Forcing a BIOS Update without the AC adapter attached on a Dell Laptop

This Article provides Information on how to Update the BIOS on a portable system without the AC adapter attached.

Forcing a BIOS flash without the AC adapter connected

There are cases where you need to update the system BIOS on a portable system when the AC Adapter cannot be determined or is not available. When you attempt to update the BIOS within Windows, the update program detects if the AC adapter is present or not and will not continue until it is plugged in. If you need to flash a BIOS and the AC adapter is non-functional or unavailable, there is a way for force the flash.

What You Should Do :

1. Download the relevant or latest BIOS update file from https://www.dell.com/support/drivers

2. Save it in an easily accessible location from a command prompt. (C: drive or root directory would be the easiest)

3. Click Start. In the Run or Search box, type cmd right click on "cmd.exe" in search results, and select Run as administrator.

4. If the User Access Control window appears select Yes

5. In the Command Prompt window, at the C:\Windows\system32> prompt, type in cd\ and press Enter this will return you to the root directory

6. At the C:\> prompt, type biosflashname.exe /forceit and press Enter.

   Note: biosflashname is the actual name of the BIOS you downloaded eg. A6540A09.exe and there is also a space between that and the /forceit switch)
7. After saying YES to the User Access control prompt, the update should commence without the AC adapter warning. Reboot when prompted to complete the update.