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BIOS A13 and APR
Hello,
Last week, Dell tech support replaced the motherboard on my Inspiraon 8200 (fourth time in 30 months but that for some other time). At that time, he also upgraded BIOS from A11 to A13. All seem to work well until I tried to connect the laptop to the APR (bought from Dell). When I started up after that, I got an error that the APR was incompatible with this system. The laptop works OK if not connected but shuts down after the above-mentioned message. if I hook it up. Does it mean that I lost the APR? If so, how can Dell allow such incompatibilities. Has anyone else noticed such problem? Is there a solution, if so, what? Is this a way for Dell to get more money from customers?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
schmieg
335 Posts
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October 18th, 2004 03:00
When you boot up, enter the BIOS. Does it say it is an Inspiron BIOS or a Dimension? As far as I know, the latest BIOS for the Inspiron is A-11. If the tech installed the Dimension BIOS, it will not recognize the APR for the Inspiron.
If it is the incorrect BIOS (which will work fine on the Inspiron with the exception of the APR), you need to download A-11 and install it. Use the floppy method. You may have to boot to the floppy and give the command from the command prompt using the /forceit switch on the command line.
schmieg
335 Posts
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October 18th, 2004 03:00
omsoft
29 Posts
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October 18th, 2004 09:00
Ed C
3.2K Posts
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October 18th, 2004 10:00
Please look at your other post and in the future do not cross post. It makes it very hard to help.
Thanks
schmieg
335 Posts
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October 18th, 2004 13:00
When you download the floppy version, it will create the boot floppy and install the OS on it. You then boot to the floppy and the autoexec.bat file will run the bios program. If you get a report that the hardware is incorrect, look at the command in the autoexec.bat file (type autoexec.bat) and then manually type that command at the prompt and add the /forceit switch to it. It should then update the BIOS. You must have both the battery and the AC running to do this. Do not interrupt the process or you will have a doorstop.
Alternatively, you could call Dell and have the tech come out and install the correct BIOS. Since he installed the wrong one, he should do this for no charge.