[RESOLVED] Dell 1501 Bios upgrade

[fred scuttle]

Hi, when i switch on my laptop i get a warning:Battery can't be identified
system will be unable to charge this battery,press any key to continue.
But the battery is still charging as normal,the only thing is unplugged,it only last's about 50/60 min's but that is ok for me as i mostly have it plugged in.
I was told on a dell forum that to get rid of the warning i should upgrade the
bios, but that is where i'm having trouble.I click on the upgrade and i get error code 5 saying access denied or winphlash user interface not working properly and will be shut down.Can anyone help me with this as i'm not sure
about upgrading bios or if i should be doing all the upgrades one by one or
just the latest one,i've never upgraded the bios on this machine before.
http://support.dell.com/support/down...ex=0&typeid=-1
This is where i got the upgrade...
My spec's are dell inspiron 1501,mobile AMD sempron 3500+ 1.8 ghz. 512mb
ddr2,win vista basic sp2,60gb hd,ATI radeon express series graphic's.Just been reformatted.Thankyou

[Train]

This may help, "Steps to maximize the life of your battery"
http://h20239.www2.hp.com/techcenter...attery_max.htm

See that stop a few weird warnings.

[jdc2000]

After you reformatted and reinstalled Windows, did you reinstall of the Dell hardware drivers?

[fred scuttle]

Yes i have installed all needed driver's from the dell driver's cd,except the
broadcom driver's which i think may be for the dial up modem,i use broadband
so i didn't think i needed to use them.But i'm now getting a warning at startup
from broadcom saying that a cable is not connected as well as the battery warning.What should i do, Thank's

[photolady]

Are there any yellow splats or question marks showing in Device Manager? Check there. If there is, you'll need the drivers for whichever ones are showing the yellow marks. If you haven't installed your NIC drivers, that's is why you're getting message. Install chipset drivers should take care of that problem too.

[fred scuttle]

Hi, i checked in device manager,no warning's,and i updated all driver's on the dell website but i still can't get the bios upgrade to install.Also both the warning's still coming when i start up,the battery and the broadcom and after
that a black screen asking to press enter to start window's vista.
Thank's

[Shinma]

... i'm not sure
about upgrading bios or if i should be doing all the upgrades one by one or
just the latest one,...

Make sure you have the correct BIOS for you Dell model.

Updates should be cumulative.
You only need to update using the most current BIOS listed.

[photolady]

Try downloading the BIOS file again. The other one may have gotten corrupted. Delete the first file before starting the new download. Follow the instructions(click on the "installation instructions" link).

http://support.dell.com/support/down...&fileid=236967

[fred scuttle]

When following the instal instruction's it say's to double click the .exe on the desktop and the dell flash bios window will appear then press continue and the bios will be flashed.But for me when i dc/on the exe a window saying run
appear's,i press run and a dos window flashes then that's it,nothing else
happen's and i'm left with all the individual files from the download spread all over the desktop.What am i doing wrong?

[photolady]

I've been reading a lot of these problems with flashing the bios in normal windows environment and have come to some answers. (there is a lot of this problem you're having on the net) Anyway, one solution suggests running the update in Safe Mode. According to people who have done this, it works. After you boot to Safe Mode, enter Safe Mode, using the Administrator account.

Does the message ever say you need admin rights to run this utility?

[fred scuttle]

Hi, i tried running in safe mode as administator but it didn't work.Just gave
same warning "can't load driver PHLASHNT.SYS" also say's this operation can't be performed in safe mode. Thank's

[photolady]

Every thing I read about flashing the bios on that computer model, most of the techs said a DOS looking window is what you'd see. And after it went away, the bios was supposed to be updated. Did you check the bios version in BIOS to see if it updated it?

[SuperSparks]

My advice is never to reflash a BIOS from within Windows, I've seen far too many computers bricked Dous your laptop manual explain a procedure for updating the BIOS using a DOS utility?

Unless you have always had that battery warning, I'm really not convinced that reflashing the BIOS will help anyway, as BIOSes don't suddenly go bad.

[photolady]

Found another option. Dell community support answer here about your specific model.

right click on WINPHLASH.EXE and choose run it as Administrator

They say unless you do the above, it will not work.

Further, even though you are the admin on this computer, you sometimes have to tell the computer you are by using the contextual menu drop down and choosing "run as administrator."

[photolady]

Nick, Dell doesn't offer to update the BIOS within DOS anymore. Not on newer laptops anyway. I've been researching this problem since my first post and no where does it give that option.