Precision T3400 BIOS A11 problem

I flagged this thread for the forum Liasions. They may be able to get the Dell techies to look at BIOS A11.

I suppose it's possible you just had a bad flash update to A11 and reverting to A09 replaced that faulty update. I'm not suggesting you try A11 again. There's always a (small) chance that a BIOS update will brick the motherboard, so it's not worth the risk to you.

And in general, it's not worth updating BIOS unless the new version fixes a problem that you actually have. In other words, if it ain't broke, don't break it! :emotion-4:

Ron

Thanks for the reply, Ron. I actually did try to reflash A11 again after I ran into the problem. It didn't change anything.

The funny thing is that I was running A11 for a couple of months (having updated to it directly from A1). It seems to run XP Pro SP3 without a hitch. It was only when I tried to run the diagnostics to look at a disk problem that I ran into the errors.

- Rick

Hi, Thanks for posting this issue; we ran into it yesterday. I was ready to swap out the motherboard, but booting from a USB boot drive and rolling back to A09 corrected the original problem. However now the primary hard drive failed; it's clicking, threw beep code 1-4-1, and gave the error code 2000-0141: No Drive Detected. Pretty odd that both issues occurred at the same time, but either way, still has 15 days left of warranty.

Source for creating USB boot drive:

And you did unplug that USB drive before rebooting..?

Before you toss the hard drive, you may want to clear BIOS.

Power off and unplug

Press/hold power button on tower for ~15 sec

Open the case and remove the motherboard battery

Press/hold power button again for ~30 sec

Reinstall the battery (right-side-up!)

Reboot and open BIOS setup. Make sure the boot hard drive is first in the boot sequence. Save any changes and exit setup.

Does it boot up now?

Ron

Thank you RickA3 for the post.

I encountered the same problem today. I started having problems with a different machine and thought I would run diagnostics on the T3400 just as a precaution.

I cannot recall for sure but I thought I ran Dell's diagnostics on the T3400 before without any problem (maybe I did before upgrading to A11).

I have not yet flashed back to A09. The A11 version does fix some problems that I would like to keep fixed but the diagnostic failures do concern me.

I hope Dell will fix this -- it's a tough decision whether to stay on A11 or rollback to A09.

Thanks again for the post.

Consider them poked.  :emotion-2:

Ron

Ron,

Thanks. I've never heard anything from them.

Rick

All,

This was escalated awhile back. They are working on a new Bios to address this. No ETA on a release date.

All, This was escalated awhile back. They are working on a new Bios to address this. No ETA on a release date.

Chris- Thanks for the status update. :emotion-21:

Ron

Howdy!

I've also got a Dell Precision T3400 that has been having this identical error. The workstation just went out of warranty in January of this year but, regardless, I called Dell Gold Support and talked to them about the issue. The tech told me that this error indicated a bad motherboard.

I had a spare T3400 available so, I swapped the users hard drive from the bad machine and put it in the spare. The T3400's were purchased at the same time so I know the guts are identical.

I made the change yesterday and, today, the user called and told me that the workstation crashed again with the identical error.

My question: If this is a BIOS issue, why did this happen to the same user with her hard drive installed in a completely different machine? All BIOS settings are stored on the motherboard on a non-volatile ROM chip. So, why would a different machine exhibit the same behavior? I don't think this is coincidental...

In addition, the BIOS version on her original [bad] machine is A09 which I've heard is what people downgraded to after having similar problems with A11...

With this in mind, is Dell absolutely sure that this is a BIOS related issue?

Thanks!

Roger

Hi Roger,

The situation you report seems to indicate the problem is not due to a bad motherboard as tech support said but is instead caused by a flaw in hardware and/or firmware.

Did the crash occur during normal use or while running diagnostics? RickA3 and I encountered it during diagnostics but the system seems to run OK during normal use. I am not sure about OrangeBeard's case.

Any further word from Dell about a new BIOS?

Not a word...at least in response to my previous post.

Thanks for the follow-up though...

Roger