Aurora R13, BIOS 1.8.0 4, error, driver version fail

It's F12, not F2. Here are the instructions for the R13: USB one time boot menu BIOS update R13 

Got it working now ty lol

Your welcome.

The wheels really are falling off. Dell cant even manage to release a BIOS update without Code of Conduct. DELL-Admin> it up. The USB drive has to be formatted to FAT32 or it wont work and it is a weak error message that tells you nothing. Once you plug your USB in you also better know what your doing because the ancient BIOS update program wont help you.

The whole R13 update process is a joke. I have had this PC for 6 months and everything is difficult when something goes wrong.

To release a recommended BIOS update that requires many users  to find a USB stick and head back to the days of DOS is very poor.

That is 100% correct. Why update if you don't need to? Often the risks outweigh the benefit(s).

And fat32 is very common. My ROG Strixx also needs a fat32 formatted USB for BIOS flashing, and that board is far beyond the Alienware boards in terms of design and configurability.

But you are correct on the poor testing of BIOS updates. They need to do much better testing on their software releases, 100%. And that goes for all their software, like AWCC etc.

More often than not we see users getting frustrated with issues caused by software. This board has many threads about it, and in several cases it's an issue with the software identified after the release.

Truth be told, I had begun to get lazy. Installing BIOS updates via the operating system is not ideal. You start running into driver incompatibility issues just like this one. When you install via USB you bypass the operating system and the various issues that can crop up that way. I’m going back to USB BIOS updating only. There are other potential gotchas that make BIOS updating a somewhat risky process anyway. The possibility of power failures mid update is always there as is the odd chance of BIOS corruption. Bottom line, as @Vanadiel says, be selective about updating your BIOS. Only do it if there’s a new feature you need or a bug that you have that gets fixed. Otherwise it’s a bit of a dice roll that can occasionally break your BIOS. If that happens it usually means a mobo replacement would be in your future. I say this not to scare anyone off from doing a BIOS update, just be aware of the potential risks and benefits when you make your decision on whether or not to update your BIOS.

Doing bios updates via a flash drive makes me very nervous.  Any chance that D ell would consider fixing this problem with their bios installer?   Pardon the strikethrough - thats the horrible keyboard on this expensive laptop.

Ran into this too.  The dell utilities and installers are buggier than Microsoft's latest updates, which conflict with the nvidia drivers.

I did the flash update 1.91.  Royal pain because you can't navigate through the flash drive, left right arrows do nothing, SOMETIMES tab keys work, you can't select NO from Yes and NO, worst bios interface I've seen in 30 years.

I'm not an expert in this, but when u use the .exe in windows the bios just gets dumped into uefi or ram ?

The writing itself is the same like u would do in the usb flash tool.

If the file is corrupt in the dump process it wouldnt write at all due to MD5 checks (i guess)

Dont get me wrong but in 2022 this should be ok.

Its a problem with the AFUWINGUI, or a expired certificate.

My old z390 -f could do bios updates via internet in the bios itself with no hustle at all.

Leaves us to the point where i would say dell (Alienware) ... again.

No, 1.7 works perfectly fine. I tried to install the new 1.8.0 with the Support Assist which also failed. So, I will stay at 1.7!

SupportAssist seems broken in a couple ways.  It can't kick off bios updates that will actually run (it comes up with the two noted errors), plus if you kick it off in general it spins, then when you check back 20 minutes later it tells you something is running and to come back.  It seems unable to tell you if you need updates.  And a like problem on the web site trying to get it to select needed updates.

I dont understand whats the point of support assist. First of all...... i had to uninstall it because of this issue along with some people out there. 

>>Solved: Re: Alienware Aurora R13 Video Stutter and Audio Stutter - Page 2 - Dell Community

Removing support assist fixed the issue as mentioned in the thread.

Second of all, support assist could never install a bios,

And 3rd of all, ive noticed that we also have a other tool/app called "alienware update". Which installs every updates when they show up, including bios.

So what is the point of asupport assist? I do not know. A program that is there to help but cant help and causes issues. Pretty ironic.

Support Assist, Alienware update and the AWCC all slow a high end R13 down. Look up the drivers manually and Dell stuff you again. BIOS updates are not critical unless your running a high end end business network you wish to protect. They are security updates and do not address general issues that can be covered by another badly released Dell driver, that refuses to install.

Dell will blame Windows 11 rather than update there clunky software. How many versions of the AWCC now, and it is still only useful for controlling the lighting.