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Jeff swicegood

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Windows 10 update bricked my Dell Inspiron 3520 laptop

After a Windows 10 update, I get nothing on the the screen whatsoever and no boot-up.

Initially I got three beeps.

I have tried: Stripping the laptop and taking out the CMOS battery and putting it back. The beeps went away, but still no screen, even after waiting 5 minutes and multiple powercycles.
I have also tried connecting an external monitor. There is only 1 second of hard drive activity when I power it up, then nothing.

I have read online that others have this problem.
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Jeff swicegood

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The answer you posted is Motherboard. If that is the case, it is very unlikely Windows 10 did this. More likely it was a coincidence in the hardware. All of our Lenovo machines upgraded without any issue.

Does it have a CD player? Try booting with a bootable CD but I have my reservations in this case.

Is it worth calling Dell Support?  Needs to be in Warranty.
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Suggest:  Pull the hard drive out.  Detach any external devices including keyboard and mouse.  Try to boot again.

  • If it boots to BIOS, reset the BIOS settings to something reasonable and reinstall the drive.  Reboot and see if the problem persists.
  • If it won't boot to BIOS and the laptop has a mini-PCI slot, insert a laptop POST card.  See what appears on the POST card when the boot stalls.  This may give some indication of where the trouble lies, and whether it is repairable.
awawada: I'm not getting a splash screen, so I can't run the diagnostics.
If nothing happens when the hard drive is removed, it is likely the motherboard. Call Dell Support and see what your options are
Laptop shows blank screen even with hard drive out. It's out of warranty. A new motherboard is $180 shipped. I can replace it myself.
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Here's another link with your exact same issue:

http://dailytwocents.com/solved-windows-10-killed-my-dell-inspiron-3520/

Seems like that lap is not tested with W10.
pgm554: Yes, thank you for that, and acknowledging what I said. It exactly describes my problem. I read that post before and it gave me hope. I followed all those steps and got exactly the result described, except the very last one--the machine actually booting up.

I guess maybe John Hurst is right. It's a coincidence and the motherboard failed at the same time as the Windows 10 update.

Maybe it's not good to repair this laptop since I intend to keep using WIndows 10.
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About the only way a Windows Update could brick a BIOS is to try the BIOS update by itself and then the user makes an error.

Lenovo does not allow Windows to update BIOS and I doubt other manufacturers would allow it either.
Either way it looks like it's time to abandon this laptop.
I would like to thank all our contestants!
You are very welcome and I was happy to help.
The Surface for a fact, does.
W10 and 8.x if set to auto install WILL update the bios,no user intervention required.
Been there done that.
I have a Dell Latitude that allows a bios auto update in the bios setting,so never say never.