[Problem] Bricked ACER PREDATOR HELIOS 300 PH317-52 BIOS

BIOS/UEFI Modding BIOS Modding Guides and Problems
1

TLDR;

I will VERY briefly surmize of the last 2 years on how (I believe) my bios got bricked just for context cuz I think this info wont help you help me do what I want now (flash my bios).

So I decided to dual bootubuntu into this laptop (just untill i backed up my personal data etc then it would run only linux)

The installation seemed sucessfull but for some reason my wifi card used to die only in linux like working since boot and just deciding to die while the laptop keeps being on (without hybernating etc) after a few hours, this never happens in windows.

Then an other strange thing happened, if I clicked on windows start/windows_icon> Power>RESTART the laptop restared just fine without ANY issue what so ever.

Also the laptop worked under windows 24/7 fine even under heavy workload (video encoding rendering AAAgaming etc) there were no crashes or abrupt reboots.

BUT

if I clicked on Start> Power> SHUT DOWN the computer would shut down normally but when booting up I would get black screen (no bios post no splash screen or screen backlight what so ever) only the keyboard led would power up but keyboard seemed unresponsive (e.g ctril+alt+del should cause a restart under dos or bios post prosses but it didnt do anything )

and it boot looped.

But after boot looping a few times (at random temperatures or other stuff like it being plugged in me clicking on f12 or f2 or delete etc not seeming to yield the same results every time this happened) sometimes 3-4 times sometimes more than 10 times but at some point the laptop posted and then I boot normaly to windows and then it is rocksolid stable 24/7 no matter the workload.

So I just never shutdown again and just restart if rarely needed (e.g installing an app )

but windows update would cause this too (restarting the pc but only when automatically restarting under the windows update process the pc would again boot loop for some times)

But on one windows update (cant remember which) the laptop decided to just boot loop without posting and screen for ever…

I tried every usual troubleshooting step (taking off the battery, reseting using the knob on the mobo, changing ram dims removing and formating the nvme and hdd, repasting and repading and cleaning the cooling system etc ) but nothing.

/TLDR;

So I decided that maybe during the windows update the bios got bricked because it already had that loop issue since I installed linux as dual boot so maybe that caused something with the UEFI or whatever.

Now I have an ch341a pro programmer and a 8 pin clip/clam

I put together everything like this:
shorturl. at/ZBqNS (url of pic 1, delete the gaps, sorry it doesnt let me upload more than 1 pic or 1 url)

shorturl. at/7CZRD (url of pic 2)

(this is a 16 pin clip screenshot of which I took from the web but I followed the same orientation for pin 1, the redline of the cable etc)

I installed the driver for the ch341a pro, and latest version of As Programmer.

I selected IC>SPI>WINBOND>W25Q128JV (because thats what it says on the chip on the motherboard)

Then I decided this is the one because I kinda know how bios chips look like on GPUs and other stuff and it looks the same like 8 small etc

I also saw this screenshot when googling my mobos model name

image
image1105×555 70.4 KB

The chip on my mobo actually says “winbond W25Q128JVSQ” but this option wasnt available on AsProgrammer.

I used the clip’s pin1 (the one ending on the red cable) on the pin that is next on a lil engraved dot on the bios chip

I took a few reads (after clipping and unclipping etc) and compared the files with fc.exe /b and files seem identical so I guess I did that step right

This is what I got(I included a reposrt from UEFItoolExe):

fastupload. io/4c6279554943c43b (Report)

fastupload. io/00319b4e4a44049f (Bios bin file)

I also downloaded the latest acer bios directly from acer support enterting my serial number and finding my exact variant of predator helios 300 (PH317-52)

Turns out that the download mentioned above had two images so I needed to extract one, this is the bios that should work for my laptop

fastupload. io/82b28d97e654aabc (Has more differences and first difference starts in line 00000100, but a user having an identical motherboard up to the revision letter said this worked for him, could the many differences be due to my bios being corrupted? )

fastupload. io/7860da34a7d9c602 (Has differences but I think at least 50% less differences and the first difference starts at line 00000140)

Now what?

I mean do I need to edit anything from the vanilla bios I got from Acer’s website (linked above) before flashing it on the bios chip?

If so which parts exactly? Also where do I find the section I need to edit or extract info from ? (its my first time and it all looks greek to me in binary code… :stuck_out_tongue: )

I also cant find the vbios chip on my board (the bios of the GPU)

Can you help me find it?

Here are the schematics and the boardview of the mobo:

fastupload. io/f3e66effa9d03a60 (Schematics, pdf needs password: 2018AcerMP )

fastupload. io/74ccea91980628ae (Boardview)

So the bios file on the boardview is the chip named UH2"
But I cant find a chip UG (or otherwise) that looks like a bios chip to me…

You could also google high rez pictures of the mobo by googling its model name: DH53F LA-F991P

Does this mean that the GTX 1060 on this mobo has its bios in the main bios chip?

Please help I cant afford getting a new laptop for the forseable future.

Thanks a lot.


Edit by Fernando: Thread title customized and shortened

2

You’ll loose all machine specific information like serial, windows code…

And there are two versions of latest stock firmware - so you’d need to know which one is valid for your model.

3

Yea that’s why I uploaded my current bios dumb I am asking for guidance on where to find this data, also like one by one what elements of it do I need to find like do I need to find only two stuff e.g serial and windows key ? Or more? And which do I absolutely need like for the machine to boot and work? (Like I guess I can add the windows key while installing windows on the machine again )

Also I downloaded the latest bios for my model by entering the serial number on Acers website i left a link above for the bios I downloaded too.

Because I am a new user they don’t allow more than one links per Post of mine here so I put a space after the dot to overcome this

Like:

Example. com

Instead of

Example.com

The only thing one needs to do is the delete the spade after the dot for the links on my main post to work.

4

Sorry, didn’t read all of the text you wrote- it’s simply too much, so unclear what you did to brick your machine.

Download the bios version you had on your machine, use UEFIToolNE for structure. If there are several versions: The differences are often in bios region, unpack files and firmware images from fd- files and compare to your dump.
Ideally one version should have identical static parts to you bios region. Check for differences with an hex editor, serials, win code, other machine specific data are easily recognizable.

For your dump: The static parts of bios region are 100% identical to stock, so the two other possibilities are NVRAM and ME region.

5

haha sorry, I was detailed in order for people to understand exactly what i did (the encapsulated walltext between the “TLDR” tags is not nessesary to read for the subject at hand just provides a background story of the symptoms and what I tried to troubleshoot)

But apparently it didnt help but confuse so this is where I am at

I dont know which exactly is the vannyla bios (from Acer) that will work for me since their .exe has two images

fastupload. io/82b28d97e654aabc (Has more differences and first difference starts in line 00000100, but a user having an identical motherboard up to the revision letter said this worked for him, could the many differences be due to my bios being corrupted? )

fastupload. io/7860da34a7d9c602 (Has differences but I think at least 50% less differences and the first difference starts at line 00000140)

(comparisons have been made with my bin that I extracted and linked above but here is the link again: fastupload. io/00319b4e4a44049f)

So problem 1: which bios should I pick from the two to flash on my mobo? :stuck_out_tongue:

Problem 2: Can you elaborate a lil more cause I never edited bios roms in my life, what do you mean “use UEFIToolNE for structure”? Like I opened the bin with it but I dont see any structure options only the option to dump a report txt file (of my bios read with the ch341a) which I already uploaded in my first post ( fastupload. io/4c6279554943c43b )

Also you say “serials,win code, other machine specific data are easily recognized” but all seem like hex “20 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF F5 5C 58 12 21 42 60 AD B7 B9 C4 C7 FF FF FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 06 FF” spaghetti to me… I only know that FF probably means “blank area” :stuck_out_tongue:

Could you elaborate a lil more maybe there are strings of hex that serve as identifiers for a field e.g for “serial number” or maybe you can link me with a good tutorial on this? Thanks.

as for what you said in the last line where are those NVRAM and ME regions at? :stuck_out_tongue:

I really need a lil more dumbed down version of your reply cause it’s my first time :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks a lot for your effort and time I really apreciate it and I am sorry that I didnt get what you try to say.

6

There’s quite a lot of structure visible in UEFIToolNE?

image
image1584×1009 18.3 KB

You don’t start in the beginning since the ME region get’s very early initialized (changes state in MEA from configured to initialized). ME configuration you’d read with FIT from Intel CSME tools, if necessary.

So you normally compare the bios region from the end of the firmware since changes are only supposed to be in NVRAM and in padding areas. If NVRAM isn’t first volume you check bios region from its start, too (here 0x600000).

7

Ok so let me get this straight in your screenshot you have selected the “bios region” tree header thingy (marked in blue).

On the information section (top right) of the screen shot it says “offset 600000h”

So I should go to my hex editor where I compare my bios dump vs acer’s bios I just downloaded turn the offset to hex (h) and go to area 600000 to check and compare the same region market in the UEFIToolNE in your screenshot?

So something like this?

image
image1910×1037 74.5 KB

and scroll down till I find a difference? and then what?

8

Correct understood, but missing one step:

The fd files contain the firmware images, but they have other stuff in the end and beginning…

Like this post, last 2 pics as example (not your firmware).

And for the beginning just compare from the end of the firmware/ bios region, it’s easier!

9

Ok I wrote the bios back and the laptop worked!!!
Kinda…

I have screen, keyboard and keyboard backlight works
mousepad works
USB ports work
the laptop posts and i am able to boot to a windows installation USB

but the installation doesnt see non of the disks ! (1 nvme ssd and one HDD)

diskpart also doesnt see them

In sata ports in the bios are enabled but bios also doesnt see the disks…

Nothing changes if I set the sata to ACHI or RST with optane mode…

the rest seem to work fine bios sees my CPU, me 32GM ram etc

Should I transfer some code from the old bios so that the disks work?

10

Which one did you flash- DH53F_1A of DH53F_10?

(Didn’t I write to flash a unchagend firmware?)

11

DH53F_10

Since I wasn’t sure what to do (also there wasnt much to check from my bricked bios file in UEFItool most VSSstore entries were labeled as “invalid”) I decided to yolo it and I googled online and found this forum topic where someone with the exact same motherboard as mine (even the same revision) asked for bios. (I tried after this DH53F_1A but with that the laptop doesnt even post)

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubleshooting-hardware-devices-and-electronics-theory/troubleshooting-laptops-tablets-and-mobile-devices/bios-requests-only/71253-acer-predator-ph317-52-dh53f-la-f991p-rev-1-c-bios

from SMDFlea’s reply in that thread.

Everything works fine, hdmi, USB, sound, I run a live Ubuntu usb, the Nvidia GPU drivers work I played games, video works, WiFi, bluetooth, webcam, multiple finger gestures on mouse pad etc all as it should EXCEPT that it doesn’t see the harddrives (not just in diskpart but also in bios… )

I also made a bootable windows on USB (usng a program called wintousb) and I also run windows from the usb stick without any issue with sound wifi video etc

I did that in hopes to download the bios exe from ACER but it wont patch since it seems that I already have the latest version… :frowning:

the Nvme and hdd themselves are fine if I plug them as external USB devices they work fine.

12

Funny enough it’s DH53F_1A which is in your own dump (4th_Read.bin). And ME config is different which explains why you’re missing some disks. Normally the 1A stock should work if properly flashed (check with a separate read!)

1a.zip (5.4 MB)

13

Dear friend thank you for your patience, but I dont know what to check :stuck_out_tongue: :cry:

Do you think that the bios in 1a.zip you uploaded will work?

if not what should I do to it?

EDIT: I just tried your 1a bios and it boot loops without posting or screen… maybe if you did the same ME stuff or whatever you did/copied but pasting it on the dh53f_10 I linked above (cause it otherwise works just fine ) ?

Also I tried a few others “ready to use” bioses that worked for other ppl with same laptop but those, didn’t work for me either.

I noticed thou that some came with an EC rom along with the bios rom in the rar file, there is an identical dh53f_10 to “mine” that also has in the same folder it came with an EC rom, you think this rom could be the culprit for hard drives to work ? If yes do you know where that EC chip is ?

14

Both ME region and bios region point to DH53F_1A. That bios region got updated to a wrong version seems not pplausible since ME is an rather old version that hasn’t been updated a long time (or never).

So if the system starts with disks not addressed with DH53F1A it might be that there’s an error with the disks and the other firmware works just since it doesn’t adress them.

I’d recommend flashing DH53F_1A (or my 1a.rom, it’s a stock bios with machine specific data preserved) again (it might need some restarts to boot up fully), and remove both harddisk and NVMe disk before trying to restart.

15

Well I don’t know what to say to you … maybe the issues started cause grub (back when I installed Linux on the machine ) mismatched something on the UEFI bios?

Or maybe the guy (from the forum mentioned above) I took the DH53F_10 which works for me just mishmatched the file name and its actually a DH53F_1A binary ?

All I know is that NONE of the DH53F_1A bios I found online (or the one you uploaded here as 1a.zip) don’t even boot like I press the power button and nothing happens ( yours spins the fans for a little bit opens the red light on the keyboard but no monitor light or signal no screen in general and it power loops for an eternity I left it for 15 minutes nothing changed it just reboots on its own spinning the fans for a few seconds after each boot and CPU cooler doesn’t get hot or even noticably warm even when fans are not working )

As of now only the DH53F_10 works perfectly

So this one in particular

it boots all the other IO works it runs operating systems just fine I run both Ubuntu latest version and win 10 pro from a USB stick and surfed the web played steam games watched videos etc without any crash

BUT and that’s a big but :yum: it can not see my nvme or my HDD in bios or in Windows obviously (like disk part or the special program it has for drives or in device manager ) but the drives themselves are good and I tested them by placing them in a USB drive enclosure and connecting them to this very laptop and read and wrote files on them and checked their health and everything is fine (I also tried to change from MBR to gpt etc of the nvme while on a usb enclosure but later when I plugged it on the m.2 port inside the laptop nothing it still didn’t get recognized by the bios not just as a boot device but on system info all SATA ports seem empty )

16

The DH53F_10 BIOS.BIN you linked is identical to the file one can extract from the latest bios update.

One of the main differences between DH53F_10 and DH53F_1A is a different SATA / RST config- see the differences:

image
image1919×916 30.3 KB

These are the only differences between both firmware types in FD and ME.

Your bios (if the 4th_Read.bin is really a dump of your machine) is congruent with DH53F_1A both in bios region and ME configuration.

So for me this smells hardware since the board layout doesn’t change over night.

As far as I understand your last post correctly you didn’t try a DH53F_1A firmware without NVMe disk and SATA disk attached (the error is probably on the board, not in the disks). It might have been interesting if the machine would boot without load on these PCH PCIe lanes.

Since you probably won’t trust my conclusion pretending that DH53F_10 works ‘almost perfectly (but without disks)’ you might try the DH53F_1A FD and ME region (the first 0x600000) - that way getting RST / SATA ports properly configured - with a DH53F_10 bios region (the last 0xA00000).
The result should be pretty much the same as with a ‘pure’ DH53F_1A, since first hardware initialization done during ME boot will stop at the same point whatever bios region is following

I’m out of this at this point.

Good luck!

17

Noone said that I dont trust you, otherwise I wouldnt even patch the 1a.bin file, (and yes 4th_read allong with 1st,2nd…up to 6th are all my bios reads using AsProgrammer with ch341a pro usb and a 8 pin clip and all files seem identical with each other compared to HxD editor and fc.exe in windos cmd)

It’s just that maybe something happened during the period of dual boot windows/linux (which is when my system was 24/7 stable but if shutdown and boot again I had to endure some restarts like as if the mobo was training ram again, btw I bought new ram recently and run the computer with that now) or during the last big windows update a years or so back (that’s when the PC died and looped forever)

Having that said later today I will try to load the 1A.zip bios you uploaded without any Nvme or SSD attached lets hope it doesnt boot :stuck_out_tongue: cause otherwise it means I have to run windows using an external nvme usb type C enclosure 24/7 :frowning:

If that is the case are sata controllers like seperate small chips on the board kinda easy to unsolder and replace or would I have to change the entire northbridge die with its thousand little balls to see if I can make them work again?

18

Please wait a moment with flashing something!

I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize a single bit error in your dump and kept it into 1.rom since I used your dump and just put in a stock ME region and stock NVRAM volume!

image
image1334×337 18.2 KB

1E 0001 1110
1A 0001 1010

Should have recognized it since it since the difference is visible in UEFIToolNE when you expand the volume enough:

image
image1584×483 21.7 KB

This is enough to explain a brick, but flashing a stock bios 1A should definitely make the machine boot!

Otherwise the boot loop with my first try fits OK with an error in bios region, and it was different behaviour compared to when you had flashed stock bios 1A?

Please try this firmware:

2a.zip (5.4 MB)

19

Ο-Μ-G I tip my fedora to you sir when I grow up I want to be like you !! :smiley:

Thanks m8 you saved my laptops life and saved me from a lot of trouble since i didnt have any alternative other to revive it, you are the real mvp :')

How you found that one byte difference in this spagheti code wall beats me…
But I want to get more into this bios moding thing :stuck_out_tongue:

Do you have to recomend any good book or tutorials or manuals or whatever that will enlighten me and make me one day be near as good as you are? :slight_smile:

Speaking of moding, and I know I ask for too much but hope is the last to die :stuck_out_tongue: , when I was troubleshooting I bought a 3200 MT XMP ramkit to check if the ram died or can not pass the “trainning” phase (and that was maybe why it bootlooped I thought)

But it runs at 2666 I wonder since you seem you know what you are doing if you could unlock the OC settings of the bios I have seen screenshots of people with acer predator helios 300 laptops to have them unlocked so there should be there in the bios already but hidden.

Here is my bios in the current state (enabled some things but mostly windows did a firmware update and some others so maybe moding this particular one is better for a seemless reflashing on my side? you know better either use that or your previous 2A file :slight_smile: if you wont bother doesnt matter thanks again :slight_smile: )

But even if you dont I owe one sir, thanks again for your patiens and time you are really a good person nobody else cared besides you I hope you will get your goodness back 10 fold :slight_smile:

20

Thanks for the feedback, good to hear that it worked :+1:

I’m sorry, I don’t have much (any) knowledge of the modding part, maybe someone else did it already for a comparable model, you might search the forum or post a request for modding.

Your new dump is a fine backup, but there’s no newer firmware in it, the ME changed from configured to initialized and the NVRAM got populated again, that are the only differences and they’re expected.