General Bios Help ~ Is Dell Telling Me The Truth?

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E

enchanter

Mar 3, 2018
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In the last week Dell released the A12 bios for the XPS 8700. Turns out the bios is a dud and I (along with others) am having serious performance issues. I would like to revert to the A11 bios but the A12 bios will not permit a downgrade. Any other bios will not be installed as the machine says it's an older version than the current one and won't allow installation. On the Dell forums they confirm the A12 bios won't allow a downgrade. They say we will have to wait for a new bios which I imagine could be a long time. Especially considering how old these machines are. Since I'm unable to online game currently, being a lag fest performance wise, are they telling me the truth? Am I at their mercy waiting on a new bios? Is there no other option to force it? I'm fairly intelligent but certainly not a computer expert :) Although I can usually follow instructions. Pretty upset I had a great system and now it's barely usable. Thanks
 
Solution
jr9
If you cannot downgrade then sorry you will likely have to wait for a fix. If the current BIOS has serious issues, then I recommend contacting Dell over this. If enough people complain they will push out a new BIOS faster to correct the issues.

XPS 8700 is still a pretty decent machine. If it had a graphics card and new power supply it could be a solid gaming PC for current games. The motherboard is also proprietary so you can't replace it really. You'd need a new case and motherboard, and then in turn a new OS license as yours is tied to the motherboard.

I'd just wait for Dell's mercy. I never recommend updating your BIOS unless you are having issues. There is always risks especially right now with Meltdown and Spectre.

You can try...
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jr9

jr9

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Dec 6, 2017
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If you cannot downgrade then sorry you will likely have to wait for a fix. If the current BIOS has serious issues, then I recommend contacting Dell over this. If enough people complain they will push out a new BIOS faster to correct the issues.

XPS 8700 is still a pretty decent machine. If it had a graphics card and new power supply it could be a solid gaming PC for current games. The motherboard is also proprietary so you can't replace it really. You'd need a new case and motherboard, and then in turn a new OS license as yours is tied to the motherboard.

I'd just wait for Dell's mercy. I never recommend updating your BIOS unless you are having issues. There is always risks especially right now with Meltdown and Spectre.

You can try doing an in-OS BIOS flash. It might let you do it: https://www.dell.com/support/article/ca/en/cabsdt1/sln125793/downgrading-the-system-bios-on-a-dell-system?lang=en
 
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E

enchanter

Mar 3, 2018
2
0
10
I appreciate the blunt truth :) I'll take a look at your suggestion. Yes I put a big power supply in and a nice nvidia card and it was an excellent machine for the games I played. UPDATE: I looked at the page you suggested and that won't work for my A12 bios. But I appreciate the effort. I tried that already.
 
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william p

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Sep 22, 2010
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You might look into installing the BIOS from a bootable USB instead of the normal Windows install path.
You might try BIOS Mods .com Post copies of both files there and maybe they can find a solution. Digital signing is probably the issue.
https://www.bios-mods.com/
I stopped at BIOS A05 instead of A06, or A07 on my old Optiplex 380 to avoid it.
 
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