m17 R3, BIOS update taking forever

Hi @G_Hosa_Phat  welcome to this user to user forum. Anything you share in this forum is not private and having joined this forum you agreed to share this information with everyone. Having just received your new m17 R3 you should have a one year warranty and if purchased in a Dell store this will be a Dell Warranty with option to extend. 

Dell Support for Alienware 17 R3 Drivers & Downloads has updates and you use your local admin account to download these files onto your computer before installation.

You should never install a BIOS update over the internet because there is a risk of bricking your m17 R3. You should view full driver details and ensure the integrity of your BIOS update file using the given checksum value. If the BIOS file fails verification, download again to get the correct checksum value. If the m17 R3 battery has less than 10% charge, BIOS will not install because there is a risk of bricking your laptop. 

Thank you for your response, @crimsom. I'm aware of the public nature of these forums, which is why I did not include any personal information, but thank you for the warning.

With regards to the specific issue in question - the BIOS update for my new m17 R3 - Thank you for linking to the Drivers & Downloads page. I was attempting to use the built-in tools (Alienware Update) to complete the process. I suppose I assumed that this tool, designed to apply updates specifically for the hardware on which it was pre-installed, would follow the correct practices as you outlined, simply using a "simplified" application UI. That is, download the BIOS update, verify its integrity, then install/apply the update in a relatively controlled manner.

My concern at this point is that the Alienware Update application is continuing to indicate that it's installing the BIOS update. Well, I assume it is since I left my computer at home plugged in to power to prevent it from shutting down during the update. When I get home, I will go ahead and attempt to cancel the update and manually download/install the latest BIOS update from Dell's site. Thank you again for your assistance.

You were wrong to install Enterprise Pro edition since that requires a volume license from a business. You will not be able to activate Enterprise. It also invalidated your warranty if you have a new computer. The only update you needed was the Windows Update to get all the latest Microsoft updates

You will have to reinstall Windows Home. That Alienware update might be for desktops, not laptops. Or it is not for your model.

You are wrong about the model you have (unless you bought a used computer) The m17xR3 is an old win 7 model that cannot run Windows 10. See the driver page with the warning--

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/alienware-m17x-r3/drivers

Run msinfo32 to see your model name.

Hi @G_Hosa_Phat thank you for sharing update. Installing updates using your internet connection is particularly problematic at the moment. Before attempting to reinstall the "troublesome" BIOS update, please run the Dell F12 ePSA Enhanced Pre-Boot System Assessment diagnostics to check that your system can accept it.

Please download SupportAssist to ensure that the most recent version of ePSA is installed, and Restart. Press and hold down F12 key during boot, the splash screen appears, followed by a menu. Use up and down keys to select, and use enter key to run diagnostics. Wait for hardware diagnostics to complete.

If hardware diagnostics detected a problem, this will be declared at first appearance of the white screen with is recommended solution. 

If no hardware problems detected, a white screen will appear, look in bottom right hand corner and click on Results. This will give a summary of tests performed and clicking on the left hand icon will give full test results for that hardware device. 

Please share an update. Thank you. 

Hi @Mary G  your post confusing, this is the Alienware M17 Gaming Laptop, not the M17x R3. 

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-uk/product-support/product/alienware-m17-r3-laptop/drivers 

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Hi @G_Hosa_Phat  Dell recommends Operating System to be Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro. If Windows 10 Pro not purchased from Dell, they may decide to not update their Dell warranty. Contact Dell Support and they may request copy of invoice. 

@Mary G - To clarify, I did not install Windows 10 Enterprise edition. I purchased a digital upgrade to Windows 10 Pro through the Windows Store via the Activation Settings control panel in Windows. For whatever reason, once the purchase was complete, my computer thought Enterprise was installed and wouldn't activate. While researching that issue, I saw several posts indicating that this issue has come up somewhat frequently when users have attempted to upgrade Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro in this way. If that somehow invalidates the warranty, then that is a serious issue that I will need to address soon.

Also, this is a brand new Alienware m17 R3 gaming laptop purchased directly from Dell this month. It is not the older M17X R3 model.

@crimsom When I got home, I attempted to cancel the update operation that has been running since yesterday via the pre-installed Alienware Update application. Unfortunately, when I clicked the cancel button, the application displayed a message stating "Warning: The current operation can no longer be canceled." I can certainly go ahead and exit the application and try to restart the computer, but obviously, now I'm concerned about the consequences of doing so.

UPDATE: With great trepidation, I went ahead and shut down/restarted my computer, even though the Alienware Update application was indicating that it was still running the update process. I'm happy to report that my computer did come back up without any sort of error - no BSOD, no "your computer was shut down improperly", etc. Everything appears to be working normally.

I then went directly to the Dell drivers page and downloaded the available BIOS update, verified everything looked normal, and ran the installation (again with a bit of concern). This time, of course, the process "looked" a whole lot different (taking me back to my days of autoexec.bat and himem.sys), but it completed the process successfully and rebooted normally.

Now, everything seems to be working as expected, but I went ahead and checked the Alienware Update application to make sure the BIOS update it was trying to do had "cleared" out. Once again, everything looks like it's complete and operating the way it should. I guess the moral of the story would be "no matter how fancy the system or application, don't let your computer do an 'unattended' BIOS update".

I suppose I'll need to address the potential issue regarding my upgrade to Windows 10 Pro as it relates to any impact that may have had on my new computer's warranty, but I'll save that for another day. Thank you. 

Hi @G_Hosa_Phat thank you for sharing an update. It is good to know that BIOS update installed successfully. 

IMHO upgrading OS from Windows 10 Home x64 to Windows 10 Pro x64 does not invalidate your Dell warranty. Dell expects users to install new battery, install more or different RAM cards to increase to get the maximum amount of RAM, install fast M.2 NVMe driver, etc. 

Getting a new computer should always include a user disaster plan. This should include creation of a clone OS (C:) drive with SupportAssist. Computers are becoming more reliable, but can still have unexpected problems. Being able to swap in the clone OS (C:) drive will get the system up and running within minutes. 

Thank you. Had exactly the same issue and behavior on Dell Alienware Aurora R11. Followed your steps with the same successful result.

I had exactly the same issue and after looking at it doing nothing for almost 2 hours I called Dell Technical Support and they talked me through exactly what you ended up doing!  It did also remind me of the old days of autoexec.bat and config.sys Thank goodness I didn't kill my brand new m17 r3  

I just got the m15 R3 and having the same problem with Alienware Update Tool. But I will now go to the Download Software Page to do so. 

My question is, Can I just download the latest BIOS update version and install? Or do I have to download and update very prior update? 

I believe my laptop has BIOS 1.5.

Help will be very appreciated.

Marc

I just went through the exact same thing on my new m17 R3 laptop!  Manually installing the BIOS update also worked for me.