BIOS update from Dell

On 01/13/2018 4:35 PM, Paul wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 01/13/2018 2:11 PM, pjp wrote:
In article ,
says...

On Sat, 13 Jan 2018 11:12:36 -0600, Jo-Anne
wrote:

I've done the Windows 7 Microsoft Updates for January. Now Dell is
offering a BIOS update for my computer model to deal with the Intel
security issues. I've never updated the BIOS before, and I wonder if
there are any problems I might encounter with this kind of update. The
only thing I see at the Dell website is to make sure I don't turn off
the computer or lose power during the update.

Also, Dell says to verify the checksum value of the download but
doesn't
say how to do it. Is this something that will become obvious when
downloading? And if not, what do I need to do?

The details for the BIOS update of my model are at
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/...driverId=FPCF7


Â*Â*Â* There are dozens of utilities to check hashes and checksums,
but if you don't want to install one just upload the BIOS file you
downloaded to Virustotal or Jotti and see if their checksums match the
ones on the download page.
Â*Â*Â* If they match, and dozens of sirens don't go off, you should
be OK.
Â*Â*Â* I believe this BIOS update just updates the backdoor. The old
version got hacked. But I've always been a little paranoid.
Â*Â*Â* []'s

Â*Â*Â* PS Yes, a BIOS update can brick your computer. Make sure you
are offline and that you are not running much in the background when
you do it.

Every motherboard BIOS update I've seen require you to create a special
boot media, either CD/DVD or USB flashdrive. You boot using that to do
the update. There's nothing else running AT ALL. Add-On cards, DVD
firmware etc. can be patched with the OS running but NOT the BIOS. The
OS depends upon the BIOS for functionality so it can't be "changed"
while being used. That'd create havoc and for sure a crash and likely a
bricked system.


Newer and some older systems can be flashed directly under windows, My
Asus X58 Sabertooth does and many others can do it. and I have done it
twice in the past, Progress you know.
:-)

Rene

In days gone by, Windows flashing had a very poor reputation. They
did some stupid things, like downloading the file at the same
time they were flashing, then if the network connection broke,
the Flash would stop half-way, and the board would be bricked
on the next reboot.

Windows flashing is better today.

But consider this. What if your AV is active, and happens
to not like what the Windows flasher is doing ? What if
heuristic detection cuts in half-way through the flash
operation and quarantines the flasher. Or, say the flasher
and the AV get in a "fight" and the desktop stops
updating and freezes. These are the corner cases for
Windows flashing.

With MSDOS flashing, usually the Flash file was already present
(you staged it on C: and used a FAT32 capable version of
MSDOS floppy), and no AV would be running. That makes
things marginally safer.

The "USB stick" and "press a button to update BIOS" on my
newest machine, now that's a low-risk way of doing it. As
long as you have two USB sticks, and can insert the one
with the old BIOS, if you get in trouble :-)

I don't flash the BIOS all that much, because I don't
have a collection of BIOS Saviors to plug in. Only that
new machine, would it be worthwhile messing around. As
the Flasher is a separate chip and is autonomous from
the main CPU. You don't even need a CPU on that motherboard,
to run the push-button flasher.

Â*Â* Paul

I remember the first one I flashed from Windows, I ordered and installed
a Bios Savior before attempting it, It may have been a QDI mainboard,
not sure now.

Rene

On 13/01/2018 17:12, Jo-Anne wrote:
I've done the Windows 7 Microsoft Updates for January. Now Dell is
offering a BIOS update for my computer model to deal with the Intel
security issues. I've never updated the BIOS before, and I wonder if
there are any problems I might encounter with this kind of update. The
only thing I see at the Dell website is to make sure I don't turn off
the computer or lose power during the update.

Also, Dell says to verify the checksum value of the download but
doesn't say how to do it. Is this something that will become obvious
when downloading? And if not, what do I need to do?

The details for the BIOS update of my model are at
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/...driverId=FPCF7



You will be wise to wait for 2 to three weeks before updating anything.
The update is still being worked out by Tech corporations and the signs
are it is too difficult to find a workable solution yet. They are
working 24/7 so wait for the final update.

Bios won't not fix anything AFAIK.



--
With over 600 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

On 01/13/2018 06:38 PM, pjp wrote:
In article , says...

On 01/13/2018 01:39 PM, KenW wrote:
On Sat, 13 Jan 2018 11:35:59 -0600, Jo-Anne
wrote:

On 1/13/2018 11:20 AM, KenW wrote:
On Sat, 13 Jan 2018 11:12:36 -0600, Jo-Anne
wrote:

I've done the Windows 7 Microsoft Updates for January. Now Dell is
offering a BIOS update for my computer model to deal with the Intel
security issues. I've never updated the BIOS before, and I wonder if
there are any problems I might encounter with this kind of update. The
only thing I see at the Dell website is to make sure I don't turn off
the computer or lose power during the update.

Also, Dell says to verify the checksum value of the download but doesn't
say how to do it. Is this something that will become obvious when
downloading? And if not, what do I need to do?

The details for the BIOS update of my model are at
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/...driverId=FPCF7

I did it once without a problem and didn't check the check sum. They
make it easy. DO THIS WITH THE POWER SUPPLY CONNECTED and NOT on
battery.


KenW


Thank you, Ken. I always do updates with the computer connected to the
power supply. I figure the battery might help, though, if there's a
power glitch.

Intel just came out with 'do not update microcode' warning, so I would
wait. This stuff has not settled down enough.


KenW

I did it to my dell also and it was seamless. Windows 8.1 would not run
on my 15r until I did the upgrade. I took weeks to find the bug,
minutes to do the flashing of the BIOS.

Hmmm, perhaps that'll be the road I MUST go down in order to install
Win7 on two older Dell XP's that reboot without installing anything when
trying to install Win7.

My Dell would effectively load win 8 but after a few seconds the screen
would go black and that was it. If I watched the lights I could see it
loading. I'm sure it did but I had no control/view. It was something
MS did that the BIOS didn't (lol).

On Sat, 13 Jan 2018 16:11:30 -0400, pjp wrote:

Every motherboard BIOS update I've seen require you to create a special
boot media, either CD/DVD or USB flashdrive. You boot using that to do
the update.

I've seen several ASUS motherboards that can do a BIOS update under
Windows. It's child's play...

--
s|b

On 01/14/2018 8:44 AM, s|b wrote:
On Sat, 13 Jan 2018 16:11:30 -0400, pjp wrote:

Every motherboard BIOS update I've seen require you to create a special
boot media, either CD/DVD or USB flashdrive. You boot using that to do
the update.

I've seen several ASUS motherboards that can do a BIOS update under
Windows. It's child's play...


Yeah, I think its pretty safe nowadays but I don't need to do it as
there are no more Bios updates for my 2 MBs.

Rene