Help! Dell Inspiron 'Dead' After BIOS Update

[fireberd]

Google search turns up a lot of hits for Dell BIOS chips, but they were all from 3rd party sites or e-bay, nothing direct from Dell.

I've built many Heathkits, ham radio gear, test equipment, tv, etc. Nothing like working on an SMT circuit board.

 

[Snick]

I agree with you fireberd. Heathkits are designed for the home builder with attachment of electronic parts and solder connection larger, and easier to solder. SMT is another animal regarding it's micro-sized electronic parts and connections. At the factory they are usually parts pre-installed fluxed and then dipped flat in molten solder, not an option with replacing parts.

Most often, the sellers on E-Bay and Amazon are tech-savy. Contacting them, or a few, multiple confirmation of the same BIOS chip in this instance is a good thing, most likely will be correct chip.

 

[Snick]

I agree with you fireberd. Heathkits are designed for the home builder. SMT board is another animal altogether, micro-parts, assembled by robots, and flat-dip soldered.

 

[boweasel]

The thing I keep coming back to is that I didn't simply decide to update the BIOS on some sort of whim. The godforsaken Dell Support Agent instructed me to do it. You buy a product, it comes with instructions. The instructions might tell you how to access the battery compartment and how to insert the batteries. How to assemble the components and the hardware to use. The instructions on frozen pizzas even explicitly tell you to take the pizza out of the box and to remove the plastic wrapping before placing the pizza in the heated oven. You assume those instructions are there to be helpful. And the warnings to free the company from any legal repercussions. But the Dell Support Agent not only failed to offer any such warnings about the BIOS, it wanted me to do it.

On a Dell forum I wondered how Ford would deal with the avalanche of lawsuits if they sent out automobile tune-up instructions that completely ruined the engines of their F-Series pickups. Would they be able to legally hide behind the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' homily? The comment elicited zero responses.

 

[fireberd]

Its sad that it happened and that the Dell support agent even showed that as an update, considering the date on the BIOS update. But it did and like most users you let it do it and unfortunately it corrupted the BIOS. As it, apparently, has not corrupted others (if it did, Dell would have pulled the BIOS update) and it is out of warranty (or extended warranty) you are left to do whatever is needed on your own and a sad lesson on BIOS updates.

I don't know about the support agent you have, but the one that is on my 2017 Dell laptop lists the available updates and has option to install or not install each one. However, I have that disabled and don't use it.

 

[fireberd]

Just as I said only do BIOS if it fixes something you have or adds support for new hardware you want, I got an "Urgent" BIOS update for my Dell Inspiron 15 5577 laptop. One of the things (of several) it addressed was issues with M.2 SSD's, which I have. The BIOS updated without problems.

 

[boweasel]

Put the HDD in a Lenovo W7 Pro. Everything works but IE11. I started a new thread for that in the Updates & Activation sub-forum.