Sager NP9377 Bios mishappenings

[Guest]

If you didn't make any changes in BIOS or XTU before the reboot then there is really no reason for the BIOS to be the cause this. Its likely that a system component has failed.

The BIOS recovery is only really recommended if a BIOS flash itself failed and NOT to reset BIOS values. For that a simple CMOS battery reset is the way to go.

Tying to flash "a multitude of BIOS images" via recovery may now have very well bricked the system BIOS after all.

Here the proper recovery file for P377SM-A:

https://mega.nz/#!zBcgFbiA!O-kf5xc2hnxRehM9-QD166WZ_ADy1VVT4nwUv0BCjVo

To iron out other components you can try to boot with only a single RAM and single GPU. If that isn't enough you may also try to remove all SSD/HDD, Wifi, mSATA etc

If that doesn't help I can also arrange a BIOS dump from a running system for reprogramming as well as chip locations and specks...

[jshackley]

If you didn't make any changes in BIOS or XTU before the reboot then there is really no reason for the BIOS to be the cause this. Its likely that a system component has failed.

The BIOS recovery is only really recommended if a BIOS flash itself failed and NOT to reset BIOS values. For that a simple CMOS battery reset is the way to go.

Tying to flash "a multitude of BIOS images" via recovery may now have very well bricked the system BIOS after all.

Here the proper recovery file for P377SM-A:

https://mega.nz/#!zBcgFbiA!O-kf5xc2hnxRehM9-QD166WZ_ADy1VVT4nwUv0BCjVo

To iron out other components you can try to boot with only a single RAM and single GPU. If that isn't enough you may also try to remove all SSD/HDD, Wifi, mSATA etc

If that doesn't help I can also arrange a BIOS dump from a running system for reprogramming as well as chip locations and specks...

Thank you Prema. I just want to say that I've been a long time lurker in the forums and I've always been blown away by the support you provide. It's unheard of. Hell, most OEM's don't provide the level of support you do. I've never seen or heard of anything like it (and you don't even have to provide the support since they're mods). Thank you for what you do. Yours is the patience of a Saint.

I actually work as an Embedded Engineer for a mid size solar inverter OEM writing and designing custom Linux boot loaders/kernels/and high level OS programs for monitoring and networking, so I'm familiar with the flash process of EEPROM and in circuit upgrades. I did attempt recovery with the file provided, no go on that one I'm afraid. One would think Clevo would have some kind of UART/JTAG debugging port on their hardware that one could slice into for a read out of what was failing POST and causing the boot to fail. Couldn't find any information on it though.

I feel guilty taking time away from your travels and I don't want to take up any more of your time with my issues. I picked up a new motherboard which should arrive either tomorrow or the next day so I can get my machine back up and running. Maybe I'll play around with the original motherboard and pull the BIOS off replace it with a socket for easy removal and flashing of test BIOS or in circuit EEPROM flashing. I am curious though, how did you get into this racket? If you can share, what are the compilers/decompilers that you use to hack and rebuild the images you find? I would assume you have some kind of master token or you have source code from Clevo directly, I'm just curious how you actually go about it and what you use to break down and rebuild these ROM's.

I would love if you could send me the BIOS dump though. I have access to an EPROM/SPI programmer so I could try to push the dump with flashrom to see if it would recover (I want to use the old motherboard as a development board at this point, so why not?)

You assistance is more than appreciated and if there is anything that I can do now or in the future, let me know and I'll throw the best I have at it!<script type="text/javascript" src="safari-extension://com.ebay.safari.myebaymanager-QYHMMGCMJR/d0ffde0f/background/helpers/prefilterHelper.js"></script><script type="text/javascript" src="safari-extension://com.ebay.safari.myebaymanager-QYHMMGCMJR/d0ffde0f/background/helpers/prefilterHelper.js"></script>

[jshackley]

New motherboard installed. I had trouble with this one. The physical install went smooth and without a hitch. The problems came when I attempted to boot.

Blank screen.

I began to fear that my GPU was bad. After I did some troubleshooting, I was able to grab hold of a thunderbolt cable and tried an external monitor. Lo and behold, I had a splash screen on the external monitor, but not the internal display.

Okay, so the display is bad. Not the worst thing that could happen since I want to upgrade anyway. Flashed v2 P377SM-A BIOS no issues. Installed all of my hard drives and booted back into Windows.

My internal display flickered back to life. Like nothing at all had happened. After some updates, I decided to reboot the machine and hop into the BIOS settings to check if anything was weird.

Blank screen.

I hooked the thunderbolt display back up and I could then see the BIOS settings pages.

So, the internal display won't display the BIOS splash, but will come to life when I boot into Windows and the only way I can access the BIOS is with an external display. Think this is a bug in the firmware? Ever heard of this happening? I don't know if you'd be interested in any kind of dump logs or anything like that, but if you are, let me know!

[Guest]

New motherboard installed. I had trouble with this one. The physical install went smooth and without a hitch. The problems came when I attempted to boot.

Blank screen.

I began to fear that my GPU was bad. After I did some troubleshooting, I was able to grab hold of a thunderbolt cable and tried an external monitor. Lo and behold, I had a splash screen on the external monitor, but not the internal display.

Okay, so the display is bad. Not the worst thing that could happen since I want to upgrade anyway. Flashed v2 P377SM-A BIOS no issues. Installed all of my hard drives and booted back into Windows.

My internal display flickered back to life. Like nothing at all had happened. After some updates, I decided to reboot the machine and hop into the BIOS settings to check if anything was weird.

Blank screen.

I hooked the thunderbolt display back up and I could then see the BIOS settings pages.

So, the internal display won't display the BIOS splash, but will come to life when I boot into Windows and the only way I can access the BIOS is with an external display. Think this is a bug in the firmware? Ever heard of this happening? I don't know if you'd be interested in any kind of dump logs or anything like that, but if you are, let me know!

I have seen this on Optimus systems with a bug in iGPU vBIOS, but do not remember hearing about it for an MXM only system...only in cases with an incorrect vBIOS.

What's the vBIOS revision on your GTX970M?

Does this happen with the BIOS set to legacy AND UEFI mode?

[jshackley]

Apologies for the late reply.

The issue occurs using the stock GTX 970M VBIOS (64.04.22.00.13) as well as the Overvolt ROM found on the forums (I don't have the revision off hand). I've not tested the Overvolt-G ROM yet (G=G-SYNC I imagine).

Interestingly enough, the issue is actually present not only with the modified BIOS of the board, but also the stock BIOS as well (Eurocom/PREMA BIOS).

I boot exclusively with UEFI, so there is definitely the possibility of the UEFI graphic API not calling to the GPU and not loading it at all, or there may be a small corruption in the vBIOS the card is using where it can't parse a return value to the UEFI driver to output. Or it could be hardware related to the GPU itself, but that should red flag the card during POST I would imagine.

I can't currently test UEFI vs. BIOS booting due to the VCORE controller burning out on the motherboard (hit a MOSFET that's impossible to come by as well) due to a pinched LVDS/eDP cable that shorted on a small internal screw (reassembling the laptop caused the cable to be damaged as it was over a screw thread that I didn't notice). I've got another board on order so hopefully I can get it installed and back to testing status first thing in the morning and report back the status.

It's my assumption that it's either GPU hardware related or it's vBIOS related. It's not a critical bug as the machine will boot and display once Windows takes over the GPU API handling, but I always hold my breath when it's starting up.