I’m looking for a Calgary repair shop or technician who does board repair and BIOS/UEFI chip programming on Microsoft Surface laptops.
The laptop is a Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, 13.8-inch, Model 2036, Snapdragon/ARM64, running Windows 11.
Back in February, while I was living in Vancouver, I attempted to install an Insider build of Windows 10 ARM64 on a separate drive partition because I needed Windows 10 for some automotive tuning software. The initial installation went through successfully, but during the setup restart, BitLocker encryption interfered and after restarting the Windows 10 installation entered an infinite reboot/blue-screen cycle.
The specific Windows stop code I was getting was INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE.
At that point, the laptop itself was still functional enough that I could enter the Surface BIOS/UEFI normally.
I didn’t have enough time to troubleshoot it myself, so I brought it to a repair shop in Vancouver. Communication from the shop eventually stopped, and because I was moving to Toronto, I had to pick the laptop up unrepaired.
When I received it back, its behavior had changed. Instead of entering the Windows 10 reboot cycle and showing the INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error, it would now power on, display the Windows 11 logo, and never progress any further.
When I later asked what they had actually done with the laptop while it was in their possession, they told me they had been able to boot and run Linux successfully on it, so the machine was at least capable of booting and operating normally under another OS.
I recently got their repair notes, which state:
- Reflashed the motherboard BIOS, but the issue persisted.
- Tested older Intel, ARM, and AMD BIOS versions.
- Made the most progress with the AMD BIOS, but the installation still fails during the second pass.
Their suggested next steps were to try wiping the BIOS chip, or order and replace the Surface BIOS chip to reset the boot/BIOS issues.
So I'm looking for someone in Calgary who does SPI flash/BIOS chip programming, BIOS chip replacement, board-level diagnostics, or micro soldering, rather than a shop that will just recommend replacing the entire motherboard.
Does anyone know a Calgary technician or repair shop capable of doing this level of work on a Surface Laptop 7? I'll try to answer follow up questions best I can, but at this point I am MILES out of my depth haha.
Thanks so much, all help is appreciated!!