M15x BIOS A09 Discussion Thread

Guys, I'm going to be a (hopefully) happy M15x r2 owner by then end of Feb, I've been reading through the forums about the bios update issues and I know my following question has already been answered in the affirmative but I must ask again for peace of mind: will my M15x ship with the latest AO9 Bios already installed? For definite? I just do not fancy bricking my machine, cos I made some iso burning error, or something, before I've even tried out empire total war on full!!

 

The A09 BIOS should ship however if it does not then just flash it. Its not an issue and no, you aren't going to brick it.

Negative thoughts are bad.

 

Hey guys.. I'm actually using A08 now.. To have a safe installation of A09 BIOS what precautions should I take before? Sorry I'm totally new for this BIOS change or upgrade.. Does all the M15X users are facing NOT PLUGGED IN problem?

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M15X / Nebula Red / 1.5GB GTX 460M / 4GB / 500GB HDD / 1080p / Blu Ray

 

Hey cooldude, just for starters check out the very 1st page of this thread and also links in batboys signature, above your last post. Hope that helps. These are the guides I'll follow if I need to.

 

Hey everyone.

I've been following this forum from the time I laid my hands on an M15x in April last year but this is my first post ever. Well, this forum actually helped me get over my 940XM/260M throttling problem and I take this opportunity to thanks all those knowledgeable folks ESP. Inap, joker, batboy, rev, wattos, jstar and all of u guys who is of constant help in this great community. KUDOS.

Now, back on topic.... Does this new BIOS has any good news for XM users. I know A08 bios killed the performance out of my 940XM so I was still using A07 and as a result, the default windows driver for the track pad I hate the synaptics driver....but I love virtual scrolling though..and would like to use it again after flashing A09.

Any suggestions/advices guys ???

 

What's the performance of a 940XM chipset in A09 as compared to A08..???

Any thoughts/comments appreciated.

 

havn't installed the a09 as of yet, been using the a08 for a while on my 920xm. just use throttlestop to kickback the performance to what it was prior.

 

^^ well,I've been using A09 for a couple of days now and I'm under the impression that my 940XM works 8-10% better than A08(without using Throttlestop..)
And when using OC with TS running 26x across the board,I'm getting almost 10 degrees C less while on full load in A09. Can other A09 users confirm that please??? ESP.Mr. XM himself Inap
My TDP values are shown in my sig..
Cheers!!

 

Reminder, all for sale items/trades/want to buy/price check posts need to be made in the NBR MarketPlace. Review stickies in that section as there are specific requirements which must be met before listing an item in that section.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/nbr-marketplace/

 

@batboy: thanks for the tip and the link...will cooperate.

 

Any good reason for me to upgrade from A08 to A09? My m15x has a !7-720 and Dell Ati 5870 card. Didn't see much mentioned in here about actual real world improvements this update would provide.

 

I upgraded my BIOS to A09 but EC Firmware is still 1.16 not 1.18.. Yes I've Clicked y and z everything while it asked me to.. But all the time I get is Bad Command File Name.. So got any suggestions for me as how I could Upgrade it?

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M15X / Nebula Red / 1.5GB GTX 460M / 4GB / 500GB HDD / 1080p / Blu Ray

 

See revelators post a few pages back for an answer to your above question

Edit: page 13 of this thread

 

@Baerius Thank You.. It worked..
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M15X / Nebula Red / 1.5GB GTX 460M / 4GB / 500GB HDD / 1080p / Blu Ray

 

How's the performance of XM processors in A09 as compared to the "performance-killing" BIOS A08..???

Everything regarding the new BIOS has already been discussed except for this topic. Does anyone use a XM in their M15x anymore?

For M17x users, seems like this problem has been fixed with A10 but the situation is yet to be confirmed by any "M15x" user except me. I think there's a slight improvement in A09 without using TS but it sure does not run with it's full mind-boggling potential for sure.

@Inap: Dude,u shouldn't have sold that beast of a laptop of urs.. We XM users terribly miss ur benches and your thoughts in everything that is new and ESP. that killer XM..!!!

C'mon guys let's make it official. Are you satisfied with the performance of a XM processor in A09?? Or do you guys feel like talking only obout the polling rate???

Thoughts appreciated!!!

 

Ok dumb question but...

I had the EC firmware issue like another user on this thread. Even though I entered Y and pressed enter, it tells me that it was a bad command file name. Like another user suggested, I understand the part where I'm supposed to enter DFLASH EC_W670.118 but how do I update the EC firmware this time? do I have to re-flash A09 bios to get into the EC update... or?

Thanks!

 

@Roxy Just type DFLASH EC_W670.118 and Click Enter.. It again asks Y or N.. Now Click Y(Not case Sensitive).. Wait.. Laptop turns off.. Start laptop Manually.. Go to BIOS.. You can see your updated EC to 1.18..
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M15X / Nebula Red / 1.5GB GTX 460M / 4GB / 500GB HDD / 1080p / Blu Ray

 

@Roxy Yes Re-Flash it.. I did the same..

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M15X / Nebula Red / 1.5GB GTX 460M / 4GB / 500GB HDD / 1080p / Blu Ray

 

Yay thanks

 

ok finally got around to updating it.
it seems the AC adapter issue has been fixed
(pull out the power chord and the cpu would throttle, plug it back in and it stays throttled)

seems like the xm users still have stock settings so need throttlestop to bump it up back to a07 and prior levels.
seems like i no longer have to force chmod at least.

 

I have the exact same question but with slightly different comp specs (see sig)
Any insight?

 

Hey, I got my Alienware M15x five days ago and I had a lot's of issues going on with it by now btw. (not received with the new A09 BIOS on it)I still have A08.The problems are:

1. Sometimes at startup screen remains black and caps lock and scroll lock flashing but num lock stays on doing nothing. this are LED ERROR CODES: The video card is Preventing the system from completing POST.1. Replace the video card.
2.Replace the system board ...After a few resets, worked..every day it's like that.
2. When listening to music there are some moments when the sound cracks and freezes for short time windows for a few milliseconds ..... it's doing that very often and is extremely annoying. I try not to panic.
3. Same Problems with stealth and wifi buttons like everyone else.(I know that this, maybe it will be fixed once I put the new BIOS)
(these are the most important problems that I want fixed)
Anyone had the same problems as me and after BIOS improvement were fixed? Or have anyone ideas how i could get this fixed ? or I just call Dell before upgrading bios to A09 ? I heard from a lot of people that this is not the best way to make things right...calling dell.costumer service. Please Help!!!​

 

Hey Dub, I'm very sorry to hear that since it is a brand new PC. I know exactly how it feels and my system has been replaced 4 times. So, not to worry, whatever the problem, it'll be fixed one way or another.

First of all, your first issue of LED flashing are problem is hardware based and BIOS update won't fix it. I'm guessing either your RAM chip is not prolly put in properly or it's faulty. OR, your video card is not properly put it or it's faulty. I'm very sure it's either of these two.

As for your 2nd issue, you should update your bios first bcoz it's the first thing the tech support at Dell will make you do if you do decide to give them a call. They will also ask if you are using all the updated drivers from their site only. You should update the BIOS and see what happens.

You are still under 21 day trial period. So, give them a call and replace your system or get it fixed(upto you). But make sure call them asap.

Hope it'll come together well at the end. Best of Luck.

 

Thanks a lot for advices!! I hope everything would be fine!

 

hey guys,
decided to upgrade to A09 today. (A08 was so much easier). lol.
Real noob question here...i've downloaded the .zip file from given link on page #1, extracted to desktop but theres no .iso file in the extracted folder to burn to disk? I know ive missed something thats probably right in front of me!...been on a night shift...ready for bed :s
Cheers

 

You choice wrong link for making bootable CD, use this one:

Drivers and Downloads

 

Good luck getting anyone to answer that question. It has been asked at least 4 times in this thread with no responses. it seems to be 18 pages of telling people how to burn ISO files and such.

 

Thanks MAZter.
But that links the original one i downloaded :S Burnt the iso. zip to disk using ImgBurn.
Boot up press F12 - boot from cd - normal windows screen appears :S

 

Heh,

1) iso file must be named *.iso & dont unzip it
2) i use Nero Micro for burn & no problem with F12 loading from CD, maybe your program does not support Bootable CD... or you choice wrong burning options (make without boot area).

 

will try again. Just tried to verify disk with ImgBurn, says disk empty lol. thats after it burnt the .iso zip file to it :S

 

this is bs lol. im off to bed. Working nights. Cheers for all the advice though. CBA at the min.

 

any one able 2 help me out ?

My m15x has 2 harddisks no cd drive ( main OS is SSD)

I have basically installed the a09 Bios ( a08 worked perfect)

after it shutdown after the flash i now cant boot into windows . The Hdd's are detected in the Bios , correct boot order .. I even disabled the secondary HDD .. But will not boot in at all..

Any one else has this problem

 

How did you flash A09 -- USB flash memory stick? If so, did it also flash EC? If not, you're not through. The computer may be hung waiting on the reboot for separate installation of EC that is part of the update process. Reboot from the stick (or whatever boot drive you used to flash the BIOS) and see whether that resolves the issue.

 

* Download file M15xA09.iso from here: Drivers and Downloads. It's a raw .iso file, not a zip file.

* Right click on M15xA09.iso and select Burn to disc. Designate your DVD/CD drive, check verify, insert a disk and burn. The disk will eject when finished. (Or use ImgBurn if you prefer.)

* Insert the disk, reboot holding F12 at the bios/boot screen, select CD/DVD as boot drive. Computer will boot from the disk.

* Follow the on-screen instructions.

 

i used the Cd and it flashed fine ?

God knows what happened . Some how it had mucked windows up

It would not let me boot to my SSD

Instead some how it made a seperate partition on my HDD ?? 100mb in size ! and has all the system boot information inside it.

very strange and be careful guys when flashing !!

Could be the fact i have 2 hdd's .. 1 being a SSD
also im using a USB cdrw to flash .

Luckly i had everything mostly ! backed up

 

Odd. The 100MB System Reserved partition is created by the default installation process for Windows 7 and is part of the M15x factory configuration. It did not result from the BIOS flash. Sorry for your difficulties. I think I would try moving the portable CD to the top of the boot order and then reflashing the BIOS and the EC, leaving the CD drive attached through any necessary reboots until both are flashed successfully. I trust you are not trying to boot from the System Reserved partition?

 

Had a look Deeper . The 100mb reserve partition was actually on my 2nd HDD
( non OS file storage) , which is very strange as both HDD's have had all there partitions deleted and i never used the alienware cds to install the software . Plus it was not actually there before .

no matter what i did with boot order etc it just didnt work ..

In the end i just had to format , as soon as i formated and reinstalled windows from scratch it worked fine and booted straight to my SSD

 

Wonderful. Congratulations.

 

The Revelator:

* Download file M15xA09.iso from here: Drivers and Downloads. It's a raw .iso file, not a zip file.

* Right click on M15xA09.iso and select Burn to disc. Designate your DVD/CD drive, check verify, insert a disk and burn. The disk will eject when finished. (Or use ImgBurn if you prefer.)

* Insert the disk, reboot holding F12 at the bios/boot screen, select CD/DVD as boot drive. Computer will boot from the disk.

* Follow the on-screen instructions.

thanks for the instructions

Still no luck though.

I think i might have a faulty CD/DVD drive. As iv'e ripped around 5 disc with no luck. All from the link you provided??!!
Going to rip a music CD now to see if there is an issue.

 

@grads: read the other thread...I've replied there. TC

 

Should one update bios if its working well as it is?
How is this bios working out for people?

 

Yes. The BIOS updates improve the whole system performance and fix a lot of little bugs. There's a reason why Dell release them more or less regularly.

So far it always worked perfectly fine for me. It's really not hard to do the upgrade.

 

OK so Im trying to flash my Bios to A09. I keep getting a Phlash 16 error (undefined error 8953) does any one know what I need to do. Im currently still on A01 and Im trying to install a 5870 in place of the 260. thx Chris

 

No idea about this specific error. Did you use a bootable CD to update?

It's possible that you need to go to version A02 before you can update to the most recent version. As far as I remember A02 was a requirement for some updates. It's worth a try. You'll find all versions on the Dell site.

 

Using a bootable CD. Ill try dif versions thx

 

Ok so that worked I installed A02 first and then A09 flash worked. Now just trying to figure out why my 5870 thinks its a 5850 in device manger! any thoughts?

 

Has anyone tried from A03 to A09 yet? thanks.

 

Weird... but in the end it doesn't really matter imo. I'm sure you still run at 5870 clocks as the BIOS update hasn't anything to do with the vBios.

That should work. Afaik A02 was a requirement if you wanted to upgrade and still had A01. With A03 you should be able to go directly to A09.

 

Actually I see that I did infact run the 5850 vBios on accident. and now how do I change it back? I tried to run the 5870 vBios from dell but it's says it's only compatible with the m17x?

 

You flashed the 5850 vBios on the 5870?