XPS 13 9365, bios version 1.3.1 bricked

Question

First let me say I have only had my laptop for 50 days. I am a techie and work in programming, so I keep my home laptop rather clean, windows updated and use mcafee antivirus regularly to stay virus and malware free. I have the Dell updater application from the dell website installed and got a notification last night to upgrade the bios to version 1.3.1 (which addressed the intel meltdown/spectre issue). I had laptop on my charger and hit install button notification on the updater notification. Next it said it needed to reboot so I did. I saw the Dell logo, and system messages about updating the firmware bios 1.3.1, do not turn off the laptop. It updated bios, usb controller, Intel controller, Ecm, and all were successful and stated successful on the screen. Then it rebooted and screen was black for a long, long time, all I got was 3 amber and 7 white blinking leds on the front panel and no windows. BRICKED! So I call Dell support, we did the ctrl/esc thingy to try to get to the bios, hard to get to, then finally got it, selected the load bios defaults, support said to let it do that. So it loaded bios defaults successful, waited the appropriate time and it rebooted, and BRICKED again! Then we try the function button trick to see the config. Would not load that either. This time would not go into anything, just the blinking lights.

Dell support said it was motherboard, and sent me a shipping label. I have to send it back for repair and wait 10 days. How do I know it will get fixed correctly? How to know they won't make it worse...How do I know another bios update will brick it again? I thought Dell updater app would help to keep my laptop drivers and hardware updated, turns out it got bricked instead.

I am very disappointed in Dell about my laptop, which I did nothing wrong, and the Dell updater/Bios update hosed my laptop! I have only had it for 50 days. Poor quality control, sending out these laptops this way.

DWPP · Accepted Answer

I purchased my xps 13 9365 4 days ago. I, too, was advised to load new BIOS 1.3. My computer did the same thing. I learned from a video uploaded on Youtube how to boot the computer up to a recovery screen.

* Disconnect all peripherals from the Laptop
* Unplug the AC power adapter from the Laptop
* While holding down Ctrl and Esc keys, plug the AC power adapter back into the Laptop
* Release the Ctrl and Esc keys on the keyboard once you see the BIOS recovery screen
* The recovery screen allows you to recover the BIOS in three ways =
Restore default BIOS
Roll back to previous BIOS
Recover current BIOS

I first tried Default, didn't work. Then I tried roll back. Didn't work. Finally, I asked it to recover current BIOS 1.3 BINGO. It FINISHED installing the 1.3 download (firmware and other items) for about 10 minutes.
Held my breath, turned off computer and waiting a bit. Turned on computer and it booted up properly, although a might slow. No more orange blinking light.

Hope this helps.

AntounS17 · Answer

I just did the same thing updated my Dell XPS 9365 to 1.3.1 and I'm getting the same 3x amber 7x white bios error code. I have also tried the bios recovery by holding ctrl and esc but no options in that menu successfully fix the bios. I've had the laptop for over 6 months and although I love the machine bricking it with just a bios update is very disappointing. Anyone have other suggestions besides the bios recovery tool.

Thanks

Saltgrass · Answer

If all else fails, you do have an option shown in the link. We had to use this to get the 9365s to shutdown normally after the 1709 Win 10 upgrade.

http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/sln304892/how-to-reset-real-time-clock-rtc-to-recover-your-dell-latitude-precision-vostro-or-xps-pc?lang=en

rrepic · Answer

Didnt work for me.  While my machine is not bricked, there is no way to get past 'No boot device found' error now.... Im looking at a Windows reload :-( which is BAD as I get boot recovery USB, get a command prompt and see all my files. Via DOS not Windows...

AntounS17 · Answer

UPDATE: Since my previous post I sent my Dell XPS 13 to Best Buy Geek Squad and they shipped it out to a repair center and it was stated that a replacement part was used for the machine to fix the issue. I am unsure which part was replaced because of this but upon further examination they did load the Intel Management Engine BIOS Extension v11.0.0.0010 and I am stable on version 1.3.1. This seems to be an issue in how Dell is flashing the BIOS update rather than the update itself. I hope this may help others especially if you machines are still covered by some type of warranty.

skews13 · Answer

I noticed I couldn't turn it on this morning after using it for a short time, and after an hour tried turning it back on. After seeing similar complaints being filed,  I went ahead and pulled the bottom off, rather easy actually, and noticed the heat sink was very hot to the touch. So I unplugged the battery and removed it, and allowed it to cool down for about 15 minutes, and with the battery out, and the bottom still off, plugged in the charger, and it booted, but I noticed the lights in the front blinking. It then booted to a BIOS reset screen, and gave me the option of resetting to either factory settings, or default settings. I chose factory settings, and after an hour online, put the whole thin g back together with the original battery, and as of this post are having no problems, and the battery seems to be charging normally. I to called tech support and was given an online shipping label to return it for repair, but  not sure now if I will. Not being a techie, but just an old electrician, I can't pretend to give anyone here advice on what to do, but can only share my experience. I hope it helps.

desone · Answer

I have owned a number of Dell laptops over the last 20 years or so and these little machines are the absolute worst I have ever encountered. That is Dell XPS 13 9365 for the un-initiated.

In fact I own three of these.

Between Microsoft and Dell they have really managed to stuff things up, COMPLETELY!

As a matter of course I always update my computer bios's to the latest. The machine I currently am attempting to fix has the original bios file loaded (1.13 from memory). I am attempting to update it to the latest 2.24. This is several generations later.

I attempted to update the bios several times but each time it failed to update.

I have encountered this issue previously with Dell laptops and even Lenovo Tiny computers.

The issue turned out to be the fact that I was attempting to update the bios over a number of previous versions.

For example say the bios I was attempting to update was the eighth version. It wouldn't update from one to eight and I found the solution by updating to say four first and then to eight.

There was not hint of having to do this on the support sites for either Dell or Lenovo.

The problem now exists is where do you download the earlier bios files so that you do the incremental updates?

This is the issue which i now have!

XPS

XPS 13 9365, bios version 1.3.1 bricked

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