W540 BIOS Update Failed

[fj1200]

Good morning

I have a W540 that I've just finished updating to W10 - latest and greatest, fully patched etc etc and it was running nice and smooth - but I had a BIOS update notification so against my better judgement I went with it and now I have a W540-shaped brick.

This is a custom build from 2014 that I ordered in my contracting days and it's been on jobs with me all over Europe and beyond and I am kind of attached to it. Has 32GB RAM and runs a full VMware lab, has a Pantone screen calibrator (I'm a keen photographer), all the bells and whistles. Cost me a fortune.

So - it currently gets to the ThinkPad logo and just sits there. If I press F1 at boot says it's entering Setup but never does, same with boot menu and diags menu.

I have a Wincrisis USB that I'm trying to see if I can re-flash the BIOS but no joy. There are some sites that say use Fn+B or Fn+K at power-on, some say you must have the battery out, others say it must be in. When I boot it, the USB light blinks as it's read but the goes solid and nothing happens even if I leave it an hour or 2. I've tried everything I can think of. Am I using the right key combinations at boot? I even replaced the BIOS battery with a new one, and I'm getting 3.24v at the connector so I don't think it's that.

Has anyone here actually been able to successfully recover a failed W540 BIOS? Is there a way to do it without removing the motherboard and reflashing it that way? I have the kit, just don't really want to use it.

Many thanks

[RealBlackStuff]

Could it be that you have a damaged USB port?
USB should be 5V.
Have you tried the reset button (hole in the bottom)?
Remove HDD/SSD, CD/Ultrabay caddy, battery and charger, then hold down the power button for ~20 seconds.
Attach charger and try to boot.

[fj1200]

The 3.24v is the battery not the usb port. I don't think there is a reset button on a W540 - not one I've seen anyway. I've done the static discharge several times now, but I'll have another go with the SSD out (it's out atm anyway)

UPDATE:
Nope - sorry, no change.

[RealBlackStuff]

Reading too fast caused my 5V slip-up, apologies.
Get this userguide: https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobi ... _ug_en.pdf
Has a lot of reset/recovery info in it.

Can you maybe try to update/downgrade your BIOS with a 'regular' BIOS?
FYI: if you want to update ANY BIOS, always use a self-booting CD or USB, do NOT fall in the Micro$haft trap of using Windoze!
And remove any HDD/SSD drives before you start.

[fj1200]

Yeah - Sadly a bit too late for that. I'll have a look through the link though, thanks. Unfortunately I can't boot anything off it atm - I've tried the bootable CD option, it does the initialising bit then stops. I swapped the CD for a drive caddy in the original build - horrible cheap nasty plastic thing that I ditched and got a nice aluminium one from Amazon instead. Arrived with the 1TB drive rattling around inside loose. Its been ok all these years on though.

[fj1200]

For those that know more about these things than I do I found a txt file on the hard drive from the laptop containing the original from the factory BIOS info - don't know if this helps any but there it is anyway:

BiosCharacteristics BIOSVersion BuildNumber Caption CodeSet CurrentLanguage Description IdentificationCode InstallableLanguages InstallDate LanguageEdition ListOfLanguages Manufacturer Name OtherTargetOS PrimaryBIOS ReleaseDate SerialNumber SMBIOSBIOSVersion SMBIOSMajorVersion SMBIOSMinorVersion SMBIOSPresent SoftwareElementID SoftwareElementState Status TargetOperatingSystem Version
{7, 9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 32, 33, 40, 42, 43, 49, 56, 57, 58, 59, 64, 73, 75} {"LENOVO - 2150", "Phoenix BIOS SC-T v2.1"} Phoenix BIOS SC-T v2.1 en-US Phoenix BIOS SC-T v2.1 1 {"en-US"} LENOVO Phoenix BIOS SC-T v2.1 TRUE 20140922000000.000000+000 R900LDZX GNET67WW (2.15 ) 2 7 TRUE Phoenix BIOS SC-T v2.1 3 OK 0 LENOVO - 2150

Going to download the GNET67WW BIOS ISO and see if I can get it restored back.

[fj1200]

So strange thing happened over the weekend. I found a laptop internal CD drive so put that in, burned a new BIOS CD and tried booting off that with the Fn+B shortcut. All power/batteries had been out for an hour or so, no other disks or USB present. Booted into a blank screen as it does, but then a date error appeared and it booted into the BIOS! It's actually on the latest one - the one I upgraded it to, and I don't think they can be downgraded because of new 'features'. However, as per Lenovo's recommendations I set it to OS default settings - F9 - and saved them and it came back with an error saying insufficient memory or something - it was too quick to read it all. Anyone have any ideas? Tried replicating it but nothing yet. But the BIOS is there and undamaged as far as I can tell, its just having trouble getting all the way through to booting. I still get stuck at the ThinkPad logo.

[RealBlackStuff]

If you have a date-error, how about replacing the CMOS-battery?

[fj1200]

Nothing wrong with it - I had the CMOS battery out for over an hour, so it will have lost the date. Trying to replicate it as it seems to be the only way back in.

[BastaMKD]

I have exactly same situation, with w540. Did you solve your problem ?

[thealphaoverseer]

Same here, with the latest BIOS update (2.42), booting to the 'press Enter to interrupt startup' screen can take as long as 10 seconds. More annoyingly, it doesn't recognise my aftermarket battery anymore. I can't rollback the BIOS either, because the BIOS installer doesn't allow that even though I've disabled 'rollback prevention' in the actual BIOS settings.
Has anyone found a way to roll back the BIOS without physically flashing the chip?