sony vgn tx3hp-w bios problem

Discussion in 'BIOS Mods' started by andyin, Feb 16, 2014.

  1. andyin

    andyin MDL Novice

    Feb 15, 2014
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    Hi I have a sony vaio vgn tx3hp-w with a weird problem.
    It will not see either its hdd or dvd drive,
    I have disassembled it and checked the cables and connections and tried with either drive connected all to no avail.
    but it will boot from external drives connected to the usb ports.
    so I thought it must be a bios problem so I downloaded the two latest bios files from sony and tried to flash them from a usb stick and a floppy in dos with various phlash16 versions but get "platform signature not found in the interface" fail message every time.
    I even tried the bios recovery for phoenix but that does not seem to work for sony vaios
    the sony software is supposed to work in windows but with no hdd detected I cannot run windows.

    is there any way to force a bios update ?

    Cheers

    Andy
     
  2. andyin

    andyin MDL Novice

    Feb 15, 2014
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    I tried various versions of 16 and v 1.7.0.18
    do you know where I could get a later one to try or any way to force the flash?

    cheers

    andy
     
  3. andyin

    andyin MDL Novice

    Feb 15, 2014
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    just tried phlash16 v1.7.0.21 with no luck,

    it still fails with the "platform signature not found in the interface" message

    any ideas?

    Cheers

    Andy
     
  4. tqhoang

    tqhoang MDL BIOS Modder

    Apr 29, 2008
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    You might need a really old version that was custom for Sony BIOS'es. I saw references to a Phlash7.exe that is named "PhoenixPhlash Utility 4.0 Release 1.49.2C9.3". I couldn't find it online, but make a new post asking if someone here has it in their archives.
     
  5. andyin

    andyin MDL Novice

    Feb 15, 2014
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    thanks for the info and for your earlier post the bios file is on the sony uk website under vgn tx3hp_w downloads bios version R0034N3
    sorry I cannot post the link

    Cheers

    andy
     
  6. andyin

    andyin MDL Novice

    Feb 15, 2014
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    Well I have some good news and some not so good news.
    First the good, I finally managed to flash the bios to the latest that sony have provided R0034N3 and that was a saga in itself.
    it would not run under dos no matter what I tried no matter what version of phlash I used old or new it would error out with the platform message every time.

    so I thought ok well if it insists on windows to flash the bios then I will have to give it windows, so I used the guide and software I found on USBoot dot com to create a usb bootable windows xp hard drive.
    of course it is a sony so it wasn't going to be that easy, it still would not boot from it until I discovered that if I plugged a second hard drive into the second usb port then suddenly it booted...... yay.

    still not there yet as the windows based winphlash from sony complained that it could not read the system info.
    so I had to install all the sony software that it would have had as new and then only then would it flash. and now it has the latest bios from sony.

    Unfortunatly that has not cured the no hdd and dvd drive problem and it looks like either the controller on the motherboard is shot or possibly the ribbon cable but heyho I have got an external hdd that will boot on anything, so not all bad.
    And it may help others who have a similar problem.
    Cheers
    Andy
     
  7. tqhoang

    tqhoang MDL BIOS Modder

    Apr 29, 2008
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    Sorry to hear that.

    Although whenever I come across strange problems like this, I usually look for any cables or antennas inside the laptop that are floating around. We had a Dell laptop that would not boot up and when I opened the back, I noticed that it had WWAN antennas just floating around touching stuff without any kind of insulation on the U.FL connectors.

    Heck, I even found a TicTac inside a laptop once...still not sure how it got in there...