Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS, what should I do?

[Walt Guimbellot]

Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

I have a Dell 2330 AIO desktop. I installed the insider preview. Everything was going great until MSFT pushed down a windows update, When the update was finished the machine re-booted. Upon re-boot I get a blank screen, no Dell logo, nothing happens. All the keystrokes for getting into BIOS or boot menu do not work. I opened it up and move the pins to reset the BIOS. Powered it back on and nada, no joy, same result.

 

[Asskickulater]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

I have a Dell 2330 AIO desktop. I installed the insider preview. Everything was going great until MSFT pushed down a windows update, When the update was finished the machine re-booted. Upon re-boot I get a blank screen, no Dell logo, nothing happens. All the keystrokes for getting into BIOS or boot menu do not work. I opened it up and move the pins to reset the BIOS. Powered it back on and nada, no joy, same result.

umm... I'm 99% sure a windows install cant corrupt your bios.. it sounds more like hardware failure. has anything acted finicky lately? It sounds like your motherboard is downright dead.

EDIT: To elaborate more, in normal circumstances windows doesn't have access to a bios, each manufacturer usually has a specific instruction set that their bios updaters to access the bios, one windows will have no knowledge of. So, I'm gonna have to say your motherboard coincidentally died on you, depending on how your motherboard is too, its possible that your CPU or RAM could have gone bad and is causing your motherboard to refuse to boot.

 

[mjperry51]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

I have a Dell 2330 AIO desktop. I installed the insider preview. Everything was going great until MSFT pushed down a windows update, When the update was finished the machine re-booted. Upon re-boot I get a blank screen, no Dell logo, nothing happens. All the keystrokes for getting into BIOS or boot menu do not work. I opened it up and move the pins to reset the BIOS. Powered it back on and nada, no joy, same result.

Try to get what you need to reflash the BIOS from Dell.

 

[Walt Guimbellot]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

Try to get what you need to reflash the BIOS from Dell.

I have the BIOS file, which is a .exe file. I used Rufus to create a bootable DOS USB stick and put the BIOS file on it. Plugged it in several USB ports and tried to boot it. No luck. I need the BIOS to be regular DOS BAT files.

 

[fkmoegelin]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

I have the same Problem with 10130. I must reset my Bios. At first i did not believe it. After the reset, my PC have the same problem after two days. Then I rollback to 8.1. Now working the PC property.

 

[n8frog]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

My very expensive Alienware 17 has just turned into a very expensive paper weight thanks to windows 10 preview build 10162.

Install proceeded seemingly normally into a second partition on the drive. On what should have been the last reboot into a fresh win 10 install, the computer reset as expected, but did not boot back up. Beep codes from the motherboard say the bios has been corrupted. I have tried resetting the bios via jumper on the mobo, no help, tried removing the bios battery and waiting 10 mins or so, no help. I put a bios flash utility onto a bootable usb stick, and no matter which usb slot, no boot.

I run hardware tests on my machine frequently and have had no signs of failure on anything. Hardware always comes up clean. The ONLY possible explanation I can see is that the windows 10 preview has caused this in some way. I am not an ***** when dealing with computer software or hardware, I have worked professionally as a hardware technician and also do quite a bit of coding in my spare time. I am fully aware that windows installations wouldn't normally touch your bios. My guess is that during installation, windows 10 might poll the bios in some way to get detailed configuration info about the hardware. If perhaps the function is meant to be a read only operation, but has been mistakenly written in the code as a write operation by accident.

Only a guess.. don't know anything about the code they use, but regardless my gaming rig is a brick. Need to wait weeks for Dell service, and even then they suck at their jobs so I'll likely have to fix something they mess up afterwards.

Was very interested in Win 10, thought good ol' MS might have finally made a good one. Wow sorry MS you just keep pushing me away. I wanna like you, but you can't keep pulling this crap. Even as a buggy "preview" edition it should NEVER ever be released to anyone if there is even the slightest chance of the software causing hardware failures.

MS drops the ball again! Your running out of time to get it right MS most of us know how to use Linux now!:wink:

 

[Yazen]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

All modern BIOSes have redundancy (e.g dual block). Even if Windows was the culprit there is no way they have completely bricked your device.
Worst case scenario you give up! Will need to service it or purchase a preflashed chip.

Using the Intel recovery jumper requires a floppy, which I am sure is highly inconvenient. I know there's a trick to get Phoenix based devices to restore via USB flash drive instead of floppy.

If you have a VGA monitor and the facilities to connect it I highly recommend doing so.

I hope you sort this issue out. DOS based recoveries are always a PITA

 

[arjan wolthuis]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

This Happend to me too. No screen. Moving the jumpers wouldn't help. Had to buy new motherboard

 

[n8frog]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

I solved the issue on my Alienware 17. I removed the laptop battery AND the cmos/bios battery and left them disconnected for 1/2 hour. It seems when I pulled the cmos/bios battery before, it was still supplied with power from the laptop battery. (duh!)

After reconnecting both the internal laptop battery and the cmos/bios battery the machine booted up fine. (forced the cmos/bios into factory default by removing all power) Running hardware tests now to see if something has failed on me rather than win 10 causing it. If I find a HW failure I'll post what happened here.

 

[Richard Culverhouse]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

That dual bios thing didn't work for me when a flash went wrong lol.
BTW, this was me (again), not Windows.

 

[n8frog]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

I did my hardware tests and as usual, no problems detected. Now I know that somehow Win 10 preview build 10162 can and sometimes does corrupt the system cmos/bios! I have done some further reading and it seems this issue has only been reported by Dell or Dell Alienware hardware users. I have also noticed that most of the users I found online reporting this same issue are using Dell mobos that are newer. (as in less than 2 year old models) Most of these models have a backup cmos/bios that is supposed to overwrite a corrupt cmos/bios with the original (manufacturer installed) cmos/bios. This means if the user has flashed the cmos/bios to a newer version, then win10 broke that version, the original bios version shipped with the hardware gets put back onto the bios chip. You end up with a non upgraded bios version. I had my bios flashed to A14 prior to the Win 10 install. Now the bios backup has restored bios version A08. I suspect that since everything is working in Win 10 now that the older bios files get along with win 10, but the newer bios gets corrupted by win 10.

I will test this theory today. I am removing win 10 preview, re-updating my bios to A14, then reinstalling win 10 to see if the problem happens again. If it does, then it seems that newer Dell bios files are the culprit.

 

[Yazen]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

I think there is some confusion regarding BIOS and UEFI

• BIOS is not the same as UEFI. Most if not all modern computers ship with UEFI firmware. PCs before 2008 were predominantly BIOS based.
• Windows 10 can and will directly modify UEFI configs and files. The troubleshoot menu and bootloader is in UEFI for Windows 8+ devices
• Windows 10 cannot directly alter BIOS firmware.

Demystifying UEFI, the long-overdue BIOS replacement | ExtremeTech

It would be great if someone who is experiencing this issue who owns a VGA monitor (that connects) could try plugging it in. I know most BIOS firmwares require an ISA interfaced monitor to see the error log, however I believe UEFI only requires a lower resolution display.

Some manufacturers such as Gigabyte have a UEFI layer existing on top of BIOS, giving their motherboards redundancy (perfect for situations like these). I know my Lenovo laptop at one point explicitly asked me to choose UEFI or Legacy BIOS...

I did my hardware tests and as usual, no problems detected. Now I know that somehow Win 10 preview build 10162 can and sometimes does corrupt the system cmos/bios! I have done some further reading and it seems this issue has only been reported by Dell or Dell Alienware hardware users. I have also noticed that most of the users I found online reporting this same issue are using Dell mobos that are newer. (as in less than 2 year old models) Most of these models have a backup cmos/bios that is supposed to overwrite a corrupt cmos/bios with the original (manufacturer installed) cmos/bios. This means if the user has flashed the cmos/bios to a newer version, then win10 broke that version, the original bios version shipped with the hardware gets put back onto the bios chip. You end up with a non upgraded bios version. I had my bios flashed to A14 prior to the Win 10 install. Now the bios backup has restored bios version A08. I suspect that since everything is working in Win 10 now that the older bios files get along with win 10, but the newer bios gets corrupted by win 10.

I will test this theory today. I am removing win 10 preview, re-updating my bios to A14, then reinstalling win 10 to see if the problem happens again. If it does, then it seems that newer Dell bios files are the culprit.

Is your machine UEFI, BIOS, or both? Do you have Secure Boot enabled? Most importantly, when upgrading to Windows 10 does the UEFI system partition size change?

 

[bogellenong]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

I actually stumbled upon this thread by accident (I've been posting a lot of post in the other partner sites). I had been running preview build for around 2 weeks, starting from build 10130, it was fine but buggy, then i tried 10158 and 10159 which were awesome. Lastly I tried 10162 which was good too but unfortunately 1 day after installing it, which was last friday to be exact, my computer broke. Right in the morning when i tried to wake up my screen from standby, I was presented with a bsod screen. I restarted my computer and it won't boot up properly. The pc turned on without the screeen turning on for like 2 cycles (bootloops without posting), then on the third cycle, my monitor turned on, displayed my intial bios screen (where you see the mobo logo, f12 del f9 hotkeys thing) (posting). After this point, no matter what I did, it will always go to a blank with a blue background of my bios screen with gigabyte dual bios logo on the top and nothing else. I couldn't press anything. after approx 5 seconds, it rebooted itself and the cycle begins again. I did various testing on my ssytem (I build my own pc and it is quite a powerful gaming pc) and after a day of hard work while asking a bunch of questions in OCN forum, turns out my motherboard was sacrificed (it broke). My bios eternally corrupt (on both of the bios, main and spare). After seeing this thread, I kinda wondered whether windows 10 causes my mobo to be bricked, or it was due to chances because my mobo was already a bit old (3 years old+)

 

[Yazen]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

I actually stumbled upon this thread by accident (I've been posting a lot of post in the other partner sites). I had been running preview build for around 2 weeks, starting from build 10130, it was fine but buggy, then i tried 10158 and 10159 which were awesome. Lastly I tried 10162 which was good too but unfortunately 1 day after installing it, which was last friday to be exact, my computer broke. Right in the morning when i tried to wake up my screen from standby, I was presented with a bsod screen. I restarted my computer and it won't boot up properly. The pc turned on without the screeen turning on for like 2 cycles (bootloops without posting), then on the third cycle, my monitor turned on, displayed my intial bios screen (where you see the mobo logo, f12 del f9 hotkeys thing) (posting). After this point, no matter what I did, it will always go to a blank with a blue background of my bios screen with gigabyte dual bios logo on the top and nothing else. I couldn't press anything. after approx 5 seconds, it rebooted itself and the cycle begins again. I did various testing on my ssytem (I build my own pc and it is quite a powerful gaming pc) and after a day of hard work while asking a bunch of questions in OCN forum, turns out my motherboard was sacrificed (it broke). My bios eternally corrupt (on both of the bios, main and spare). After seeing this thread, I kinda wondered whether windows 10 causes my mobo to be bricked, or it was due to chances because my mobo was already a bit old (3 years old+)

What is the model of your motherboard?

 

[jtzako]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

Windows doesnt write to the BIOS so it cant corrupt it. However, Windows 10 doesnt, by default, shut down the same way as other versions. The default behaviour is some kind of sleep/hybernation mode and it could be your computer isnt responding well to that. Completely pulling the power, including any battery power for a while should reset it unless you had hardware failure.

 

[Yazen]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

Windows doesnt write to the BIOS so it cant corrupt it. However, Windows 10 doesnt, by default, shut down the same way as other versions. The default behaviour is some kind of sleep/hybernation mode and it could be your computer isnt responding well to that. Completely pulling the power, including any battery power for a while should reset it unless you had hardware failure.

It does read, write, and resize the UEFI partition. What you say is entirely correct, but I sure wish I had a laptop with this issue so I could see what is causing it.

 

[Kees van den berg]

Indeed, we have had some system's in repair with corrupted bios's due to the upgrade of Windows 10. The new uefi bios is accessible during the installation of Windows 10 and can be corrupted without a option to recover the bios.

Also there are problems with settings concerning the active partition, resulting in non bootable systems. In fact I have windows program's to read out bios settings live, with the ability to change settings. Corrupting the modern bios is a peace of cake.:wink:

 

[paradise99]

I don't know about corrupting but Windows 10 password protected my Acer aspire one when I upgraded. I now can't get into Bios . I was wanting to try and dual boot Android but haven't figured how to boot into thumb drive. I never password protect my Bios.:angry:

 

[Nick Henkel]

Re: Windows 10 10130 update corrupted my BIOS

Hey. Did you ever fix your gigabyte mobo? I have the same issue. I fixed it before and ended up doing a fresh install, wich worked. However, now I can't activate windows. Now I'm back to trying the upgrade instead of fresh install. Same corrupt bios happened again. What did you end up going?

Thanks!

 

[Tim Ceder]

I have an Acer Aspire 5560. It had BIOS build 1.09 on it 2 days ago when I started the windows 10 install. After a few reboots from windows it went from rock solid to frozen on boot (starts the dots spinning on the first windows screen and then freezes). If I boot it several times it will occasionally start but then never shuts down (locks and the cpu fan starts running and it gets hot). The bios was upgraded to 1.15 and then 1.17 but I didn't do it... I only noticed as I was looking for the 1.17 version and reviewing my own BIOS and a few reboots later my BIOS says 1.17 (but I don't even have the bits). It seems the BIOS was patched during the install/patch cycles of windows 10. Now I need to try to downgrade to 1.09 as that was rock solid and then find a way to stop Windows 10 from upgrading my bios... Any suggestions?