M15x BIOS A09 Discussion Thread

Hi, I'm a new member. Should I upgrade the BIOS in my M15x to this new version? I have the A08 one and it seems to be working just fine? Is there a guide that shows how to do it?

 

I might be a noob, and this might not be very related. Here it goes: What does EC mean?

 

Embedded Controller.

 

Well, same as mine A08, but its better to upgrade because it makes the system better. Good luck.

All you have to do is download the file, burn it onto a disc (best at minimum speed 4x as others done). Then, put in the disc, shut down the pc. Start the pc and press F12 at the starting when you see the alienhead. Boot using your cd (choose the DVD player to boot). And follow the insrtuction there onwards ^^. Cheers!

Edit: Make sure you burn it as a disk file not data burning. Use imgburn.

 

I'd like to know, in the real world, what the advantages are with A09 over A08.

What needed fixing in 8 that's resolved in 9?

I'm all for BIOS updates but only if there is a real advantage.

 

Burnt image to disc, flash successful, booted up asked for EC flash typed Y, EC flash failed. Flashed again, reboot, this time round EC flash successful. Bios shows EC as 1.18 as it should.
Perplexed as to why initial EC flash failed??????

*edit* To date no noticeable improvements.

 

I already experienced the "y" vs "Y" behaviour with an SSD firmware update.

The script executed at boot tested the input and only does it job when you press "Y", "y" was not tested and the script assume you do not want to upgrade your SSD firmware, stupid programmer.

>Fixed LFM state issue.

Anyone know what this means ?
(sorry if it has been answered before, but I didn't see it on the previous pages)

 

Hello,
Does anyone has some HASH (CRC, MD5...) For the ISO version of the BIOS?

Thanks!

 

i installed A09 BIOS successfully at my first attempt. EC Flash succeeded at first try as well..i wonder why others encountered a problem mentioned above :S
and yeah, repeating CptDobey's question here. What does LFM mean?

 

Just my two cents - I'm nearly 100% sure that a cd written by a writer at any speed would read fine in the same drive assuming it wasn't faulty so unlikely to be relevant I think.

The y versus Y point, in my case I imagine that is also irrelevant as I used a lower case y (which would be the default anyway since the computer defaults to lower case).

I suspect the issue is caused by something else.

Regarding LFM, my guess is Lowest Frequency Mode which is a low power-state - not sure what the issue was.

 

So other than scaring people during the upgrade, has this made any difference?

 

I like that pressing the stealth and wifi buttons doesn't enter text as before I had to delete the 7 char from whatever I was doing..

 

My ec flashing failed. i tried y and Y and they appeared to be" bad command or file". So i did exactly revelator's way by typing DFLASH EC_W670.118 to the dos prompt. then finally got my ec updated to 1.18. now the stealth mode is fixed

 

I dont know if anyone else noticed or not on their system, but I no longer get the "freezing" problem when pressing eject, if anyone knows what I am talking about. I installed at least 4 games yesterday and never got the freezing problem when ejecting.

Its quite possible one of the fixes resolved that. I have no idea what the LFM thing is, never heard of it in the PC world....maybe its one of their wierd abbreviations. lol

 

I'm surprised so many people are asking about LFM.. It's been mentioned a lot in different contexts (as google will show) - Super LFM, LFM (Lowest frequency mode) and LFM (Light Field Mapping) <- Which it most likely isn't LOL

It has to be a low power state bugfix.

It's been around since the penryn if I'm not mistaken.

 

You are probably right Mr Pras, LFM = Lowest Frequency Mode is probably what the fix is in this situation, I am guessing in regards to the CPU, as it downclocks so much on battery mode.

I used to have a lot of lag when scrolling up and down pages surfing the web on battery mode. It seems to me a bit better now, but I dont know if that is the case. Seems most likely though...

 

Just a thought... is it possible that the system belives it has an US keyboard layout, even if that's not the case? Because the European keyboards have the Y and Z keys swapped (Y at the place of Z and vice versa)

 

You know, you might be onto something there....but I would assume the BIOS files would be modified to accept all forms of keyboard input from different regions.

 

For USB way:
-create a bootable USB using BIOS A08 program and then
-copy add all extracted files from A09 to USB overwriting any files
-delete autorun.bat from the USB
-boot using USB
-type FA and press enter key

This will flash BIOS and EC

Enjoy.

 

Can you post the BIOS A08 exe file?

Also, does anyone has the HASH for the ISO file of the A09?

Thanks!

 

Check here: Drivers and Downloads

 

Y is at the same place on American and most european keyboards:
QWERTY
AZERTY

AZ and QW are swapped.

In fact, Y doesn't move much except on german keyboard
All about typing

 

Oh, you're right, well almost right, apparently there's also the Swiss layout with the Y and Z swapped

Thanks for the info!!

 

Well, thank you!! Worked perfectly except for that EC bobble business, but the Revelator trick fixed that. This is the greatest place ever for M15x owners. I have learned how to fix things that I didn't even know were broken from browsing through this forum, and I just got started. You guys know everything! I might have some questions, but I'm learning mostly just by watching. Thanks again.

 

First, thanks The Revelator for the link for the A08.

My to cents to encorage others to do the BIOS update to A09 an EC to 1.18.

What I did:

1. Download the A09 ISO file from Dell
2. Burn the image with "ImgBurn" at 1x
3. Verify the burn with "ImgBurn"
4. Restart with the CD inside the reader
5. Wait for the BIOS update
6. Use "The Revelator" tric "DFLASH EC_W670.118"
7. Press lowercase "y"
8. Power back my computer... and it's done!

 

Nothing is more powerful than a hive of minds with a common goal

 

'REV' I just updated to A09 using your link and procedure, very smooth with no issues. EC flashed to 1.18 with no problems (confirmed on BIOS Main Page). I still HATE that loud beep, I jump out of my skin every time that sucker goes off during the flash process... hate it, hate it, hate it! Thanks for your help and advice.

 

Glad it went smoothly. Agree about the beep. Every time it goes off, everyone in the house comes running, asking "WTH was that? Did you break it?" LOL.

 

Anyone can show me how to update it without CD, 'cause I replaced my DVD-ROM with a hard drive.

 

See post#1 - I updated it with the USB Boot Stick method. As long as you are on BIOS higher than A01 then you are fine. According to the notes, if a system is on BIOS A00 or A01 then the user must run both batch files starting with F.BAT.

Since you are most likely on the last BIOS, just follow the instructions and when at the DOS prompt, only run FA.BAT. After the initial ROM flash is done, watch for the EC Flash prompt. Remember, its two parts to the update. When complete, the system will just shutdown (at least that is my understanding).

---------------------------------

Kudos to everyone who worked up the alternate methods. I hope Dell goes back to what we saw with GUI interface where it would create the bootstick for you with the necessary BIOS flash files.

Regardless, good job all!

 

Quick question

If i create a bootable usb from the a08 bios and do the below - should that work.

Create bootable usb from a08 bios
remove all files / directories except command.com
copy all the a09 files from the hard disk version
boot usb
run fa.bat

thx

 

If you want a Bootable USB to update the BIOS, just follow what BatBoy added to the 1st post on this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m15x/549258-m15x-bios-a09-discussion-thread.html

 

oddly enough, i went back through the installation and it automatically installed the EC this time, same CD, nothing changed. I dont know whats up with that. the A08 update seemed much more "professional"

 

Yeah it seems a couple of people had that. Personally, I didn't see any difference between this and the previous updates.. They were all just as professional - IE not entirely..

They should tell you about the EC flash or change the text to make it more obvious that two flashes will take place.

Anyway, probably the solution for anyone having an issue with the EC flash is to "try, try again"

 

CD method; Worked the 1st time with no issue. I did press "y" at the end of the Bios flash to prompt the EC programming.

 

I believe the this should work I just tested this method on a d630 lattitude. obviously instead of executing fa.bat I executed the dos - method bios specific for the d630. It booted fine off the usb and allowed me to update fine.

This is what I think should work for the m15x - thoughts?
Run the A08 bios executable to build the flash drive delete everything via cmd prompt except the below...
dellbio.bin
dellrmk.bin
command.com

Copy all the a09 file from the .exe version to the flash drive

Boot off the usb drive (f12)
at the c: command prompt run --> fa.bat

Since i am already at a08 - i dont think running f.bat is necessary.

 

You mean like building an A08 USB and replacing the a08 file with an A09 file? Perhaps this would work if you also replace the EC file with a new one.

Personally I think we are way more likely to run into problems doing this, and wouldn't recommend anyone to do it unless there was no other way.

Somehow I doubt it would make much difference also, since the scripts probably haven't changed since A08, only the bios files.

Just my thoughts though, thanks for the idea!

 

I just did the cd / iso method - i feel kinda silly - but i'll say it. after i downloaded the iso image file from dell it showed as a winzip association - but when i said open with nero - low and behold....

With that said - it flashed fine - but i had to do the ec manually (i used a lower case y but when i did it manually i used the uppercase Y)

now she is at a09 and 1.18

That BEEP sure is scary.

* what i meant by the previous is just leave the bootable/kernel file and manually run fa. (i too had my doubts about this) so i went the cd/iso method

 

Sorry folks need help,

I downloaded the driver from dell, saved the file onto disc, restarted the computer using f12, boot by disc and then windows just starts as normal, what am I doing wrong?

 

Probably your disc is a data CD, you need to burn it as bootable disc.
In case you have no program to do so, use the application which came with the Bios A08, as far as I remember it allows you to burn a bootable disc.

 

Did you try burning the ISO with ImgBurn?
The Official ImgBurn Website

Also, are you sure that you are choosing the correct item on the F12 boot list?

 

Hi all,

I just burned the application as a data cd, how do I burn a bootable disc, I upgraded to A08 last time but I forgot how I did it, bad I know!

 

Yeah I choose boot by CD/DVD....

 

To burn the image use this option:



Select the .ISO at the "Source", reduce the speed to 4x and burn!

 

I did mine, put 4x but it burned at 10x lol, it said incompatible something, but all went well. That beep really made my skin jump and all rushing over to c if i broke it lol.

 

LOL i did the same thing.

 

It's good to see that most of the discussion is about the flashing procedures. If not ALL!!

That means the BIOS itself is working well I guess, no complaints here! W00t!

 

I've just updated my BIOS ver from A06 to A09.
One of the problems that are fixed is my audio.

Before this I was using A07, and whenever I plug in a headphone into my M15x, I turn up the volume a little bit my headphones will start to have the 'crackling' sound.

After this new BIOS this problem is fixed, I can put my volume to max and have clear audio.

I was wondering did anyone else have this problem before?

 

Yep that happened to me when I first got the system. Fixed for me when I updated it to A08.

 

I am getting an error 8953, anyone able to help?