Solved Dell laptop. Is there any reason NOT to have automatic BIOS updates?

antspants · Mar 8, 2024

OK thanks, so I am now clear that the BIOS/Firmware for a particular model regardless of Tags is the same BIOS/Firmware.
I am not sure how or why we crossed over to ”drivers” because the OP is asking about the BIOS/Firmware. However I am not with it most of the time so it may of slipped by me.
Drivers are another story.

Appreciated

Try3 · Mar 8, 2024

antspants said:
I am now clear that the BIOS/Firmware for a particular model regardless of Tags is the same BIOS/Firmware

Almost
All that the others have said is that they have not seen different Bioses for different SKUs of the same model.
I have never analysed the lists enough to have seen any Bios and/or driver differences between SKUs. But, as Mark's example showed us, those differences do exist.

The reason drivers have been mentioned is that Dell lists Bios updates & driver updates in the same lists.
You go to Dell Drivers & downloads [multi-region link] - Dell for both.

All the best,
Denis

pseymour · Mar 8, 2024

Right, I haven't seen it, but I was careful to say I guess it could happen. Also, the conversation mentioned SupportAssist and DCU, so I think that's how the driver thing got started. It's all worth discussing, I think.

antspants · Mar 8, 2024

pseymour said:
It's all worth discussing, I think.

Absolutely.

Senecio · Mar 8, 2024

antspants said:
I’ll say this for Dell. It’s pretty impressive that I can still receive BIOS/Firmware updates after 7 years.

Good for you! My Dell (Inspiron laptop) stopped getting any updates after 5 years. I've been 'winging it' since 2022

. They also claimed it doesn't support Windows 11, but MS has always been quite happy to update it to W11, and it works perfectly.

antspants · Mar 8, 2024

Senecio said:
Good for you! My Dell (Inspiron laptop) stopped getting any updates after 5 years. I've been 'winging it' since 2022 . They also claimed it doesn't support Windows 11, but MS has always been quite happy to update it to W11, and it works perfectly.

Yeah I mentioned above that I discovered mine also stopped after 5 years. I should correct my post, I was mistaken. Still, 5 years in that industry is pretty good. My Asus Maximus Formula stopped after 2 I believe.
Mine is also on Eleven… How lucky are we!

Fixed

Bree · Mar 8, 2024

Senecio said:
My Dell (Inspiron laptop) stopped getting any updates after 5 years. I've been 'winging it' since 2022 . They also claimed it doesn't support Windows 11, but MS has always been quite happy to update it to W11, and it works perfectly.

antspants said:
Yeah I mentioned above that I discovered mine also stopped after 5 years. I should correct my post, I was mistaken. Still, 5 years in that industry is pretty good. My Asus Maximus Formula stopped after 2 I believe.

The thing I like most about Dell Support is that they never remove the support pages or driver downloads for their older discontinued models.

I'll never buy an HP, their 'support' policy is to remove all downloads for anything over 10 years old.

HP is in the process of taking down the support pages for your PC since it is more than 10 years old.

Re: Computer Information page removed from website.

You're very welcome. I'm thinking that if you can't access the specs page in a few days, HP is in the process of taking down the support pages for your PC since it is more than 10 years old. I'm surprised the driver page that Ub6424 posted still works.

h30434.www3.hp.com

antspants · Mar 8, 2024

Bree said:
The thing I like most about Dell Support is that they never remove the support pages or driver downloads for their older discontinued models.

I'll never buy an HP, their 'support' policy is to remove all downloads for anything over 10 years old.

Re: Computer Information page removed from website.

You're very welcome. I'm thinking that if you can't access the specs page in a few days, HP is in the process of taking down the support pages for your PC since it is more than 10 years old. I'm surprised the driver page that Ub6424 posted still works.

h30434.www3.hp.com

I owned a HP once. Neve bought another. Dell & Lenovo I like.

Bree · Mar 8, 2024

antspants said:
I owned a HP once. Never bought another. Dell & Lenovo I like.

Ditto, I have several of both.

Good (and continuing) support is as important (perhaps more so?) than cutting edge hardware. Lenovo's support site comes a good second to Dell's IMHO.

garioch7 · Mar 8, 2024

I just updated the BIOS in my Dell XPS 15 7590 laptop today, purchased in 2020. My older XPS 8930 SE desktop (2019) is still getting BIOS updates as well.

I am a member of the Dell Forums. Their guru is @RoHe. He consistently and strongly recommends turning off the ability of Windows to update a Dell BIOS. Moreover, he does NOT encourage the use of Dell SupportAssist or Dell Update for that purpose. For maximum safety, the pre-boot F12 Flash BIOS option should be used. There is too much possibility of issues arising if Windows is involved in a Dell BIOS update.

My strategy is to check weekly (Fridays), my system imaging day, for updates for both of my computers. I go to the Dell Support Home site, enter my Service Tags and find out what new updates are available, if any. I long ago got rid of Dell SupportAssist, a very buggy piece of software, and Dell Update, which was better but still exhibited some problems.

With my desktop, every BIOS update turns back on Windows' ability to deliver UEFI capsule updates (BIOS updates) and turns off Auto Recovery and a couple of more "safety" settings in the BIOS, so after an update, I have to go back into the updated BIOS and restore my preferred settings. My laptop BIOS settings are left alone after a BIOS update to it.

@RoHe helped me get my desktop computer working again after Dell Update "borked" a BIOS update for it a couple of years ago. I sing his praises always and have followed his sage advice thereafter.

Just because many users have not experienced issues with not using the F12 Flash Update Method until now is no guarantee that they won't in the future. I know. I have been there.

I am just sharing my experience and what I learned from @RoHe. No flaming, please!

Have a great day.

Regards,
Phil

markw51 · Mar 8, 2024

garioch7 said:
I just updated the BIOS in my Dell XPS 15 7590 laptop today, purchased in 2020. My older XPS 8930 SE desktop (2019) is still getting BIOS updates as well.

I am a member of the Dell Forums. Their guru is @RoHe. He consistently and strongly recommends turning off the ability of Windows to update a Dell BIOS. Moreover, he does NOT encourage the use of Dell SupportAssist or Dell Update for that purpose. For maximum safety, the pre-boot F12 Flash BIOS option should be used. There is too much possibility of issues arising if Windows is involved in a Dell BIOS update.

My strategy is to check weekly (Fridays), my system imaging day, for updates for both of my computers. I go to the Dell Support Home site, enter my Service Tags and find out what new updates are available, if any. I long ago got rid of Dell SupportAssist, a very buggy piece of software, and Dell Update, which was better but still exhibited some problems.

With my desktop, every BIOS update turns back on Windows' ability to deliver UEFI capsule updates (BIOS updates) and turns off Auto Recovery and a couple of more "safety" settings in the BIOS, so after an update, I have to go back into the updated BIOS and restore my preferred settings. My laptop BIOS settings are left alone after a BIOS update to it.

@RoHe helped me get my desktop computer working again after Dell Update "borked" a BIOS update for it a couple of years ago. I sing his praises always and have followed his sage advice thereafter.

Just because many users have not experienced issues with not using the F12 Flash Update Method until now is no guarantee that they won't in the future. I know. I have been there.

I am just sharing my experience and what I learned from @RoHe. No flaming, please!

Have a great day.

Regards,
Phil

Thanks, that is very useful to know.

antspants · Mar 8, 2024

garioch7 said:
For maximum safety, the pre-boot F12 Flash BIOS option should be used

_william · Mar 9, 2024

markw51 said:
You don't need the rcv file that is a BIOS recovery file used I assume by technicians. You just need to download the executable file .exe and click on it to run, making sure it's plugged in.

By "plugged-in" I presume you just mean that it has its A/C power-supply plugged-in and not running from its battery.

But presumably in a situation where the BIOS gets messed-up the OS may be inaccessible, rendering that "recovery file" useless as one wouldn't be able to get to it...

Try3 · Mar 9, 2024

_william said:
By "plugged-in" I presume you just mean that it has its A/C power-supply plugged-in and not running from its battery.

Yes. It's not compulsory. It's just a precaution to guard against degraded batteries.

_william said:
presumably in a situation where the BIOS gets messed-up the OS may be inaccessible, rendering that "recovery file" useless as one wouldn't be able to get to it.

You would save the recovery file in your backup disk and you could access it by, for example, booting from a Windows installation USB or a Macrium reflect boot disk then using its command prompt to find & use the recovery file.
I urge you to use that Dell link I posted to find out which of the three types of Bios recovery facility you need to use. Mine uses a recovery file. Yours might or might not.

Try3 said:
The instructions are on the Dell Drivers & downloads webpage you download the Bios update from.
Different models have different types of Bios recovery.
How to Recover the BIOS - Dell

Denis

_william · Mar 9, 2024

@Try3 Got it. Thanks.

Try3 · Mar 9, 2024

I noticed your other thread.
I've posted there as well.

Backing up your drivers before a clean install saves a lot of time, effort & aggravation.
Backup and Restore Device Drivers - ElevenForumTutorials
Backup is a single operation.
Restoring them is a single operation.

You do not need to go around making driver lists or comparing versions.
I do make several lists of drivers.
- Each list contains some of their properties.
- I have never found a method of getting all properties into a single list although there is considerable duplication across the lists.
- The one time I had to use these lists in anger was for a very poorly supported brand of computer.
- - I kept multiple lists open at once and had to work my way through each one picking up a bit of data here, a bit of data there, ... until I was finally able to positively identify the driver [and version] that was absent after a clean install.
- - I then installed just that driver and the problem was fixed.
- - Now that I have more experience of preparing for clean installs, I'd just use that tutorial procedure to restore all of the drivers in one fell swoop and have done with it.

Denis

_william · Mar 9, 2024

@Try3 I see, thanks, yes it was a living nightmare.

gaffar · Mar 9, 2024

With very useful information in this thread, I am seriously considering updating my BIOS.

garioch7 · Mar 9, 2024

@gaffar ,

gaffar said:
With very useful information in this thread, I am seriously considering updating my BIOS.

I would recommend that you do so, particularly BIOS updates that address security vulnerabilities. I am amazed at how many BIOS updates Dell issues for my two older Windows 11 computers. There are usually three or four a year. My laptop is on BIOS Version 1.27, and my desktop is on BIOS version 1.31.

Just do it as safely as possible. Consult your PC manufacturer's website and Forums for information appropriate to updating the BIOS in your PC.

Have a great weekend.

Regards,
Phil