E6320 BIOS Flash

Had a question for Dell Support and while talking with them they advised me to update the BIOS. They told me to undock the machine to do the flash. It appeared to work (ver A12).

However, upon redocking to my Dell monitor (via E-Port docking station), the BIOS splash screen (with the BIOS ver, F12 option ,etc) no longer appears - it just boots directly to Win 7. If I boot up undocked (either under battery or with AC connected), the splash screen appears normally.

While undocked, I tried to find an entry in the BIOS that might control the splash screen visibility but could not find it.

Any ideas as to what happened or how to get back the splash screen while docked?

Thanks,
Harvey

 

FWIW, after getting the "go ahead" (to protect my warranty), I reflashed back to A08 (while docked). That seems to have solved the problem.

So, beware of A12. For my set up (e-dock, Dell 1901FP, etc.) - the splash screen was lost. Whether this was due to flashing A12 while undocked (supposedly safer) or not, it still points to an issue with A12. The pro-support rep has written up an incident report.