This article is more than 1 year old

Dell BIOS update borks PCs

Motherboard say what?

Dell's latest BIOS update is bricking some machines – apart from a power light, they refuse to boot up at all, say users.

The Texan tech titan's own support forums are filling up with frustrated users who took the support assistant’s advice to download the latest program.

Many of those who installed the update now cannot boot up their machines. One typical explanation posted was: "Add me to the list Dell Inspiron 20 model 3052, updated on the weekend, woke up to a solid amber/orange light and a dead computer. Contacted Dell on facebook and this is what I was told "The updates Dell releases don't affect the system. But it would enhance the performance of the system" ummmm no....if they broke they need to fix it."

Another said, "Let's hope Dell fixes it for free, the Dell Update software that was prepackaged, might I say, reminded me to update constantly. So I did... Well, I am not very happy with the update, so 2 stars out of 5."

Some users complained screens cycled through red, green, blue and white while others saw nothing but an amber or red power light and a dead screen.

The main model affected by the allegedly dodgy update is the Inspiron 20 3052, although a few users reported similar problems with Inspiron 3252s.

As one forum wag noted: "Some send out 'WannaCry', others send out BIOS upgrades".

Dell's initial reaction was to tell customers they needed to buy new motherboards.

One punter said "Called Dell and it would cost $250 for a new motherboard. I think Dell should be repairing at no cost seeing as it was their update that killed a bunch of computers."

Although complaints in the forum date back to May 12, Dell took four days to offer up a possible solution... which users subsequently said didn't work. Dell has yet to send us a statement.

We will update this story when we get a response.

The main thread is here. ®

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