Dell XPS12 messed up during BIOS update

My replacement part cost is much lower.  The main board is $249 and including labor is $630 plus shipping.   Replacement is more likely than repair.  Unfortunate with more than half of its useful life remaining.

Thankfully I have 20+ years of PC/Laptop repair experience so labor will be free :D

where will you be purchasing your board?

I am considering trying to replace the BIOS chip itself as I'm experienced in board level work. Never dealt with a BIOS chip though. Found this: www.ebay.com/.../260729103892

I'm having problems too with my 3542 inspiron 3000 since I updated to Windows 10 and updated the BIOS to A08 at the same time. One of the problems I've noticed is that the Automatic brightness is impossible to turn off when on battery mode (i was able to completely disable it before but now I can't). Also, everytime I 'SHUT DOWN' my laptop, the screen turns off like it normally would but nonetheless it stays on because I can even hear the fans working and feel the processor heat, so when I wake up in the morning and turn if on it automatically turns off because it's at 0% of battery life.

Gambled the $32 - Replacement chip ordered. Will let you know the outcome when it arrives. 

Looks like we've got another 9530 owner that went to A09 and bricked his. Although he was thankfully successful in running recovery mode using my method: https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/3g0q9c/dell_xps_9530_bricked_by_latest_bios_a09_please/

Hello good1dave,

Thanks for helping to recover one of the machines for a Dell owner at the reddit site.
I updated my August 3 post with some additional links in this community from other customers.  There are many reports but I tried to focus on customers who could not recover the machine.  Some are simply operating system driver issues which are inconvenient but are recoverable.

Best of luck with the BIOS chip;  let us know the results.

You asked earlier about my replacement plan and at the moment I'm occupied with family activity preparing for college.  I will decide on the next steps for XPS 12 in the near future.

We have a three-year-old XPS 13 and a desktop to use in the interim.

I will postpone the decision to purchase a new XPS 13 until I address the current XPS 12.

Hi,

My xps12 is also updated to windows 10. Than dell recommended me to update bios (A06 to A08). The process stopped at 56 percent on "ec update). I tend to believe the fault is on Dell's update rather on the laptop users. Now before I start collecting this update victims for a class action against dell for ruining a 1800$ laptops and not taking responsibility for that I suggest a dell representative here will be a little more professional and take this case a little bit more seriously and involve whoever needs to be involved. Now stop suggesting customers this update already as it is 100% clear something is not right here.

Hello T.L

I agree that this issue should be acknowledged because the customers are not root cause.

There may be hope for us yet, the person below was able to receive an award from Dell despite the system being out of warranty.  Mine was 18 months old when this occurred.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19647080

Hi ,

Jennifer,

Good for you (Dell). You (Dell) are not legally responsible for what has happened to our laptops as a result a less than stable BIOS update. We get it. I own a business where we have warranties on our products. So I get it too. Sometimes, however - at my business, we take into account the situation. And occasionally - depending on the circumstances, we help our customers out. Because that's good business sense. And it keeps our customers coming back, and spreads the word. And we surely don't overprice ($1500 for a motherboard!?!) a part and encourage our customers trying to fix a 18 month old $1800 machine to 'just buy another laptop'

We would look at the customer's account, see that they have been a repeat customer, see that this was a high end unit, and see that the failure wasn't really the fault of the customer. And while we would be under no legal obligation - we might just try to do something, anything to help out.

I've been a Dell customer for years, and recommended them to many - but this whole situation has shown a somewhat ugly side of your company. It's a shame that you won't throw us even a small tiny bone and assist us in some way. Poor business sense and decision making, I'm sure most of us here won't forget it. I've got a bad taste in my mouth....

Regards,
dave

All,

Am an earlier poster on this issue.  I gave up on Dell pretty early based on feedback from Jennifer @ Dell and Dell tech support.  They didnt acknowledge / know that this is a known issue either from the start.

I spent $150 having an amateur look at the laptop since my wife insisted.  He didnt do anything whatsoever @ $80/hr of tinkering.  I then reached out to a Indian techie repair shop who either replaced the bios chip or the mobo itself for another $150 total.  The laptop works fine.  In the middle of above, I spent another $50 to buy a mini SSD converter to download the SSD data to a USB.  There are some artifacts on the screen now probably as a result of a bump or two, but not too troubling.

Lesson learnt that a) dont mess with BIOS b) dont trust Dell to fix anything out of warranty even if the recommendation was from them to upgrade c) reach out to the right folks to save time and money.

Am not even sure an ombudsman would be able to help here, and not worth filing a small claims suit.

Am going to take my business elsewhere - either assembled PCs where I dont pay a premium price or buy apple macbooks with 3yr / 5yr apple care to cover all eventualities

Expensive upgrade, time and money wise.

I completely agree. I'm never buying a Dell product again. In my case, the adaptive brightness issue has been around in Dell laptops since 2011(as I've read on several forums and several models), how is it that it's 2015 and they haven't fixed/added an option to disable it yet (at least on the BIOS)?

I don't have money to buy another laptop and I can't return it because I live in another country where I bought it, but I'm definitely gonna look at other brands like Asus, Apple, msi, Razr, Sony or Lenovo next time.

Worst customer service/support ever.

Hi

I do have a warranty. I was searching for a way to fix it myseld online and got to this thread. It juat made me upset the way dell wont take responsibilty for that. I suffer of a static noise with this laptop since day 1 and never did anything avout it. Now this thing? The funny thing is I couldn't reach dell tech service on the phone as I waited 35 mins and eventually gave up. The service is NOT sufficient no matter what you do. It's annoying.

The fact I have warranty doesn't change the fact that dell controls the updates released. You must understand  it is super weird so many laptops are ruined by a bios update right? Even though the problem is known for at least a month dell continue to provide that bios update AND reccomend to actually update!!

I don't know about "Dell's policy" of responsibility to it's product but I am sure there a few lawyers who will jump on such a case. I had a Mac for a long time and even though apple is known for being though in service terms when it's their fault they are useful and helpful

This way or the other I don't think I'll deal with dell again. There are lenovo, Samsung, Sony, Asus, acer HP and apple on the market, all make great machines. I don't know how their service is but I know if you took a bite from a rotten apple (has nothing to do with Apple inc) you won't take another one and hope it was just one bite, but will probably bet on a different Apple (lol)

Good luck

For everyone with bricked XPS 9530 by BIOS update I recommend to read very detailed and valuable manual how to solve it:

blog.jmwhite.co.uk/.../dell-xps-9530-uefi-bios-recovery

Good Luck!