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Dell Venue TPM - BIOS Loop Error

7/27/2017

The information in this post is copyrighted and may not be reposted without consent from Kerry Green or Gregory Watts.

Kerry Green developed this method after weeks of testing and work. This post is now in the troubleshoot section of the Dell Database.

You have a Dell Venue 5055 and have somehow bricked it, meaning it's worthless and will not boot. Recently my friend Kerry Green was asked to repair a Dell Venue that was in a non-boot loop. It would flash in a millisecond the TPM error. I looked at it and we both studied many forums, all said it was toasted. This is the error where the TPM is not allowing you to get to BIOS or install any OS. No attached keyboard, nothing will allow you in. The TPM was created to prevent a theft from reinstalling the OS and using the tablet. Well, Kerry found a way.
There is a serious disclaimer from him, read it, you are seriously doing this at your own risk.

Disclaimer: This repair involves advanced micro-soldering techniques. And you could run the risk of destroying your Bios chip. Perform this repair at your own risk.
1.       Remove back cover and unplug the battery.
2.       Remove the shield covering the processor and memory.
3.       Locate the Bios chip in the smaller field under the shield.
4.       The bios will be marked: Winbond 25Q64FW1G

Photo 1

5. Solder a 26 or 28-gauge wire to pin 6 of the Bios chip.

Photos 2 & 3

Plug the battery back in hook up a USB Keyboard, and power on the tablet. When the dell logo comes on, short the wire to pins 3,2,1 in that order while pressing F2 repeatedly.
- After you have shorted all three pins, the tablet should boot into bios.

6. Once in Bios, go to Intel PTT settings in Security and turn it off. That is TPM2 settings.

Photo 4

Be sure you have it set for legacy boot and not UEFI.
8. Restart tablet and reinstall OS.
9. Be sure to desolder wire and then re-assemble.

Photos 5; 6 & 7

dell_5055_boot_repair.pdf
File Size:	477 kb
File Type:	pdf

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18 Comments

jaewon

9/16/2017 10:58:58 pm

Thank you!!
I was able to fix my broken 5055.

Kerry link

9/17/2017 07:06:19 am

Glad to see someone else was able to successfully do this
Thank you for posting.

Chris

12/28/2017 11:59:43 pm

Thanks for the info, I would like to know how can I jump the main bios to clear the password any info would be greatly appreciated

Kerry

5/5/2018 03:07:10 pm

Try shorting just the clock to ground. That is the old way to clear the bios password

Woraug

5/4/2018 06:46:30 am

Just leaving a post to say this method worked for me.

I'm selling my Venue tomorrow, so I did what any responsible owner should do and wiped it, only to be left with a boot loop. I was about to message the buyer and let him know I bricked it when I discovered this. Figured I can't brick it any more than it already is. I don't have the skills for the fine soldering this called for, so I just soldered a short wire to two needles and simply contacted the pins. Worked like a charm it's back running without a scratch.

DeWayne

5/4/2018 09:31:18 am

Thank you for noting this short cut. I will leave your comment posted for future reference.

Kerry

5/5/2018 03:10:11 pm

Never thought of such a simple way to short. Thanks for the pin idea. I just soldered to be sure I didn't short the wrong pins

Ryan Syafii

8/30/2019 07:50:21 pm

After I jump pin 6 to 321. screen can't display the logo again, just turn on light beside camera. Please advise master

Carl

10/12/2019 06:55:53 am

Have the same problem here

Michael

3/16/2020 12:06:31 pm

also happened to me what will be the reason?

IT Xpress

4/28/2020 03:10:24 pm

Same - tried this on an HP 800G2 that had same type of BIOS bug where the TPM chip kept rebooting the system. Seemed to keep the BIOS logo up longer the first time or too we tried. But never got INTO the BIOS. Now we don't get a logo at all and there is less USB activity. Don't know if we corrupted the bootstrap code in the flash chip or what. Frustrating that this loop keeps you from even doing a corrupted BIOS recovery. USB drive never gets accessed to flash the BIOS in recovery. Thankfully motherboard for this computer are super cheap!

Makhlouf

11/29/2019 10:54:14 am

Thanks for posting. I have the same problems, m'y 5055 dell venue 10 is booting to BIOS revovey tab. I can modify this option but I can't boot to USB to reinstall windows. Please help me.

Juan

3/31/2020 08:24:11 pm

Por que ocurre lo del error

James

6/18/2020 12:34:10 pm

Thank you so much!!!! This worked for me perfectly! I will note that I was into the BIOS after only touching Pin 6 to Pin 3, but it worked!
How you came up with this is a marvel.Thanks again!

Suo Marte

8/26/2020 02:59:54 am

It really solved the rebooting loop issue of my Dell Venue 10 Pro. I'm glad I've found this site. Kudos to Dewayne Watts. I did shorted the exact spot of the Bios pin using both hands. I did a lot of practice before committing to use this method. And after that I was ready to apply this method and was very successful in resetting the Bios chip. Thank you for your tutorial Dewayne Watts.

Beckert

9/22/2020 04:01:37 am

Hello

Thank you very much for your sharing. I made a big mistake by adding a 64gb SD card to install a dualboot on Dell came 10 pro 5055. Now when I start the pc I get a black page telling me "not bootable -" impossible to install Windows 8.1 x64 or Windows 10 x64 I'm really stuck. Can you help me ? By following this procedure I could possibly reinstall Windows or repair it? Thanks again, good health for you and Kerry.

Hnodet

3/1/2021 11:25:23 am

I confirm that it worked for my dell venue 10 pro 5055

👏👏

farina

6/7/2021 01:30:31 pm

Another Dell Venue 10 Pro 5055 save!!

My experience – definitely helped to have a friend who had a microscope to do this. We had a few miss starts in doing the grounding sweep. he hit the F2 while I under the scope dragged the wire along the pins. One we got it to stop but it didn’t move all the way into the Bios. Another time we got a different shade of blue screen of death, and another time it stopped looping but did not launch. Solution was to hold the start button until it shut down turn it on and try it again. We kept going because why not it was a dead computer anyone. Not since 1983 have I bricked a computer and that time was a mainframe. Finally after about 20 minutes we hit that sweet spot.

No thanks to Microsoft as the computer was totally wiped clean – so clean that a version of Windows 10 was automatically installed once the Bios changes were made – no way to stop that. One freaky issue was that the system was no longer a touchscreen – I needed a mouse and keyboard attached to use the machine. You may need to go to the Dell support pages and re-load all of the drivers. One of them is the latest Bio (from 2015) and about 9 other drivers. Make sure you go back into the Bios to ensure the TPM is still set to disable. One of those drivers turned the touchscreen back on.

No longer a brick but seriously given thought to Linux.

thank you!!

Dell Venue TPM - BIOS Loop Error

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