Well, I was able to solve this problem with the help of my toddler believe it or not!
I had forgotten to charge the tablet for a couple of days and he wanted to play with it… so I began booting it up and he was impatient and starting mashing his little fingers on the boot/bios screen.
WELL LO AND BEHOLD… what happened? An ON-SCREEN keyboard displayed for about 3 seconds and disappeared after it started to load Android. That was enough for me to see that there was a way to fix this issue… I would have to investigate later after charging.
So later that night I spent some time analyzing how this happens —
1 – Disconnect your tablet from a power source.
2 – Disconnect your tablet from any keyboard (dock or USB connected)
3 – Power-On and wait for the BIOS POST screen.
4 – QUICKLY double-tap the bottom middle of the screen… the keyboard will display. QUICKLY hit the Esc button which is on the left side.
5 – POOF! You are into BIOS; plug-in your power source if needed.
6 – You can actually navigate in BIOS using the touchscreen… just tap on the items where it has the F(function) keys listed.
I was able to restore my USB settings and then get everything working again… amazing. I don’t know if this applies to the W3 model where someone had to open it… but I suspect it does.
Attached is the short video of the on-screen keyboard so you can figure out where the Esc key is… you only have 3 seconds to bring up the keyboard and hit Esc. You can change this delay later in BIOS if desired.
You can actually use this keyboard for the flashing process as well so no USB hub required. 🙂
Video:
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/wa2nm61xw3om8er/AAA3Ll1G9XrF1fuWMZL3fWMBa
* fast forward and pause on the keyboard when displayed.
