Bios update failed - Dell Precision M4600

That is NOT the issue! There is nothing wrong with the M4600 motherboards per se.

Everybody has been trying to find why when trying a BIOS upgrade, the system immediately fails with a basic "BIOS Update Failed" and no specific error code or more explanation. The answer is in the PDF document below - that is the message displayed when BIOS authentication fails!

You just have to look up the Dell Signature Firmware 'feature' that was introduced into a number of laptop incl the M4600.  Download PDF doc. That was a feature introduced per NIST requirements.

In a nutshell, they changed the way BIOS authenticates a BIOS file before it will use it to update the BIOS & EC firmware. The M4600 is in the list of "Legacy Systems" where this was introduced. Basically, these systems did NOT have the Signature Firmware when produced. 

Version A04 introduced this feature. After you install that, you will have an option to turn the Signature Firmware requirement On (default is Off). Once turned On, it can NOT be turned off! 

The problem starts in BIOS ver A08. Something in the code is wrong. Because on some M4600s it updates the BIOS AND Activates the Signature Firmware requirement. After that, the system will NOT authenticate ANY other BIOS versions so you will NOT be able to upgrade past version 8!

I manage many, many systems for a company. I am currently sitting on 33 (yes, that many) M4600 with that exact same situation!

A motherboard swap does not correct the issue; all it does is give you a new BIOS chip to mess around with. 

i don't understand if there is a solution for the problem or still not

i tried enabling Dell Signature Firmware and still update failed.

is Dell providing m4600 owners with new BIOS chips  for repleacemnt - ??? new motherboard should have new bios chip so it would help I think.

I have same problem but I don't understead why Dell is not solving this situation since its their fault to issue bad A8 bios 

Any update on this ? I also have my m4600 stuck at A08 and is clear this is Dell and not customer fault.

I would like to be fixed or most probably my next laptop will be a MacPro

Best Regards

So I am posing here as well with the same problem.  5 of these units with the issue now over a year.  I am having some issues which the BIOS update would tend to fix from my investigations.  

I am curious, has anyone contacted DELL support on this subject?  I know our units are not under warranty anymore, but this seems to be a manufacturer issue.

I am going to reach out to my support rep and see what I can come up with.  I will post back.  Please post any new solutions... if any!

What Dell will do with this mess of bios and the non-signature drivers, I'm trying to flash the bios because it doesn't want to recharge the battery with option /forceit and it fails no matter if I restart Windows with choosing not to enable signature verification. Probably because while rebooting, it does check again and it's ON...?

Now version A17 from june 2017 and nothing fixed and why?

So, if you've messed with so many, what are you doing to make them work?

Unfortunately, in my opinion, we all own fancy bricks now and will never be able to apply any of the fixes provided in newer BIOS builds (even those with security issues!).

I have been round and round with DELL on this and they will not support (and in most cases even answer questions) unless the unit is under warranty coverage.  When I tried to ask if there was even a paid solution (i.e. I would purchase a new motherboard, etc.) they would not help without the unit being covered.  I like DELL and will continue to sell and support their products as all big companies stumble, but this is what is meant by DELL ***.   I would just rather them tell me that they will not or cannot supply any solution, paid or otherwise.... so I have some factual information.

I a nut shell, there is nothing you and I can do as end users/resellers/support techs.  RoadRaiders post above hits on the real issue.  Complete board replacement does solve the issue per some others that have done it, but again, IMO, this is not cost effective due to the age of the machine.

Let's be honest with ourselves, while it stinks, DELL is NOT going to rewrite some legacy model BIOS code (the argument is not whether they should) for a model that is far out of mainstream support.  

It is time to move on.  DELL Precision 7000 anyone?

Do not use A17 BIOS for Dell M4600.  After upgrade, my Win10 PC has 30% chance of BSOD during startup.  Upon further investigation, turns out the newest "Intel ME firmware" in A17 bios doesn't spin up the CPU fan until the CPU hits 70C.(Real good job Intel!)  So during startup, my i7-2820QM 45W TDP CPU turbo boosts, and reaches 80-86C before I see the win10 login screen, and anything above 80C causes my 32GB of ram instability.  Even inside windows, I use HWInfo x64 to manually control fan speed to 4900RPM, and it seems to me the Intel ME driver doesn't spin up the fan to 4900RPM, it stays around 3000-3800RPM.

Flashing back to A16 saved about 10C in temperature.  I even turned off Turbo Boost to make my CPU run 60C.  Something is smitten in the newest BIOS, does Intel want to burn our motherboard out so we can upgrade?

So stay with A16!  It works.  And start monitoring the temps, because latest ME drivers think 70C is ok to not spin fans.

Hi there

I am up for an upgrade....M4600 is absolutely worked out, presume the 7000 series just got better..

By any chance it is possible to swap the SSD drive from old to new just to have the drive drivers updated..?...I do works on Latitude E4300...and systems with same size of HDD simply can be transferred swapping the drives, windows will install new drivers and restart...then works as it should be..any advise?

Once again for 7000 series reasonable offers welcome... i7 processor, the 8 thread ones...currenlty have I7 2820QM ....think QM stands for quad core mobile...

Thanks for the warning here.  I wonder if others have had the same experience?  If anyone has had a different experience, I would be interested to know. I just had to replace my motherboard, and was able to update to A16, but am afraid to update to A17. . .

Hello everyone

I just run into the same issue as everybody else here. Thanks to roadraider it seems pretty clear what the issue is. I did a little research myself and what I found is that the BIOS version A08 had a few revisions. Mine is dated 10/18/2011 and the most recent one on the Dell site is dated 3/8/2013. In between them there were other BIOS versions released, A10 and A11. I tried installing every single version available on the Dell site but no success; they all failed with 0% progress at Flashing, including the newest A08. So my thinking is that somewhere in between the A08 revisions (2011 to 2013) one of them changed the Signature Key and now it is not available for download anymore.

With this in mind, I contacted Dell support who of course kept insisting my hardware warranty is expired; eventually, after pointing out this "blockage" prevents the install of a major / critical security fix (Intel AM) they mentioned something about bringing this challenge to the engineering department. Of course no ticket number or anything, so most likely they were just anxious to shut me off ... 

Anyway ... is there anyone who might find somewhere an A08 revision dated between 10/18/2011 and 3/8/2013? (or maybe someone already has it installed on their workstation and can provide an update if the same issue still occurs). I tried searching for any clues on Dell`s ftp site but no luck.

I upgraded my Dell Precision M4600 to A17 and after 2 boots it no longer will go past Post, the last thing I did was change a setting for the boot options.  I presume it failed to save the BIOS settings properly.  Now I have been scouring the web for any information on how to force the BIOS back to defaults when you can't get into BIOS on this unit.  It just stops at Preparing to Enter Setup forever or if you hit F12 it will Say Preparing 1 time boot option but never progresses past.  I never had a bit of trouble with this unit on A16 this happened very soon after A17.

My M4600 has this problem.  To fix it I'm planning on replacing the flash devices with new parts pre-programmed with a later version.  The only question I have is what else beside the code itself is in the flash?  Is this where the serial number and service tag are stored?  If it is, can I change these after the new parts are installed?