This post is more than 5 years old
29 Posts
0
122110
So my M4800 just got bricked with A10 BIOS update
Downloaded the A10 BIOS update. Flashed from Windows. It appeared to have gone through OK: The computer rebooted, Windows started again, I kept working in Windows. All seemed fine.
I even ran a standard test suite from My Dell, and all passed.
Then, after a while, I thought I would take a look in the BIOS setup. Restarted the computer. At Dell white logo pressed F2, but the blue bar under the logo and the yellow text about entering the setup never disappeared.
Pressed the power button to switch the computer off.
From this moment, the computer, whenever switched on, hangs at the white round DELL logo. When I press some keys, like Enter, or F8, the blue bar appears but hangs at half-full. A white text in the corner then offers a boot menu if I press F12, but after I do press F12, the yellow text promising me a one-time boot menu never goes away, and there’s never a boot menu.
Is there any chance to do anything besides having the sorry thing serviced?
Random Dude
29 Posts
0
October 24th, 2014 15:00
Preliminary solution:
Disconnecting and reconnecting the coin-cell battery brought the computer back to life.
Have not assembled everything yet, but the BIOS now reacts, ePSA diagnostics can be run, etc.
Random Dude
29 Posts
1
October 25th, 2014 03:00
Dell,
You released BIOS A10 without duly testing UEFI network stack!
Enabling it will just lock the machine upon next reboot.
It might be so only without PXE enabled, or not, and only with some other factors present, but it certainly locks my machine.
Mary G
2 Intern
2 Intern
•
20.1K Posts
0
October 24th, 2014 14:00
Did you suspend Bitlocker before updating the bios if you had it running? Unfortunately the usual fix for a bad bios update is replacing the motherboard. But usually the computer does not boot at all after the bad update. You said windows was running fine. Try a reboot but this time don't wait for any screen. Start tapping F12 as soon as you reboot and keep tapping until you get into the boot menu.
Random Dude
29 Posts
0
October 24th, 2014 15:00
Thanks for your suggestions.
I don’t use Bitlocker.
Repeated tapping F12 has the same effect as described in my first post—the boot menu never appears.
I believe BIOS just hangs on the Power-on Self Test which it never completes.
tomicjr
9 Posts
0
December 4th, 2014 08:00
A10 seems to have been removed from the driver download page?
I had previously downloaded it and flashed over A08, but am still experiencing some issues.
I also noticed that A09 has a newer date.
Anyone know the reason behind this?
Is it safe or recommended to flash back to A09, or should I wait for A11?