View Full Version : The dangers of flashing the BIOS
Loose rivets
2nd May 2016, 21:34
I'm at last getting this Sony Vaio under control. The seemingly vital Sony driver seems to work. Wish I'd done it ages ago.
However, I've always had an issue with the temperatures on this i7 machine and though cleaning the heat exchanger helped a lot, it's always been on the verge of hot in test programs. A BIOS upgrade flash listed with the drivers mentions temperature issues. Wow. Or perhaps not.
None of the programs would take control of the fan speeds despite intimating they would.
It's a long time since I needed to flash a BIOS so I'm a tad wary, especially since they issue so many dire warnings about the power supplies not failing at the wrong moment etc.
If the worst should happen, just how does one redeem the situation, or is it a brick?
crablab
2nd May 2016, 21:35
Short answer: bricked.
It depends how bad it is, sometimes it is redeemable but very often not and generally not worth the effort.
I agree with crablab... a problem during flash reprogramming generally results in a bricked device. Occasionally, you can flash it again and it will work.
Power drops/spikes are often blamed, but it can also simply be the flash memory having reached the maximum limit of re-flashes. This can be a surprisingly few - I recall working with some equipment that had an Intel flash chip with a theoretical 'limit' of 10 re-flashes. They were being used in a test environment and got re-flashed frequently. Oops!
My advice (to anyone) is not to re-flash BIOS (or any other firmware) unless you really need to.
You can stack the odds in your favour:
Don't re-flash unless the new version solves a problem you already have or introduces a feature you really, absolutely, definitely must have
Don't use new firmware that is less than a month old (it might be very buggy and you will end up flashing it again very soon after when an update is released)
Laptops: make sure the battery is fully charged and run on mains power during the re-flash
Desktops: use a UPS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply).
If no UPS is available, hold your breath, don't look at your computer in a funny way and empty your mind of all impure thoughts during the re-flash
Loose rivets
3rd May 2016, 21:43
Hee hee. I'll probably abstain, but it was just the mention of temperature issues that made it tempting. It would be nice if the fan was ramped up a bit as an average setting.
Some PCs these days have backup BIOS so you can recover if flashing fails. I know the servers at work do, and I'm pretty sure my gaming PC does.
Loose rivets
4th May 2016, 22:05
I've just looked at a Sony site and folk are asking if it's possible to pull the BIOS software off as a backup. The answer seems to be no, so that would leave some kind of method of using the computer to choose where that backup would come from.
I imagine your computer is a tad more sophisticated than average, and certainly my kit. :-(
crablab
5th May 2016, 07:49
I remember having an Asus board that you could 'reflash' from BIOS but it managed to blow a few capacitors after I re-flashed it so that was the end of it...
I certainly know my ThinkPad can have it's BIOS 'rest' to default but I believe that incurs a hefty charge from Lenovo!
Loose rivets
5th May 2016, 10:17
Oh for the days of removable chips. But perhaps not. They could come loose, but at least it could be posted cheaply - if you could afford the updated chip, that is.
My first Vaio was an insurance write-off. I'd found the BIOS chip floating about, along with its tiny daughter board, inside the case. It was said there had been malicious damage while at a college, and some of the print showed scratch marks.
I sent it to Sony Brussels and come back with an estimate of £1,200 for a new motherboard. I called the head honcho there and mentioned the whole thing had only cost 999. He didn't care, but took the trouble to mention that they fingerprint check the inside of every machine and if even one print is found they invalidate the guarantee.
The odd thing was that the daughter board could be plugged in either way round. I don't recall how, but I came to some conclusion, cleaned up the print, and away she went. Wrote part of me book on it.
boguing
6th May 2016, 20:52
I've updated the bios on a lot of computers and never ever had a problem, so I'd say go ahead and do it.
I bought my Daughter a lovely 17" HP Pavilion laptop a few years ago and she found that it ran pretty hot, so much so that it occasionally shut itself down. For various reasons I never actually got to look into it until it was recycled in my direction last year. It was so hot that I'm surprised that the case hadn't melted. Tried a bios update as a last resort and it was like a new machine - cool until really pushed. Lord knows what they'd done wrong first time round but they fixed it. Maybe you'll be equally lucky?
Loose rivets
7th May 2016, 13:59
Oooo . . . so tempting. I like a flutter now and then.
:8:confused::8:confused::8:confused:
Loose rivets
8th May 2016, 23:35
Well, took the plunge and got the latest (offered) BIOS in. Still fairly hot, but while footling, found a performance setting on the S1 button with allows a change in the Thermal Control Strategy.
46 C on the output air and no change when selected to Performance mode.
I don't know if it's the main performance mode that's changed. I rather hoped it would be the fan control.
What I can't do is make that normal setting stay in performance mode - which can only be accessed via Control Panel and not Power for some reason. It never makes the Apply button come live and is back to balanced on the next look. Maybe Sony realised they'd made a dog, and stopped folk ramping it up to performance.
crablab
9th May 2016, 07:31
Well, took the plunge and got the latest (offered) BIOS in. Still fairly hot, but while footling, found a performance setting on the S1 button with allows a change in the Thermal Control Strategy.
46 C on the output air and no change when selected to Performance mode.
I don't know if it's the main performance mode that's changed. I rather hoped it would be the fan control.
What I can't do is make that normal setting stay in performance mode - which can only be accessed via Control Panel and not Power for some reason. It never makes the Apply button come live and is back to balanced on the next look. Maybe Sony realised they'd made a dog, and stopped folk ramping it up to performance.
If that's stock Windows I'd say it's a Windoze problem not a Sony lockdown.
Loose rivets
9th May 2016, 10:35
Well, the referral comes when I press S1 and try to do it there, so I guess you're right and Sony are handing over to Windows, though the Sony menu item is as I say, about temperature control.
Last night. 176 updates (after SP1 three days ago) and this morning it said they'd failed. It then spent an hour going back and then installing 50-ish of them. Running now, but since I'm told Sony are now out of the laptop market*, this all seems a waste of time.
*a local dealer on Saturday. I was unaware of this.