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Dario_NC

24 Posts

27234

March 26th, 2007 19:00

E521 with bios 01.01.03 - should I try an upgrade to 01.01.05 AGAIN ?

Folks: I got my E521 last Friday - with BIOS 01.01.04. Downloaded and tried to upgrade to 01.01.05 - flashing program stayed at 0% for about an hour, when I powered the machine off (BIG MISTAKE!). To make a long story short, the technician came today to replace the motherboard - which came with 01.01.03. The question is: should I break all the good luck charms, and try again the upgrade to 01.01.05? I'm specially interested in using ReadyBoost with Vista - and looks like USB support with older BIOSes is kind of flaky . . . For the record: I have eight computers at home (Sun workstations, Dell desktops and notebooks, IBM notebooks, Apple Macs, you-name-it), a truckload of network gear, and assorted stuff - never had any problem with any machine, and I can't remember having to call tech support for any of them - last time I had to call tech support, I think it was about 10 years ago - but after the last experience with the BIOS flashing on the E521 . . . Thoughts? Ideas? Thanks !

mombodog

12.7K Posts

March 26th, 2007 21:00

There is a known problem flashing the 521 bios in Windows, if you must flash, connect a floppy drive and flash from DOS.
 
If the flash hangs or fails, do not turn the PC off, try reflashing several times from the command prompt. Make more than 1 floppy diskette in case one fails in the middle of the process you can swap them out and retry.


Message Edited by mombodog on 03-26-2007 05:49 PM

Dario_NC

24 Posts

March 26th, 2007 22:00

Ahem. The only FD I have is an external USB 3.5" drive - and I think we all know how would that work (or not) out ;) Has anyone tried burning a BartPE image, and including on the CD the BIOS update? I know, I know, "search" is your friend - just running the idea thru you ;) Thanks, Dario

mikecu

13 Posts

March 27th, 2007 00:00

Dario as you as you know by now it is a risky proposition to flash the bios on the E521. That is why I'm still at 01.01.02. I have had this computer less than 4 months and 4 bios versions have been used in that short time period. It seems that the only absolutely safe method to get a new bios is to get a new motherboard with it on there already, but in your case they gave you an older version instead of the newer one. Almost funny if it wasn't so frustrating. I tried the bootable Cd with the bios upgrade file on the same CD.  It would boot from the Cd then it changed the drive letter from D:to A:, but it couldn't recognize or find the DME521-010105.EXE file. Good luck to you.
 

mombodog

12.7K Posts

March 27th, 2007 18:00

If the bios will not POST, you are wasting your time, you just made a boat anchor out of that PC, as you were warned about the possibility. Replacement of the motherboard is now needed.

NieswandtAlex

1 Message

March 27th, 2007 18:00

Hi Folks! I also tried a Bios Update and failed: System don't boot and monitor stays black. Now I want to repair it with an update via floppy, but I can't see if there is any input to do after the EXE is started (done by the autoexec.bat). Can anyone tell me if theres any input necessary or not ? Thanks!

Dario_NC

24 Posts

March 27th, 2007 20:00

So I went ahead and bought a floppy drive & cable from Newegg - will see how that goes. I've checked the last BIOS, and looks like a worthy/useful upgrade - specially wrt USB ports. It's sad to see Dell didn't chose to have some scheme as other motherboard vendors do (ie: dual BIOSes), or as they do on the Inspiron notebooks - where the BIOS is upgraded after a reboot. Oh well. Will give it another shot once the floppy drive arrives - if I feel like calling tech support again. Which brings the question: what are the chances of Dell saying "AGAIN?! - no way. You're on your own - good luck" ?

Dario_NC

24 Posts

March 27th, 2007 20:00

As mombodog said, you're out of luck - failed BIOS upgrade == call to Dell tech support and mobo replacement in your future. Which is kind of funny - after mine failed the upgrade, next reboot will beep/4 would stay on - and after, say, 5/10 seconds, it would beep again . . . I'm 70% sure the delay between one set of beeps and the last one is some kind of window you have to recover the BIOS - the last beep is to signal "window has closed, you'll need to remove power and try again" Now, Dell doesn't make available the information on how to recover the BIOS from a failed upgrade. I don't think they scrape the mobos - I'm sure they recover them. Do they use some kind of JTAG connector? I saw a couple empty connectors on the mobo that looked like test points . . .

mikecu

13 Posts

March 27th, 2007 21:00

Dario if your if your next flash on this computer fails you are still in your grace period where you can return the computer for a refund minus shipping I think. Just when you think floppy drives are obsolete you learn they are still desirable in some circumstances. Please let us know if this works or not.

LenG58

23 Posts

March 27th, 2007 22:00

Oh the irony ;-). Just got my new motherboard installed today. I was trying the flash bios upgrade (in windows) from 1.1.4 to 1.1.5 when it failed. My new mobo is now 1.1.3. Anyway I'm more than a little nervous to try again. Has anyone attempted it after the replacement?
 
Len


Message Edited by LenG58 on 03-27-2007 06:48 PM

Majestic

9.4K Posts

March 28th, 2007 10:00


Dario_NC wrote:
Which brings the question: what are the chances of Dell saying "AGAIN?! - no way. You're on your own - good luck" ?
Just don't get the wrong tech support person on the phone.  If you have reviewed any of the other message threads on this problem you will see some folks got a tech on the phone that didn't authorize the replacement. 

norml2000

48 Posts

March 28th, 2007 14:00

I had this problem with the BIOS upgrade too... I started with BIOS 1.1.4. I proceeded to install 1.1.5 and it failed in Windows after like 8 tries. I ended up getting the MOBO replaced yesterday. The BIOS on the replacement board is 1.0.3 and it will not load Windows Vista. I sat on the phone with Tech Support for 2 hours trying different things and still couldn't get Vista to load. The Tech went on hold to visit with his supervisor and called me back and informed me that he sent it to the escalation team, and he would call me today.
Being curious, I used my wifes Dell Windows XP Home reinstallation disc and to my surprise I was able to install and load Windows XP fine. I then used my Acronis recovery cd to reload my backup disk image with Vista and still won't load Vista.
My question is would the BIOS be incompatible with Vista or is it something else on the MOBO?

Dario_NC

24 Posts

March 28th, 2007 14:00

Here's the deal - according to UPS, my floppy is to be delivered today. And then I will try to flash the BIOS _again_. If it succeeds, the E521 might have a home here. If not . . . going back to Planet Dell and the outlet. I'm not even sure I want to keep it, BIOS flash suceeding or not. I've been reading around, and besides the BIOS issues, it looks like the RAID implementation has been emasculated on purpose by Dell - theoretically, the Nvidia chipset supports RAID-0, RAID-1 and RAID-5, and the only option on BIOS is RAID-1. I know: RAID-5 when you only have two HDD slots available is kind of pointless - but anyway.

norml2000

48 Posts

March 28th, 2007 18:00


@LenG58 wrote:
Norml,
My mobo was installed yesterday as well with bios 1.1.3. My vista booted right up. So, i don't think its a 1.1.3 bios issue.
Len


That was 1.0.3 not 1.1.3...

LenG58

23 Posts

March 28th, 2007 18:00

Norml,
 
My mobo was installed yesterday as well with bios 1.1.3. My vista booted right up. So, i don't think its a 1.1.3 bios issue.
 
Len
 
 

Donsell

56 Posts

March 28th, 2007 18:00

It seems like many E521 owners are still waiting for Dell to ship the promised Vista update. We've asked repeatedly if there is a system issue causing a delay for E521 owners and we only get the canned "we're shipping the updated in the order they were recieved" message, which we know isn't true.
 
Do you know if this Bios update issue is holding up our Vista upgrade?

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