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#16
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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 |
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#17
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BIOS update from Dell
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. |
#19
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BIOS update from Dell
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 |
#20
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BIOS update from Dell
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 |
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