could be the heat. So far I only get lockups when playing Grand Theft Auto, so I felt it didn't warrant further investigating. But I'll keep watch over things. Thanks for bringing up the heat issue!

I hope the auto-shutdowns you're having just go away (as some computer glitches often do with no logical explanation) or that Clevo whips out another BIOS update shortly. Hang in there!

keal
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post #7 of 10
5/31/03 at 11:49pm
Thread Starter 
I have been running with this new bios for a few weeks now. When the laptop gets too hot, it shuts down, no questions asked. When in linux, I throttle down the CPU (echo -n 6 > /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/throttling) and all seems fine. I especially have the problem when I run in windows and play Morrowind. I think is has something to do with the way I hold the laptop. I lay on a sofa and rest it on my lap. My right leg blocks the bottom fans. If I sit slightly awkward such that my leg doesn't block the vent, the laptop doesn't overheat for a while longer.

I wish they would come out with a BIOS where I could set this threshold some kind of way.
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post #8 of 10
6/1/03 at 12:32am
HoofHearted,

I bought a Laptop Desk from Lapworks for about $37.00 including shipping. It's a plastic folding lapdesk and I use it with my 8887 when laying on the sofa in a similar position as you

Tiger Direct also sells the laptop desk for the same price... anyway you might want to consider getting it. I swear by it and use it even when I'm working on my desktop. My 8887 never sits on anything but that lapdesk!

Cheers, and I hope you find a workaround to the heat issue, even if you don't get a lapdesk!

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post #9 of 10
6/1/03 at 1:22am
I use a Laptop Desk 2.0 also, based on Myrkat's recommendation about his. Works fine either full open or folded on an incline, but get ANY hard surface to put it on, from a thin cutting board on up. Don't know how you stand it right on your legs, and don't put it on a cloth pad or blanket. These babies gotta breathe!
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post #10 of 10
6/22/03 at 12:51pm
Thread Starter 
Got one from Comp USA yesterday. My legs dont get hot anymore. The thing still shuts down when I play Morrowind. I rolled back dx9 to 8. I turned off Hyperthreading (see note below) THis was easy in linux but way hard in Winders. Morrowind still threw a BSOD with atidrv.dll (something like that). I am open to other ideas.

HT note: I must say Microshaft makes WAY too much work out of this, boot their SLOW ass cd, do a restore, then windows turns on all the crap you had to disable especially WFP and puts back that annoying messenger thing) Linux boots just the same, no problems, I did do a cp .config ~ && make mrproper then disable SMP in my .config to rebuild (kernel will have errors otherwise).
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