About BIOS Upgrade on T61

hi,

a few days ago i received my brand new T61 (15.4", WSXGA+, 3GB Ram) and i am the happiest man of the world
I spent 2-3 days to install all my software and fine tune the system, i also upgraded some things through Thinkvantage system upgrade tool, like video display drivers, intel's wlan driver and the like.

The ONLY thing i was afraid to do so was the BIOS...Thinkvantage Upgrade Tool tells me that a new BIOS version is there for me to upgrade but as i remember correctly did not tell me what the version is and what benefits there are compared with the version i have now (i was doing this in 03am so i may be wrong but i think i am not)

Is there a way to find what version is the latest one and and it's upgrade notice ??

(my system is running very smoothly and fast and i just do not want to take a risk and maybe i have a locked down machine after the upgrade, as i read in the forum some folks had...)

 

You can find BIOS upgrades in the lenovo drivers and downloads page:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-67853

Do not upgrade your BIOS unless you are having problems that an upgrade will specifically fix. You can always find out what BIOS upgrades fix by reading the release notes or readme file. If you really need to upgrade your BIOS, use the bootable CD method. A BIOS upgrade can cause severe irreversible damage if not done properly. There have been a few people who have had problems using the system update utility. It's not worth the risk.

For many similar questions regarding drivers/update and system stability please click on the clean install guide (link in my sig) and read the F.A.Q. at the bottom of the guide.

 

The system update tool *should* tell you 1) what version the BIOS update is, 2) how to determine the version of your current BIOS, 3) what the fixes are, and 4) what precautions you need to take before attempting the update.

I updated via the tool with no problems. Make sure you have no other programs running and your battery is plugged in. Don't want to freeze or lose power when you're updating the BIOS.

As the poster above said, it's probably not worth doing unless it contains fixes that apply to you.

 

I echo the two cautions about not upgrading unless there is some obvious problem in your machine that's addressed in the upgrae and not doing it via ThinkVantage directly but using the CD method.

I did a BIOS upgrade soon after getting my machine. The result was an unbootable hard drive. Lenovo quickly sent a replacement, but that meant a lot of reloading work here.

 

Yeah, thanks for providing your input.

It's really quite simple to upgrade the BIOS using a bootable disk.

--Just download the iso file
--Burn the iso file to disk using an image burning utility (such as my favorite free utility "imgburn")
--boot to the disk and follow the on-screen prompts

Make sure to read the install instructions, but that is it in a nutshell.

 

On, thank you all!

I will first try to see if it is really worth it and if it really does, i will do the manual upgrade using info from here.

Thanks again!

 

I saw here
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-67988.html

that an .exe format is supported. Should i download and perform the BIOS upgrade through this executable instead of doing the .iso procedure ??

 

Personally I prefer the exe format rather than the bootable iso, but that is because I am accustomed to doing them that way.

 

I second (or third?) the note not to update your BIOS unless necessary. I also read the update notes on the latest BIOS last week and it seems to address very specific issues and does not seem necessary for everyone.

 

Hmm...that "(Fix) The data transfer rate of hard drive is slow in SATA AHCI mode" may be important indeed...

 

Here's another perspective....

1) There are probably other fixes in the BIOS that are not called out in the release notes. The list is generally pretty short and it captures the highlights.
2) There are a number of checks in the installer to backup/verify/etc.
3) Lenovo would not put the BIOS update in the system updater if they did not feel confident in the upgrade process, as they would be getting a lot of machines in for warranty repair if their update process was bad

I'm not saying a BIOS update won't tank. Far from it. I've had it happen to me before on a machine, but compared to the number of times I've been successful, it's background noise. Just about everything has a flash BIOS in it these days... computers, printers, routers, cell phones, etc.

I agree that you probably don't need to go to every version that exists, but it's a good idea to keep all of your drivers and firmware updated. Software is always going to have bugs, it's the nature of the beast.

 

I am really tempted to do this update since it refers to an optimization that has to do with the hard disk. And we all know how a strong relationship exists between Windows Vista and the Hard Disk...

Anyway, the text file regarding the last BIOS update mentions something about a windows hotfix that must exist before reflash the machine.
So i contact Microsoft and they sent me this an hour ago. I do not have my T61 here in the work to see if this hotfix is already installed but i will check at night.

 

I did upgrade with no problem; Just make sure yuor battery is at 100% and it is plugged in..you shound't have problems

a word of caution though: during the setup proces..it will show the installer as "not responding"..do not do anything..it will still install fine...you will get a prompt later saying install was succesful..i just seems like it has stopped working

 

What's SATA AHCI mode?

 

ok! did you actually see a difference in the hdd performance, as this upgrade claims that it offers ?

 

I've seen BIOS that improves battery life for 140M. In my experience it really did help.

 

i haven't had a chance to test it out yet..but ill keep you guys updated

 

i finally did the reflash to v.1.26 without any problems. In about 2 minutes it was done. I first installed that vista-specific hotfix though, just to be safe

 

well, I really don't notice any thing different...anyone else?

 

I also installed new bios. infact it feels like hdd works slower now :O
Maybe that's just a feeling.
Anyway there is no big difference in windows startup times (before patch ~40s, after patch ~40s).
Maybe I should reinstall windows too.
P.S. I use XP.