ThinkPad Notebooks: Freezing At Boot Up After Upgrading BIOS - August 2016

[Pacman4565]

Hello, 

Yesterday I updated my X200 using the lenovo update centre program. I updated the BIOS, Intel management engine (sol) and intel management interface as well as a few drivers such as trackpoint driver. The BIOS seemed to flash fine and laptop was running ok. I then decided to unistall both intel management engine and interface. After each uninstall it asked me to reboot, I rebooted after the second unistall. The laptop was docked, lid closed and connected to vga monitor, mains and some peripherals through docking station. Now the laptop won't boot, it powers on with led, charge light is on when connected but just a black screen, Bluetooth led is also on. Tried removing battery and discharging cmos battery by holding power button, this didn't work. Is the cmos battery dead?

Any ideas on how to fix this? 

Thanks for reading 

Neil  

[Prabhansh]

Hi Neil,

Welcome to Lenovo Community!

As I understand that you are facing issue that system is not booting in Windows after upgrading to BIOS.

You can try the following:

> Remove the CMOS battery, and allow system to set for 30 mins.

> Location of CMOS battery and instructions for removal can be found in the system hardware maintenance manuals.  Here is the link for the X200 HMM, pg 83

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-70395.html

In response to customer reports system freezing at boot up after BIOS upgrade there are many links available

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-X-Series-Laptops/Blank-screen-after-Bios-Upgrade-on-X200/ta-p/...

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-X-Series-Laptops/Blank-screen-after-Bios-Ugrade-to-3-15-on-X20...

I hope the above information helps.

Please feel free to post in Lenovo Community Forums if you have any further queries!

Regards,

Prabhansh

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[x220forme]

I can't imagine how to resolve issue by customer if Intel ME firmware has been damaged as well. It's a basic fw for CPU.

Probably, you must contact some technician with hw programmer and reflash the BIOS chip, ME region including.

[Pacman4565]

Yeah I assumed that it would be a tricky fix. Would I be able to flash libreboot on to the chip and install Linux on the hard drive externally? 

https://libreboot.org/docs/install/x200_external.html#flashchips

[Pacman4565]

So I just removed the cmos battery, it now boots the BIOS but there is now a power on password that wasn't there before.

I have tried the steps here to no avail: https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/documents/ht036206#super

[x220forme]

Did you try to leave it empty and press Enter?

[Pacman4565]

Yes I tried just hitting enter, no luck 

[Prabhansh]

Hi pacman,

Try the following steps & check:

• Turn off laptop, remove battery.
• Remove palmrest, and remove keyboard (leave keyboard plugged in).
• Remove CMOS battery, and boot up the laptop without CMOS battery.

Here is the link for the X200 HMM for disassembly.

Do let us know how it goes.

Regards,

Prabhansh

______________________________________________

Tap that Kudos button if I helped.
If you find a post helpful and it answers your question, please mark it as an "Accepted Solution"!