Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
On Sat, 2009-12-19 at 23:57 +0100, Theodore Papadopoulo wrote: Aaron Konstam wrote: On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 12:57 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: Do a cold start and repeatedly hit the del key (or whatever it shows as the magic key on the bottom of the screen as it completes the P.O.S.T. procedure) to get into the motherboards bios. At least the del key is the trigger for the bios on my motherboard. This will take you into the bios configuration for your motherboard. On my box, right arrow to highlight the next to last entry hit enter. There should be an option to self-update the bios there. Well here is the scoop. On all Dell machines you get into thee BIOS page by hitting F2. And indeed the next to last entry in POST. But there is no option in POST to change the BIOS. A simple method to change the BIOS on a Dell machine was described in a previous post using the Dell repo. Once that is installed it takes about 1 minute to change the BIOS without rebooting the machine. Of course you have to reboot the machine to use the new BIOS. I went from BIOS A03 to A11, but the bad news is I still can't turn on hyper-threading which was the point of the whole excelsior. What a bummer. Yes the DELL bios repository for linux is clearly not up to date. The HDR file can in theory be extracted from the exe file. In linux, the firmwaretool has an option to extract the hdr... Unfortunately, this does not work for me (x86_64), but you may have more luck. Looking at the sources, it looks like ome way would be to use dosemu on the exe file. Hope this is of some help. Theo. I had forgottewn about dosemu. TThat was a goood tip. But in my case the dell repo was up to date as checked on the dell support site. -- === I was making donuts and now I'm on a bus! === Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akons...@sbcglobal.net -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
Aaron Konstam wrote: On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 12:57 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: Do a cold start and repeatedly hit the del key (or whatever it shows as the magic key on the bottom of the screen as it completes the P.O.S.T. procedure) to get into the motherboards bios. At least the del key is the trigger for the bios on my motherboard. This will take you into the bios configuration for your motherboard. On my box, right arrow to highlight the next to last entry hit enter. There should be an option to self-update the bios there. Well here is the scoop. On all Dell machines you get into thee BIOS page by hitting F2. And indeed the next to last entry in POST. But there is no option in POST to change the BIOS. A simple method to change the BIOS on a Dell machine was described in a previous post using the Dell repo. Once that is installed it takes about 1 minute to change the BIOS without rebooting the machine. Of course you have to reboot the machine to use the new BIOS. I went from BIOS A03 to A11, but the bad news is I still can't turn on hyper-threading which was the point of the whole excelsior. What a bummer. Yes the DELL bios repository for linux is clearly not up to date. The HDR file can in theory be extracted from the exe file. In linux, the firmwaretool has an option to extract the hdr... Unfortunately, this does not work for me (x86_64), but you may have more luck. Looking at the sources, it looks like ome way would be to use dosemu on the exe file. Hope this is of some help. Theo. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 12:44 -0600, Michael Hennebry wrote: On Thu, 17 Dec 2009, Kevin Kempter wrote: I updated my DELL bios this way, it worked great: http://linuxtidbits.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/create-a-bios-recovery-cd-in- linux/ I'm not sure I understand the term recovery in this context. My understanding was that if you trashed your BIOS, fixing it involved a soldering iron. The fix would not involve a CD because you couldn't use a CD drive. recovery CD here just means bootable disk with some sort of minimal OS on it that isn't the OS installed on the system - don't get hung up on the word recovery. Recovery or rescue disk is a common name for these things; it's just that in this case the purpose is to have some specialised tools for firmware updates plus a firmware update file of some kind rather than for rescuing or recovering a problem with the installed OS. Regards, Bryn. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
On Wed, 2009-12-16 at 21:00 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: On Wednesday 16 December 2009, Aaron Konstam wrote: The last time I installed a new BIOS on a Dell Computer I used a floppy disk. That is no longer an option. Could anyone explain how I can accomplish this? Please be as detailed as you can describing the procedure. Most bios these days are equipt to do that themselves from one of the more right hand option menu's. I have updated the bios on this asus motherboard several times now, by putting the new bios file on a usbkey plugging it in. It will muddle along looking the system over for a while but its never failed to find it. It is also capable of saving the old bios back to that same key before you install the new one too. -- I don't understand you procedure. The BIOS file I downloaded is an .EXE file. When I put on a usb drive and i insert it. It just sits there. If I try to execute it it says it is looking for a zip file and can't find it. What am I missing? What right hand menus are you talking about -- === On the eighth day, God created FORTRAN. === Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akons...@sbcglobal.net -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 08:45 +0100, François Patte wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Le 17/12/2009 01:10, Aaron Konstam a écrit : The last time I installed a new BIOS on a Dell Computer I used a floppy disk. That is no longer an option. Could anyone explain how I can accomplish this? Please be as detailed as you can describing the procedure. Look there: http://linux.dell.com/repo/community/ As I understand the procedure: wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/software/bootstrap.cgi | bash wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/firmware/bootstrap.cgi | bash then: yum -y install firmware-addon-dell yum install -y $(bootstrap_firmware) update_firmware --yes Let us kow the result. - -- I am a little nervous that they do not list a repository for fedora 12. -- === When some people decide it's time for everyone to make big changes, it means that they want you to change first. === Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akons...@sbcglobal.net -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 09:07 -0600, Aaron Konstam wrote: On Wed, 2009-12-16 at 21:00 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: On Wednesday 16 December 2009, Aaron Konstam wrote: The last time I installed a new BIOS on a Dell Computer I used a floppy disk. That is no longer an option. Could anyone explain how I can accomplish this? Please be as detailed as you can describing the procedure. Most bios these days are equipt to do that themselves from one of the more right hand option menu's. I have updated the bios on this asus motherboard several times now, by putting the new bios file on a usbkey plugging it in. It will muddle along looking the system over for a while but its never failed to find it. It is also capable of saving the old bios back to that same key before you install the new one too. -- I don't understand you procedure. The BIOS file I downloaded is an .EXE file. When I put on a usb drive and i insert it. It just sits there. If I try to execute it it says it is looking for a zip file and can't find it. What am I missing? What right hand menus are you talking about If all you have is an EXE file then grab yourself a freedos ISO (Dell used to provide them at least with N-series machines, if not it's under the GPL a free download) and drop the EXE into the image and burn. Then you can boot freedos and run the update from there. I've done this for Dell, HP and IBM/Lenovo systems in the past. Dell also has a tool called biosdisk that appears to automate this process: http://linux.dell.com/biosdisk/ Dell also has a project called firmware tools to allow updating of BIOS and firmware images from within a booted Linux kernel: http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Oss/Firmware_Tools Seems to have been a bit quiet in the last few years so not sure what current status is. That page also has a link to: http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Tech/libsmbios_livecd Which gives another option - building a fedora liveCD to do the updates from (this uses the Firmware Tools stuff to do the update). Regards, Bryn. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Le 17/12/2009 16:20, Aaron Konstam a écrit : On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 08:45 +0100, François Patte wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Le 17/12/2009 01:10, Aaron Konstam a écrit : The last time I installed a new BIOS on a Dell Computer I used a floppy disk. That is no longer an option. Could anyone explain how I can accomplish this? Please be as detailed as you can describing the procedure. Look there: http://linux.dell.com/repo/community/ As I understand the procedure: wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/software/bootstrap.cgi | bash wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/firmware/bootstrap.cgi | bash then: yum -y install firmware-addon-dell yum install -y $(bootstrap_firmware) update_firmware --yes Let us kow the result. - -- I am a little nervous that they do not list a repository for fedora 12. In fact, the package firmware-addon-dell-2.1.2-5.3.fc12.i686 can be installed from f12 repository, so you can run directly: update_firmware To see what if your firmware has to be update and if yes, you run: update_firmware --yes - -- François Patte UFR de mathématiques et informatique Université Paris Descartes 45, rue des Saints Pères F-75270 Paris Cedex 06 Tél. +33 (0)1 4286 2145 http://www.math-info.univ-paris5.fr/~patte -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAksqTeAACgkQdE6C2dhV2JWZTwCggqDf4/UYv/PpKly4QidlMrrs w3MAoIx8kU8jjjKxZhcyPwQi4z0Jtyqb =NzYK -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 08:45 +0100, François Patte wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Le 17/12/2009 01:10, Aaron Konstam a écrit : The last time I installed a new BIOS on a Dell Computer I used a floppy disk. That is no longer an option. Could anyone explain how I can accomplish this? Please be as detailed as you can describing the procedure. Look there: http://linux.dell.com/repo/community/ As I understand the procedure: wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/software/bootstrap.cgi | bash wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/firmware/bootstrap.cgi | bash then: yum -y install firmware-addon-dell yum install -y $(bootstrap_firmware) update_firmware --yes Let us know the result. Wall the process worked like a charm. The BIOS was upgraded from A03 to A11. But the change I wanted did not appear. I want to be able to turn on hyper-threading and A11 (as well as A)#) does not allow this. But I am glad to know this procedural since it works so well. Thanks -- === Observe yon plumed biped fine. To activate its captivation, Deposit on its termination, A quantity of particles saline. === Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akons...@sbcglobal.net -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
On Thursday 17 December 2009, Aaron Konstam wrote: On Wed, 2009-12-16 at 21:00 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: On Wednesday 16 December 2009, Aaron Konstam wrote: The last time I installed a new BIOS on a Dell Computer I used a floppy disk. That is no longer an option. Could anyone explain how I can accomplish this? Please be as detailed as you can describing the procedure. Most bios these days are equipt to do that themselves from one of the more right hand option menu's. I have updated the bios on this asus motherboard several times now, by putting the new bios file on a usbkey plugging it in. It will muddle along looking the system over for a while but its never failed to find it. It is also capable of saving the old bios back to that same key before you install the new one too. I don't understand you procedure. The BIOS file I downloaded is an .EXE file. When I put on a usb drive and i insert it. It just sits there. If I try to execute it it says it is looking for a zip file and can't find it. What am I missing? What right hand menus are you talking about Do a cold start and repeatedly hit the del key (or whatever it shows as the magic key on the bottom of the screen as it completes the P.O.S.T. procedure) to get into the motherboards bios. At least the del key is the trigger for the bios on my motherboard. This will take you into the bios configuration for your motherboard. On my box, right arrow to highlight the next to last entry hit enter. There should be an option to self-update the bios there. -- Cheers, Gene There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. https://www.nrahq.org/nrabonus/accept-membership.asp Why don't you ever enter any CONTESTS, Marvin?? Don't you know your own ZIPCODE? -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
On Thursday 17 December 2009 10:57:48 Gene Heskett wrote: On Thursday 17 December 2009, Aaron Konstam wrote: On Wed, 2009-12-16 at 21:00 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: On Wednesday 16 December 2009, Aaron Konstam wrote: The last time I installed a new BIOS on a Dell Computer I used a floppy disk. That is no longer an option. Could anyone explain how I can accomplish this? Please be as detailed as you can describing the procedure. Most bios these days are equipt to do that themselves from one of the more right hand option menu's. I have updated the bios on this asus motherboard several times now, by putting the new bios file on a usbkey plugging it in. It will muddle along looking the system over for a while but its never failed to find it. It is also capable of saving the old bios back to that same key before you install the new one too. I don't understand you procedure. The BIOS file I downloaded is an .EXE file. When I put on a usb drive and i insert it. It just sits there. If I try to execute it it says it is looking for a zip file and can't find it. What am I missing? What right hand menus are you talking about Do a cold start and repeatedly hit the del key (or whatever it shows as the magic key on the bottom of the screen as it completes the P.O.S.T. procedure) to get into the motherboards bios. At least the del key is the trigger for the bios on my motherboard. This will take you into the bios configuration for your motherboard. On my box, right arrow to highlight the next to last entry hit enter. There should be an option to self-update the bios there. I updated my DELL bios this way, it worked great: http://linuxtidbits.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/create-a-bios-recovery-cd-in- linux/ -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
On Thu, 17 Dec 2009, Kevin Kempter wrote: I updated my DELL bios this way, it worked great: http://linuxtidbits.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/create-a-bios-recovery-cd-in- linux/ I'm not sure I understand the term recovery in this context. My understanding was that if you trashed your BIOS, fixing it involved a soldering iron. The fix would not involve a CD because you couldn't use a CD drive. -- Michael henne...@web.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu Pessimist: The glass is half empty. Optimist: The glass is half full. Engineer: The glass is twice as big as it needs to be. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 12:57 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: On Thursday 17 December 2009, Aaron Konstam wrote: On Wed, 2009-12-16 at 21:00 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: On Wednesday 16 December 2009, Aaron Konstam wrote: The last time I installed a new BIOS on a Dell Computer I used a floppy disk. That is no longer an option. Could anyone explain how I can accomplish this? Please be as detailed as you can describing the procedure. Most bios these days are equipt to do that themselves from one of the more right hand option menu's. I have updated the bios on this asus motherboard several times now, by putting the new bios file on a usbkey plugging it in. It will muddle along looking the system over for a while but its never failed to find it. It is also capable of saving the old bios back to that same key before you install the new one too. I don't understand you procedure. The BIOS file I downloaded is an .EXE file. When I put on a usb drive and i insert it. It just sits there. If I try to execute it it says it is looking for a zip file and can't find it. What am I missing? What right hand menus are you talking about Do a cold start and repeatedly hit the del key (or whatever it shows as the magic key on the bottom of the screen as it completes the P.O.S.T. procedure) to get into the motherboards bios. At least the del key is the trigger for the bios on my motherboard. This will take you into the bios configuration for your motherboard. On my box, right arrow to highlight the next to last entry hit enter. There should be an option to self-update the bios there. Well here is the scoop. On all Dell machines you get into thee BIOS page by hitting F2. And indeed the next to last entry in POST. But there is no option in POST to change the BIOS. A simple method to change the BIOS on a Dell machine was described in a previous post using the Dell repo. Once that is installed it takes about 1 minute to change the BIOS without rebooting the machine. Of course you have to reboot the machine to use the new BIOS. I went from BIOS A03 to A11, but the bad news is I still can't turn on hyper-threading which was the point of the whole excelsior. What a bummer. -- === ... the flaw that makes perfection perfect. === Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akons...@sbcglobal.net -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
On Wed, 2009-12-16 at 18:10 -0600, Aaron Konstam wrote: The last time I installed a new BIOS on a Dell Computer I used a floppy disk. That is no longer an option. Could anyone explain how I can accomplish this? Please be as detailed as you can describing the procedure. I have no Dell computers, but the last time I upgraded the bios on my Intel motherboard I downloaded a bootable ISO file from the Intel website, burned that to a CD and booted from that. Does Dell offer something similar? -- MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Melville Sask ~ http://www.melvilletheatre.com -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
On Wed, 2009-12-16 at 18:19 -0600, Frank Cox wrote: On Wed, 2009-12-16 at 18:10 -0600, Aaron Konstam wrote: The last time I installed a new BIOS on a Dell Computer I used a floppy disk. That is no longer an option. Could anyone explain how I can accomplish this? Please be as detailed as you can describing the procedure. I have no Dell computers, but the last time I upgraded the bios on my Intel motherboard I downloaded a bootable ISO file from the Intel website, burned that to a CD and booted from that. Does Dell offer something similar? -- MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Melville Sask ~ http://www.melvilletheatre.com That seems like one of the options from Dell so I will try that. -- === The kind of danger people most enjoy is the kind they can watch from a safe place. === Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akons...@sbcglobal.net -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
On Wednesday 16 December 2009, Aaron Konstam wrote: The last time I installed a new BIOS on a Dell Computer I used a floppy disk. That is no longer an option. Could anyone explain how I can accomplish this? Please be as detailed as you can describing the procedure. Most bios these days are equipt to do that themselves from one of the more right hand option menu's. I have updated the bios on this asus motherboard several times now, by putting the new bios file on a usbkey plugging it in. It will muddle along looking the system over for a while but its never failed to find it. It is also capable of saving the old bios back to that same key before you install the new one too. -- Cheers, Gene There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. https://www.nrahq.org/nrabonus/accept-membership.asp Just go with the flow control, roll with the crunches, and, when you get a prompt, type like hell. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Re: Installing a new BIOS on a Dell Computer
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Le 17/12/2009 01:10, Aaron Konstam a écrit : The last time I installed a new BIOS on a Dell Computer I used a floppy disk. That is no longer an option. Could anyone explain how I can accomplish this? Please be as detailed as you can describing the procedure. Look there: http://linux.dell.com/repo/community/ As I understand the procedure: wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/software/bootstrap.cgi | bash wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/firmware/bootstrap.cgi | bash then: yum -y install firmware-addon-dell yum install -y $(bootstrap_firmware) update_firmware --yes Let us kow the result. - -- François Patte UFR de mathématiques et informatique Université Paris Descartes 45, rue des Saints Pères F-75270 Paris Cedex 06 Tél. +33 (0)1 4286 2145 http://www.math-info.univ-paris5.fr/~patte -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAksp4aEACgkQdE6C2dhV2JUHrACdFfBC6VDlYFM3Bj3LRHx0eCJO 7ZUAnRAKumFyfvq1e6mGCga8+V4EzJTP =13r0 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
