Dell Support Assist BIOS Update made PC Unable to Start correctly

Thank you for your message.

Seems like the BIOS update you had might have changed the boot mode options. Please set BIOS to defaults & check if the computer boots up if not you may need to change the boot settings.

Please click on the message tab – click new message & search for my Dell username (Dell-Sreejith R) & send a private message with the service tag, registered name & email address.

Thank you for the reply. I already just backed up my files using linux and then did a complete factory restore. I'm going to forgo using "Dell Update" anymore in the future.

Sreejith,

I have run into the same problem just now.  How do I resolve without doing a factory reset?

@bclaver - Contact Dell Tech Support ASAP. Have your Service Tag handy.

I was also hounded by pop ups urging me to do the Dell support assist update. I ran it January 20, 2018, and my computer froze up on restart and since will not restart. I have it in a shop to be unlocked and my software has to be all reinstalled. It will cost me $200 and 5 days without a computer.  

This is update is a disaster.

This update is a kill pill for pc's.  Where is customer service acknowledging this mistake and offering a fix? Why should the customer have to literally pay for Dell's mistake with our wallets and lost productivity to fix this? Michael Dell would be so proud.

24hours later and 10 hours of trying to get my laptop back up, I'm no further along.

My system is showing BIOS Revision 1.18.2 although I do not know if this is the corrupt revision or the former BIOS. 

So far, the following does not resolve this issue:

1. Restart
2. Shut down
3. Exit and continue to Windows 10
4. Startup Repair ("Diagnosing your pc." and "checking your disk for errors")
5. "Attempting to Repair"
6. Exit and continue to windows 10
7. Reset PC
8. System Restore
9. Startup settings
   1. Enable debugging mode
   2. Enable Safe Mode
10. F12 (all options) 
11. F2 (setup)
    1. Boot sequence
    2. Advanced Boot Options
    3. Fast boot (changing boot up options)
    4. etc
12. BIOS downgrade
13. Loading BIOS Defaults

After attempting a startup repair that did not fix the issue, the following message appeared:

"Log file: C:\WINDOWS\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt"

Could this issue be related to a missing Driver for the BIOS update? Would using the command prompt give me more options for repair?

I am not a techie but I can dabble around with the right set of instructions.

---

@bclaver wrote:

This update is a kill pill for pc's.  Where is customer service acknowledging this mistake and offering a fix? Why should the customer have to literally pay for Dell's mistake with our wallets and lost productivity to fix this? Michael Dell would be so proud.

24hours later and 10 hours of trying to get my laptop back up, I'm no further along.

My system is showing BIOS Revision 1.18.2 although I do not know if this is the corrupt revision or the former BIOS. 

So far, the following does not resolve this issue:

1. Restart
2. Shut down
3. Exit and continue to Windows 10
4. Startup Repair ("Diagnosing your pc." and "checking your disk for errors")
5. "Attempting to Repair"
6. Exit and continue to windows 10
7. Reset PC
8. System Restore
9. Startup settings
   1. Enable debugging mode
   2. Enable Safe Mode
10. F12 (all options) 
11. F2 (setup)
    1. Boot sequence
    2. Advanced Boot Options
    3. Fast boot (changing boot up options)
    4. etc
12. BIOS downgrade
13. Loading BIOS Defaults

After attempting a startup repair that did not fix the issue, the following message appeared:

"Log file: C:\WINDOWS\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt"

Could this issue be related to a missing Driver for the BIOS update? Would using the command prompt give me more options for repair?

I am not a techie but I can dabble around with the right set of instructions.

---

Contact Dell Tech Support ASAP. If they ask to charge you for help, ask that the issue be escalated to L3 support...

I brought mine into a local computer repair. They extracted everything fr the hard drive then did a complete factory reset, then reloaded everything and it has been fine since. Motherboard was not changed. 

Incidentally,  since then, my laptop has upgraded itself to the Bios that caused the issue and it is fine. Dell must have debugged it.

The same thing happened to my Dell Inspiron 3650. Did the Dell Update, the PC locked up and was unresponsive. The only option was to cold boot the pc, and now it will not post. This probably due to the failed Bios Update. Lastly, this particular model, even thought was produced in 2017, did not include the Bios Recovery Tool, nor does Dell Provide an option to use a USB Thumbdrive to boot up into the Bios Recovery Tool, as a result, a new motherboard is the only option. I agree, Dell prompted for the Update, I would hope they would provide a solution other than pay to tell you a new motherboard needs to be ordered. This is my first experience with a Dell PC that his happened, and am taken back Dell has not provided any solutions or has taken any responsibility in prompting the update. 

I just ran the Dell Support Assist driver update and broke my day-old Opti-Plex 7060 that had been on backorder for weeks.  It appeared that the firmware updated but the chipset update failed.  I got an unable to start message which put me in a repair, restore, recover loop where none of the options solved the issue. I had a message saying: "Stop code: DRIVER_VERIFIER_DMA_VIOLATION".  Technical support immediately referred me to Customer Care (which I got to after about three attempts that kept routing me back to technical support). They are replacing the unit but I'm going to lose at least another week, not to mention the time I had in setting up the original unit. This is a ridiculous self-inflicted wound from Dell. A perfectly good Dell computer made useless by running the Dell software designed to solve issues. When I receive the new unit, I will immediately uninstall the Dell Support Assist software.

Please, could you share the steps you took to get your laptop back up and running. I also did the mistake of updating the bios form Dell’s website. Please

@origamik  - This thread is old, so you should start a new one, in the right forum (Desktop or Laptop).

Be sure to mention the exact PC model and version of Windows, as well how you ran the update, eg, using SupportAssist to manage the update or did you do it manually, without SupportAssist?

Hello, I’m sorry for the very late reply but I can tell you what I’ve tried. 

I never got rid of the bios acpi error that pops up. I tried to install Ubuntu, it didn’t boot. Then I settled on mx Linux and have been running it since. But now I want to upgrade to manjaro Linux. I’m afraid that this will also result in the os not booting up just like Ubuntu. 

if you could tell me the exact steps to downgrade my bios to the last working version for dell Inspiron i3147-10000sLV that is not the version that I regretfully installed using the SupportAssist. I would be forever grateful to you

@origamik  I don't see any Dell BIOS versions for the Inspiron 3147 with the file name you posted, assuming that's the correct model number for your PC. I only see BIOS 3147A12.exe.

Inspiron 3147 isn't listed as supporting BIOS Recovery 2, so it may only support BR 1, but read that page to see if you can recover BIOS. But even if you can, you may not be able to downgrade to an earlier version.

If you want to try manjaro Linux, image the HDD first and save the image on an external USB drive. That way if it won't boot after installing the new version of Linux, you can re-image the drive back to the previous installation that worked.

You can use Macrium Reflect Free (free) or other imaging software of your choice. Imaging apps can prepare a bootable USB stick you'll need to restore an image made by that app. So be sure to prepare it before you try installing a new version of Linux.

Thank you. I can’t express how grateful I am seeing someone reply to my message. The bios version (A12) that you mentioned is the absolute root cause for everything that happened. When I still had windows 10, I saw that this bios update was listed in the dell SupportAssist as urgent for my device. Seeing this I tried to update my bios (from A09 iirc) to A12 by installing the the file, after the installation, the screen went black and restarted but my windows crashed and was stuck in a blue screen of death loop, I think it said that it had an acpi error iirc. 

I have been running my Linux with grub since. I still see the acpi errors every time I power on my laptop. Here is the Actual error I see. 

This goes away after a second and the pc boots into XFCE desktop normally. 

ubuntu only worked from the live usb but did not even boot after installation. 

I you know a way for me to downgrade my bios to the last version that worked (A09) I think, I would greatly appreciate it. 

sadly I do not have any external hdd that I can use to backup my ~200GB data. I could try to do it if you can figure out steps I should follow for the downgrade. 

if I can once again see my laptop running error free once again, I will never even look at dells Support assist or even windows for that matter. I just want my pc back. SupportAssist has destroyed my pc.