6 Posts
1
10188
Latitude 5520 won't turn on after BIOS Update to 1.14.3
About half of our Latitude 5520s no longer boot after having been update from BIOS 1.12.2 to 1.14.3.
System won't turn on. Only life signs are the three white LED flashes after resetting RTS clock by pressing down the Power Button for 30ish seconds.
Ticket opened, waiting on technitian at the moment.
Philip Sannwald
6 Posts
0
January 5th, 2022 09:00
OK, finally a solution to fix the "system completely unresponsive" problem 100%:
Unplug the CMOS Battery for a few seconds, reassemble, plug power in and see the system automatically power up. Downgrade BIOS afterwards. No M+Power, no Crtl+Esc, no playing hide & seek with the right TypeC port and connector orientation. Just plug the power in and enjoy.
Thanks to Dell Berlin & Halle for suggesting the fix.
Now, why did I not try the CMOS battery first thing? After all, it's a known "fix" with such issues...
The honest answer: The connector wasn't accessible enough. I was loath to disassemble virtually everything just to get to the connector. 25 screws and most addin cards just to somewhat reach the connector. If I was unwilling to bend the mainboard a bit, I would have had to remove the mainboard completely...
@Dell: Whoever designed the CMOS battery connection location was either technically inept or a sadist of the purest form. Same applies to whoever approved the design and the prototypes.
At least give me a jumper to interupt the connection, if the connector absolutely has to be virtually unreachable...
Having disassembled 7 of those 5520s just today, I'll be sure to include maintenance aspects into future purchases.
ChrisK77
11 Posts
0
December 20th, 2021 04:00
If anyone gets a fix, please let me know. I have already refused a motherboard swap and there is an engineer coming to fit a new battery tomorrow despite me repeating that it is a BIOS issue...
Philip Sannwald
6 Posts
1
December 20th, 2021 04:00
If you can boot, then that's awesome! Install BIOS 1.12.2 and you should be good to go again. Don't go for 1.13.0.
ChrisK77
11 Posts
0
December 20th, 2021 04:00
Same here. I can only boot on AC with the battery disconnected
Darren fox
5 Posts
0
December 20th, 2021 04:00
Same here
ChrisK77
11 Posts
0
December 20th, 2021 05:00
Just getting mine booked in now.
Darren fox
5 Posts
1
December 20th, 2021 05:00
I do not think Dell Tech support realise the bios 1.14.3 bricks the Lat 5520.
It removes the boot loader Windows Boot Manager.
I rolled back to 1.13.0 works fine on this version, its a temp solution.
Darren fox
5 Posts
0
December 20th, 2021 05:00
Dell need issue a new bios firmware 1.14*** that does not remove
Windows Boot Manager in Boot configuration
ChrisK77
11 Posts
0
December 20th, 2021 05:00
Is there anyway to do that with the battery disconnected?
Philip Sannwald
6 Posts
1
December 20th, 2021 05:00
Just had a tech here for the mainboard swap of the first of currently 10 non-responsive 5520s. We tried booting it with the main battery unplugged. Couldn't get it to boot that way either, tho
Tried multiple RTC resets etc along the way. No dice.
Ended up with a mainboard swap.
Philip Sannwald
6 Posts
0
December 20th, 2021 06:00
I wish it was just the Boot Loader beeing removed. With most of my systems, the System/Power LED won't even turn on when you plug in the power supply
ChrisK77
11 Posts
0
December 20th, 2021 08:00
The fix in this post worked for me: https://www.dell.com/community/Latitude/Latitude-5320-System-BIOS-1-14-3/m-p/8106144#M38540
Mines is a 5320 3-in-1
Dell5320
4 Posts
0
December 20th, 2021 12:00
May I just ask why go for 1.12.2 instead of 1.13.0? I just installed 1.13.0 from being on 1.14.3 and everything seems fine.
PeVo
4 Posts
0
December 21st, 2021 00:00
I updated 4 systems BIOS with this 1.4.3 and 2 bricked after a few restarts. After several retries with emergency BIOS recovery (Ctrl-Esc and power cable connect), I got one of the bricked systems to stay on. That required 2 emergency recoveries and both times it detected corrupted BIOS. Another has still problems to start the recovery procedure.
Don't know yet if the system will work with that 1.4.3 or if I have to try to downgrade after OS installation.
PeVo
4 Posts
0
December 21st, 2021 04:00
After 1.3.0 downgrade system was still dead after shutdown. On 2 other systems I managed to get them up after somehow managing to get to BIOS settings. One is still dead and refuses to go to BIOS or trigger BIOS recovery. That 1.3.0 BIOS version system worked also with that F2, BIOS wake-up. ... and after a short break one of the system has again power on problems and lost BIOS settings (time and date, boot order ...). And now this system got also that orientation problem described below.
BIOS Thermal Event Log shows CPU communication failure entries.
I also had 3 systems seem to go totally powerless when they are on flat surface and whey wake up only when tilted a bit. Seemingly out of power system is still running but does not accept any keyboard input. Sometimes this problem vanishes for a while and then returns even after re-installation. This problem exists also with 1.14.3 BIOS that I was hoping to fix this issue.
Looks like Dell has still major BIOS problems with this model.