My DELL BIOS story of woe on a XPS-8930 SE running W10 Pro

Hi all -

What's worse than not creating a complete restorable backup of your system?

Well, there are many things but this story is a real good one.

A couple of days ago, I was prompted in a valid technical email to me by DELL (also verified it on the website) of a critical BIOS update.
Downloaded it easily from their website and checked the hash. Everything looked fine and I proceeded to install it.

Everything looked normal to the second (and final) reboot where it left me stuck at the DELL logo. No movement.

Waited a few minutes with no change. The bloody update (1.1.27) corrupted my BIOS and was bricked.

Tried several things to no avail. Contacted DELL and told them the story. A new motherboard was sent out.
Installed the new one and updated the BIOS to the previous revision (i.e. before 1.1.27).

Everything is OK now.

However, being that it is a DELL (OEM) and not my other desktop system - a Gigabyte motherboard with a switchable BIOS - it was essentially dead.

Did some research and found a brief article about a homebrew device with vague details of using the USB port to re-flash the BIOS.
No details or resources, just a commentary. No person to contact.

Does anyone know of a proven way to restore the BIOS on a bricked computer?
Obviously, they have this capability at DELL to do this.

That new BIOS release was out for 48 hours and I'm very reluctant to try it again.

I look forward to reading your responses.

Many thanks!

@zbook -

Wish DELL had that capability of BIOS restoration.

Thanks anyway.

zbook said:

See if there is anything useful in this Dell link:

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/e...very%20process.


If your Dell computer shipped before December 2015 and is listed below, then it supports BIOS Recovery 1.

Any Dell computer that is shipped after December 2015 that has the Intel SkyLake chipset, supports BIOS Recovery 2.

Any Dell computer that is shipped after August 2016 or with the Intel Kaby Lake chipset, supports BIOS Recovery 3.

Yep. Went through that in the beginning with no luck.

Thanks anyway.

Compumind said:

Does anyone know of a proven way to restore the BIOS on a bricked computer?
Obviously, they have this capability at DELL to do this.

That new BIOS release was out for 48 hours and I'm very reluctant to try it again.

I look forward to reading your responses.

Many thanks!

Some motherboards can flash the BIOS from a rear USB port with no components installed.
Other motherboards have BIOS chips that aren't soldered in (they use a socket for the BIOS chip).
In the 2nd case... you can just buy a new BIOS chip from the manufacturer, hopefully.

Back in the day I had an ASUS board with a socketed BIOS chip.
Bad flash... and they sold me a new chip for $15

Compumind said:

Went through that in the beginning with no luck.

So your model has no Bios recovery methods?
Or it has but it failed when you tried it?

Denis

fireberd said:

There is a resolved thread about corrupted BIOS update on XPS8930 on the Dell forum
https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-D...d/td-p/8316170

Actually, there are several and I'm awaiting word on remediation.

It's terrible that DELL cut corners and did not implement a backup BIOS on their motherboard.
Their development engineers should be embarrassed.

Next year, I'll build my own system with select components which includes a dual BIOS motherboard.

Try3 said:

So your model has no Bios recovery methods?
Or it has but it failed when you tried it?

Denis

The BIOS was completely corrupted. Couldn't even complete the POST.

FWIW.