A05 Bios March 5th

[luv2skipow]

Anyone try it yet??

 

[foxbat121]

Just installed. So far so good. Dell posted a long list of changes/enhancements. It supposedly speeds up the internal eMMC storage. I do noticed that it now correctly reports the battery model and maker.

 

[johnnyman82]

anyone tested the temperatures with the new bios?

 

[Mike_Milacek]

I just updated, will see how it goes. But here is the list for those that want to know.

Fixes & Enhancements
​
Enhance
-Enhance LAN dongles function.
-Enhance LTE module function.
-Enhance the performace of eMMC write/read speed.
-Enhance BIOS setting for Enable/Disable fTPM through SCMOS tool.

Upgrade
-Upgrade Embeded controller firmware version for charge behavior and LTE module.
-Upgrade GOP driver to 7.0.1005 to match PR7 driver, FRC to 1.6.1 and MCU to 30673/321, 30678/80A for system perform smoothly

Adjust
-Adjust the CPU temperature to prevent thermal over the SPEC.

Improve
-Improve system information that show correctly battery information.

 

[johnnyman82]

I just updated, will see how it goes. But here is the list for those that want to know.

Fixes & Enhancements
​
Enhance
-Enhance LAN dongles function.
-Enhance LTE module function.
-Enhance the performace of eMMC write/read speed.
-Enhance BIOS setting for Enable/Disable fTPM through SCMOS tool.

Upgrade
-Upgrade Embeded controller firmware version for charge behavior and LTE module.
-Upgrade GOP driver to 7.0.1005 to match PR7 driver, FRC to 1.6.1 and MCU to 30673/321, 30678/80A for system perform smoothly

Adjust
-Adjust the CPU temperature to prevent thermal over the SPEC.

Improve
-Improve system information that show correctly battery information.

What does this means? Adjust the CPU temperature to prevent thermal over the SPEC

 

[James8561]

seems stable so far. no noticeable changes

 

[foxbat121]

What does this means? Adjust the CPU temperature to prevent thermal over the SPEC

If I'd take a guess, it would throttle your CPU/GPU down more aggressively to prevent permanent damage to the chip. It won't make your tablet cooler. That comes from optimization of applications and OS/drivers, not BIOS.

 

[BaritoneGuy]

Wow...Faster, much faster.

Sorry, just couldn't resist.:wink:

 

[johnnyman82]

what u mean faster?the emmc speed?

 

[BaritoneGuy]

what u mean faster?the emmc speed?

That wasn't my reference. It is a running joke every time the WP Facebook app gets an update.

However having said that the EMMC speed boost is noticeable when accessing the file system.

 

[mrpuny]

I downloaded and installed without incident.

As an aside, does anyone else find these low-level BIOS/firmware updates on the Venue 8 Pro anachronistic? They don't ever get pushed out through the Windows Update mechanism, do they? Is there any sort of notification that these updates are available without manually checking the Dell website? Even the "My Dell" application didn't give me any indication that there was an update available. Then after downloading from the website and going through the desktop-based bios flash utility, which was strange enough on a tablet, during the reboot it started up in a DOS-like character mode screen to finish the bios update.

This is all pretty standard stuff for a PC, but compared with every other "device" out there, from iPhones/iPads, to Android phones and tablets, to Windows Phone and my Surface RT (and I presume the Surface Pros), it was a shock and frankly, pretty clunky. Are all (x86) Windows 8.X - or at least the non-Surface - tablets like that?

 

[foxbat121]

Firmware/BIOS is highly manufacturer specific and typically can not be distributed by Microsoft via Windows Update. Also, there is always a small chance that flashing a BIOS will permanently brick your PC/tablet. So it is never a forced upon.

Microsoft made Surface, Apple made iPad. So they can release firmware updates via regular updates.

I agree that PC (this is what DV8P really are) BIOS updates are still very crude. At least we are no longer asked to boot from a DOS floppy disc to flash the BIOS any more. That's the norm 10 years ago.

 

[mrpuny]

I realize there are issues with vendor specific low level updates, but it really seems like there needs to be a better solution for some sort of common update mechanism. (Actually, thinking about it, how are firmware updates handled for non-Microsoft RT devices? Those are more limited configurations, but still there must be vendor specific firmware that needs updating.)

However, even as it goes, it just seems like Dell hasn't done all that they could. They've got the 'My Dell' app on the start screen, and while it's just a desktop application, it's touch friendly. The problem is that when tapping on the Drivers and Support 'button', it just opens IE (and desktop IE at that - not touch friendly) and goes to the Dell website. From there, if you let it install the analyzer to determine updates, all it seems to do is grab the service tag and then shows a list of updates since the system was built, even if they're already installed. Like it shows the A05 bios as a recommended update for me even though I already installed it. So the user has to sort through and figure out what updates are actually needed. Then each of them has to be downloaded separately as self extracting desktop apps with their own installers. It would be a huge improvement if Dell could at least expand on the My Dell application so it could scan the system itself and take care of filtering out unneeded/already installed updates in a touch friendly interface.

 

[James8561]

well updating BIOS is for power-users anyway. normal nubs don't even know what BIOS stands for.
BTW bios is outdated. it's called UEFI now.

 

[bigeduck]

Anyone have any speed test from before/after this update. I never did the speedup option because I received mine with A03 firmware and it was blocked. H2Testw shoes the write speed of my micro at about 10 megs write still but read went up to 18 from 11 MB/s