M6600 Owners Thread

I have both an XPS 8500 and an m6600.

When I saw the XPS 8500 had a BIOS update and it was still under warranty, I logged in to chat support and asked the fellow if he would do the BIOS update cause I was not comfortable doing it. The first thing he asked is if everything was working OK. I said yes and then he asked why did I want to do the update then. I did talk him into doing it, but it got me to wondering if update to the latest BIOS is really necessary in all cases.

Right now my m6600 is working fine with A12, but I wonder about updating...Do you think updating the BIOS is really necessary?

 

Could it be?
Hallelujah!

I think they just fixed that eject hardware tray icon - fingerprint smartcard reader eject that has been persistent from BIOS A03. Several boots warm and cold, nothing, and nothing broken in devices, and doesn't beak my smartcard device that sometimes happened ejecting a flash drive. Kind of weird that I miss it after all this time. Loads right back into tray when usb flash is inserted.

HumanComputer, I do thinks it shaved a second off the cold boot from power-on to Dell logo when using PreWin login. Warm restarts still nice and speedy.


Kallias,

It's pretty simple, although I always get nervous.
If you do it yourself, here's some things I do for prep:

Backup ALL DATA!
Download BIOS A13 Update File to partition C:\
Unblock the file. (right click/properties unblock)
Turn off anti-virus real time protection.
Unplug all devices externally attached.
Make sure you're plugged into AC and the Battery is in and fully charged.
I disabled Pre-Windows login.
Shutdown computer and cold start.
Login to Administrator acct. and wait 3 minutes.
Start button, Run, execute the file.
Accept the two prompts then DO NOT touch the computer until it completely reboots.
(There is that period where it says "Waiting for ME to come up....", - - Do Not Panic!!! - -)
It will eventually say "success" in Green Type.


EDIT:

Oh and backup your data first!

 

Lol that's a lot of steps! The only thing I did was I closed every window - then hit update ! AV was still on, external devices plugged in, password enabled, and it still worked fine, though it might help me to have some precautions set up next time, better safe than sorry!

 

LOL, I only put every minute detail in there for those that worry about doing it. I think with the Dell systems they're pretty hard to brick. Then again I don't want to have a rough tech coming out two days later and swapping my motherboard because I was lazy.

But so far I'm really happy with the update.

 

I wonder if bricking it would be covered under warranty?

 

My best guess is yes it would as the update is considered recommended and something the customer is "required" to do themselves.
It really isn't hard, I just take the extra precautions so if something were to go wrong those are eliminated.
Most of my nervousness comes from what I've read on the internet about other manufacturers. Dell has got this down solid - no weirdness.
A lot of us have done it the last couple days so I think you're on pretty stable ground - nothing wrong with it.

All my experiences flashing the BIOS on Dells' I've never had a bad one.

 

Ok...got it done!

Thanks for your list, esp. the part about the waiting. However I did forgot to unblock the file.

 

Awesome!!!

Kallias I'm glad to hear you did it :thumbsup:, Venturing into unknown waters can be a little unnerving. Heck I even wanted somebody else to go first this time.
Thanks HumanComputer and WaNaWe.

I'm not sure because I've haven't done this, but I think with these machines you can flash backwards to an earlier version if necessary. That would be comforting if for some reason there was a problem. I don't think that could have been done with my earlier systems - they were one way paths.

As for unblocking, all you did was answer an extra prompt before the file would execute.

 

You can revert to an earlier version. Do be sure to read the release notes. Sometimes they have special steps you have to follow to go back to an earlier version.

 

:thumbsup: yeap... there's note as below ;

Important Information
Please note that if "Signed Firmware Update" is enabled,
1.if the A03 or after A03 BIOS and before A07 is currently installed on your system
you must first update to A07 BIOS and then flash to the latest A-rev BIOS.
2. Please note that if the A02 or before A02 BIOS is currently installed on your system,
you must first update to A03 BIOS and then flash to the latest A-rev BIOS.


Miss-out the details on A13 ;

Fixes & Enhancements
1. Updated to the 4220.11 version of ePSA diagnostics.
2. Updated to the 7.1.70.1198 version of the Intel MEFW
3. Addressed long delay before Pre-Windows Login with Full Disk Encryption (FDE) Hard Drives in AHCI mode
4. Addressed IDE-R issue in ATA and AHCI mode.