Lenovo Thinkpad E14 Gen3 stuck on "To interrupt normal startup, press Enter" screen

[BMCappelletti]

Hi everyone.
Lenovo Thinkpad E14 Gen 3, stuck on the "To interrupt normal startup, press Enter" screen.
Found a lot of people with this issue, but with no definitive answer. Some people managed to get away accessing BIOS, going to Startup and turning off "Option Key Display". For me that only removed the interrupt normal start up message, leaving only the Lenovo logo.
Most people say hitting Enter does not work. It's true, if you wait a few seconds. But if you hit Enter right away you get the options to enter BIOS (which works), run diagnostics (goes to a blank screen), chose another boot option (goes to a blank screen). So no luck with that.
Tried different USB boot devices, same blank screen. Different M.2 drives (all detected in BIOS), no luck either.
Disconnected peripherals from the board, no luck. Also tried with only battery, or only AC. Did a BIOS reset. Remove RAM stick, so it would force a BIOS reset, cause it detected a different RAM configuration. And it did detect. But also no luck.
It seems to me a BIOS issue, but can't confirm that.
Did anyone have this issue before? How was it fixed?
Thanx a lot.

[BMCappelletti]

In addition to that:
- tried PXE boot, with same issue. Just a blank screen.
- changed start up option on BIOS from quick to diagnostics. It first shows information as BIOS version, processor, memory, etc. Then it show the message "ThinkVantange Active Protection sensor diagnostics start".
It does not show any errors, but that message just flashes on the screen and nothing happens.
Unfortunately it's not possible to disable that on BIOS to check if that could be an issue.
I don't have a WSON8 adapter here to backup the BIOS and ask someone to check it for errors, so I'll need some days to get one.
Still ideas on what else to try are valid.
Thank you.

[rddube]

Sounds to me like a corrupt BIOS, so I would get a CH341 adapter, reflash the BIOS (you can probably get a dump here on Badcaps) and I think you should be back in business. Make sure if there are more than 1 bioses to flash both. Let us know.

Take a look here https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubl...kpad-e14-gen-3 or here https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubl...nkpad-e14-bios

[BMCappelletti]

Sounds to me like a corrupt BIOS, so I would get a CH341 adapter, reflash the BIOS (you can probably get a dump here on Badcaps) and I think you should be back in business. Make sure if there are more than 1 bioses to flash both. Let us know.

Take a look here https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubl...kpad-e14-gen-3 or here https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubl...nkpad-e14-bios

Yep. I bought a WSON8 adapter, as I did not have any. Will receive it tomorrow.
Thanx for the links.
Will report back here.

[rddube]

Yep. I bought a WSON8 adapter, as I did not have any. Will receive it tomorrow.
Thanx for the links.
Will report back here.

So what happened ?

[BMCappelletti]

So what happened ?

Delivery was delayed. Will probably receive it this afternoon.
Will post here when I try it.

[rddube]

Did you get your programmer?

[BMCappelletti]

Did you get your programmer?

I had already a programmer. A EZP2019+, but I didn't have the adapter for SOP8. I got it, but EZP software was not able to detect the BIOS chip. It's a Winbond 74M25JWEIQ. I was able to read the chip and write a new one selecting W25Q256 chip model. But the new file (and the original one) is not working. I only get a fan spin (and then stop) and a steady white light around the power button. It does not boot.
So either I have a problema with the BIOS chip or the programmer I have is not suitable for this.

[BMCappelletti]

I'm back to the original "To interrupt normal startup, press Enter" screen, after writing the BIOS again using CH431 device and the .bin file extracted from the Lenovo installer.
So it does not seem to be a BIOS issue after all.
I'm attaching the original BIOS here, if someone want to take a look.

[SMDFlea]

Laptop bios requests go here -> https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubl...-requests-only

Please read the rules before posting, you must post the laptop serial number, post in an existing topic if there is one, post your backup etc,etc -> https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubl...before-posting

[exe557]

Is the cmos battery ok? I had a fully depleted one on an E490 and it got also stuck. Try without the CMOS battery

[BMCappelletti]

Is the cmos battery ok? I had a fully depleted one on an E490 and it got also stuck. Try without the CMOS battery

I tried without it. No luck. Same behaviour.
What I found odd is that it does not boot from any device, even though I used the extracted BIOS from the Lenovo website.
That tells me that something else is wrong on the laptop and preventing the laptop to see that those devices are bootable. Or preventing to use them for that, because they show just fine in BIOS.

[rddube]

I'm back to the original "To interrupt normal startup, press Enter" screen, after writing the BIOS again using CH431 device and the .bin file extracted from the Lenovo installer.
So it does not seem to be a BIOS issue after all.
I'm attaching the original BIOS here, if someone want to take a look.

Ok, so read this thread https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubl...nkpad-e14-bios - go in the same section and upload your original bios and ask someone to Clean the ME.

[BMCappelletti]

Ok, so read this thread https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubl...nkpad-e14-bios - go in the same section and upload your original bios and ask someone to Clean the ME.

It's AMD.

[rddube]

It's AMD.

So ? Doesn't matter. You want to fix it or just abandon? Cleaning the ME of a Bios has nothing to do with the CPU brand or type.

[BMCappelletti]

So ? Doesn't matter. You want to fix it or just abandon? Cleaning the ME of a Bios has nothing to do with the CPU brand or type.

I thought ME region would be something only on Intel CPUs, for some reason.
Anyway... a friend wanted the screen to replace on another device. He ended up buying me the whole thing. So I don't have it anymore.
Thanx anyway.

[SMDFlea]

I thought ME region would be something only on Intel CPUs, for some reason.
Anyway... a friend wanted the screen to replace on another device. He ended up buying me the whole thing. So I don't have it anymore.
Thanx anyway.

ME Firmware is only for Intel CPU`s.

[BMCappelletti]

ME Firmware is only for Intel CPU`s.

So I was not that wrong.
Thanx for confirmg it.