I bricked a NUC7i7BNH in an attempt to update from 0042 to 0093 (the only one I could find on the ASUS website) and I didn’t see the warning there (only found out later elsewhere) that this jump is way to big. The UEFI update didn’t work at all you I upgraded via the recovery method (via power button) and after that it claimed it update was successful and asked to power down/up and then: bricked. As in: nothing, black screen. All attempts to do a recovery flash via power button or jumper: no luck, the machine just remains dead with a black screen, no activity on display or anything, just getting awful warm after some time.
I’ve been doing quite some digging around here, ordered an SPI programmer, managed to save the current image (in bricked state) and did some digging on ME Analyzer and ME Cleaner, but so far: sound of silence. The only sign of life is a green LED on the motherboard and some erratic fan activity, not even a blue power LED.
I’m kinda stuck here, the whole terrain of bios modding is entirely new to me. Is there a way to revive this NUC? I attached the bin I was able to extract from the SPI.
I noticed @jovink had a similar case and @lfb6 provided an ME reconstructed bin and I bumped that thread a few days ago, but unfortunately they seem no longer active here.
I will keep digging around but any fingerpoints or some help with fixing this old NUC would be appreciated, she served me well and despite that I already bought another machine I hate do waste a device if there is ‘only’ some software issues with it that can be fixed. backup_NUC7i7BNH_bios.bin.zip (5.4 MB)
I’ll try to get you a re-constructed file later on after dinner (UTC -1), no time for it for a couple of hours…
EDIT:
Too much info for users that have no bases of it… sorry can’t waste my time with such long explanations.
Besides some operations that are already covered by our guides like Cleaning/re-initialize the CSME FW Engine, etc…
EDIT: Try it, based of same bios version to preserve NVRAM/DMI.
@Odieke EDIT: Then try this one and report behaviour.
There is absolutely no rush and i appreciate any help, if you could also educate me a bit in what is the actual fix? From what I’ve read so far I’m still confused about the real rootcause and how i could have fixed this myself.
Understood and no worries, I appreciate the helping hand in any form. I flashed and verified the new .bin but unfortunately no play. I do see a slight change in behavior. Before flashing the fan would only very slowly spin (if at all). Now the fan spins faster and it seems to be responding to the power button, meaning: if I press and hold the power button the spinning stops for a short while as if the board is rebooting. However, nothing on HDMI or Thunderbolt, no blue power led on the power button, still only the green LED on the motherboard…
With the second image more or less the same: spinning fan but it quits out of itself after a while. Nothing on HDMI and thunderbolt. Fan responds to holding the power button (stops and restarts again), no power button LED, just the green LED on the motherboard.
Assuming integrity data match on files provided vs new dump after flashed…
Well, sorry but both images have different ME fw versions and cleaned, the only part i didn’t touch was NVRAM volumes in bios region. Didn’t saw abnormal data in bios region reaming volumes. You can try to merge them from Intel bios file 042/093.
Good luck.
EDIT: Since you got nothing to lose here…give it a try with lfb6 file provided to user here, just to check if behavior is the same…
Strange…with all these files.
You have here another one and read lfb6 content that will lead you to a “quick” guide showing you what kind of operations we need to perform, for trying to rebuild a current system dump with original update files, this is what you ask previously.
You will notice the EC part and a 2nd IC mention… and as lfb6 states, i also concur that its very unlikely that they got corrupted by a failed bios update.
That’s it from me regarding your issue, all the best, good luck.
After nothing worked, in a desperate final attempt I started checking all bins I had on my system. Not sure where I got this from, but I flashed a ‘nuc7bk.bin’ and with this image I had a bit of success: the machine boots (after a looooong wait) and I’m able to get into the BIOS (and it even boots the Linux image). Initially the CMOS was not set and the fan blow decent, but after saving the CMOS time seemingly the fan was not in a happy mood again and the machine quickly overheats. Seemingly this is the .69 version of the BIOS.
Anyhow, I’m able to get into the BIOS. What is recommended now? Reflash the old image I had on the machine initially? Flash another one? Since cooling is an issue now I only have brief windows of opportunity before the external fan is unable to keep it cool
If the system now boots and has post/bios access, i do recommend Intel official recovery methods to same version as it is now and regular increased updates till last one.
Ok some magic has happened here. On the firmware that I used above I wasn’t able to recover. So what I did is I installed again the original image you send me, this worked. This was based on the latest 0093 image. I then downloaded the original 0093 from softpedia and flashed this the normal way (via f7). This worked. Immediate after booting I noticed a big difference: the HDD and power LED started glowing.
I need to do more testing, but I call this success. It seems the NUC is unbricked and although I not understand why the original attempt with your image before my travels failed and now it worked, but hey…. it worked.
Thank you for all the help, truly truly appreciated. Although I already got myself a replacement NUC, this saved some equipment from the bin. And I learned valuable lessons *tips at hat*.
