Laptop frozen during BIOS update—how to fix it!
Laptop frozen during BIOS update—how to fix it!
Hey everyone is me again, I’ve been trying to fix my younger brothers gaming laptop (Dell G7 7790), I’m normally really good with tech and can figure things out. I’ve been having a problem trying to solve this and don’t know what to do anymore. The whole story in a nutshell the laptop has been treating him fine for the past few years but as he normally asks me to check if his graphics card or windows needs an update, the Norton antivirus said it had updates to do (notification popped up). All of a sudden it was updating non Norton things (like windows stuff and apps on the computer) I can’t remember them exactly it’s been a while since this happened, but I remember a bios screen being involved and the laptop restarting a few times after) So this caused a problem in the laptop later running ridiculously slow, can’t run anything. Sometimes windows settings won’t even load. He had an external drive as a mass storage for games and that drive got corrupted after whatever Norton did. I ran i diagnostic test and command I found a while back to check the integrity of the files and games on that external drive, long story short, some things were ok, others were broken, but the drive isn’t accessible in windows. These past 4-5 months we’ve been busy with school and summer so I never really got around to being able to fix it. We’ve gotten a new nvme (fix/upgrade) in the hopes of cloning/recovering the old files/data from his external drive. The problem is after I installed the new internal nvme the laptop was still having its sluggish problems. I couldn’t even open settings or anything without either “no internet connection” (while being connected to the internet) or just a blank app pop up. I did some research on the laptop and it turns on some bios version was causing problems. Dell has an option to rollback/revert to a previous bios model. I attempted this and I thought I was finally getting somewhere once I saw this (image attached). I thought that everything would be fine when it showed that it was removing whatever was corrupted/messed up from that last update thing Norton did. BUT ITS BEEN STUCK LIKE THIS FOR 2hrs now. I’ve been searching update things like this in this laptop and others and been getting solutions of either “your screwed abs say goodbye to the laptop” or “unplug the laptop, let the battery drain out, and turn it back on (it’ll turn on or you have to be lucky)” I'm not really sure what to do and don’t want to risk bricking his laptop! P.S. I’ve seen some things about bios recovery or using a usb to flash the bios to be able to access the laptop again BUT I DONT KNOW HOW TO PROCEED, any help or tips is welcome just please . (it’s late currently where I am so I will let it run over night, hopefully it’ll be resolved but I would really appreciate any help)
Norton has a reputation for slowing down systems. Try removing it and opt for the built-in Windows security—it's free and effective.
After leaving it overnight, if it remains at 100%, unplug it. It stopped working even though it finished. Norton seems less effective compared to built-in Windows Defender. This virus is more like a malware than a traditional antivirus.
Thanks for your help! How should I safely turn it off? Should I let the battery drain completely and unplug the laptop, or is there a better way to do it without damaging it? Also, since I removed Norton recently, I’m worried about leaving it on after removal—what’s the right procedure?
Is there anything else? Please keep it plugged in, won’t it work if I gently hold it. I don’t want to damage or lose the laptop.
It's locked in place; it won't change until you decide otherwise. Just stay powered on and don't press any other buttons.
Can you find a way to avoid triggering the system crash without using the "hold down the power button" feature?
We lack certainty. Right now, the only choices are either keep it unchanged indefinitely or disable it to observe the outcome. Most modern devices typically include a backup BIOS chip, suggesting this one likely does as well.
Alright welp, when I turn it off so I try to turn it on right away? Or should I do something specific, like wait a little or do anything to the laptop/it’s components. (this is a possible solution I found incase it does brick, whomever this may concern if you could please look at it and see if this would be a worth shot at “fix” it was around the 5-6 minute mark where jay found the solution and showed taking out the laptop battery and then unplug the cmos battery ) I would also like to add the external hard drive is still connected to the laptop this whole time, it just clicked in my head that maybe the laptop is trying to boot from that drive but that’s a non bootable drive. Edited September 4, 2023 by DavidTrex