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February 10th, 2025 01:28
Precision 7920 BIOS Update Failed and Now Won't Post
My trusty 7920 has ended up in a bad place. The BIOS was at 2.38 and I got a pop up that 2.42 was available. I saw some notes in the revisions in between that it addressed some stability issues so it seemed prudent to do the update. I prefer to do the BIOS updates from the built in tools, so I downloaded 2.42 and put it on a USB stick. Rebooted into the one time boot menu and started the BIOS update from there.
The flashing of 2.42 got to 6% and dead stopped. I left it for 2 hrs, and it was still at 6%. I knew something had gone wrong, but at this point there is little to do but restart - exactly the one thing you DONT want to do, but the entire machine was solid frozen. Even the power button did nothing at this point.
I had to power down by pulling main power, and I was hopeful it would be at a start where it could revert or I could use BIOS recovery. None of these have worked.
Current state is apply power from the power cord starts the machine for about 1 second. There is 1 beep. The power LED flashes Amber 1 time super fast. Then the machine just shuts down again. One second later, it attempts to post again, beeps, flashes amber, and then shuts down again. This cycle runs endlessly so you have to pull the power cord to get it to stop.
I cleared the CMOS.
I replaced the CMOS battery just in case.
Control + Esc with power up for BIOS recovery does nothing. I'm using the original Dell keyboard as well.
I removed ALL cards except the original GPU. I removed all storage devices.
Still same behavior.
Posting in here in case anyone has ideas, but I'm suspecting that the BIOS update failed in a miserable state where even Bios Recovery does not work.
Interesting side note: Chassis intrusion works perfectly.
Chino de Oro
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February 10th, 2025 01:52
Put BIOS recovery image (use your last known working version) onto a FAT32 formatted USB. Use it to perform BIOS recovery.
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000132453/how-to-recover-the-bios-on-a-dell-computer-or-tablet
ahoopi
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February 10th, 2025 17:36
@Chino de Oro BIOS recovery doesn't work. I have tried those instructions multiple times, and the machine never brings up a BIOS recovery screen. I even tried different keyboards including the original Dell keyboard, and holding down CTRL+Esc does nothing. It just restarts continuously. I swapped to using a flash drive with an LED on it, and the flash drive is never even accessed.
Chino de Oro
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February 11th, 2025 02:18
For BIOS recovery, remove all drives. Simplify system setup with just one monitor, mouse, keyboard. With the recovery USB plugs in, hold Ctrl + Esc then connecting power chord to the wall outlet. When you see keyboard light lights up, let go of the Ctrl + Esc and monitoring the screen to see if recovery menu comes up.
You can also perform RTC reset to the system. With the power connects, press and hold power button for 30 seconds or until you see power button light blinks three times, let go of the button and follow screen instructions to adjust BIOS settings.
RobTinati
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February 25th, 2025 16:12
I had a similar problem a while ago and with help here determined it was the 4K monitor that I was using... Not sure if that applies in your case....
ahoopi
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February 25th, 2025 16:21
So far none of the ideas have worked. I've removed everything possible from the system, so it's down to no storage devices, original keyboard and mouse and just one monitor. Same result still - BIOS recovery never starts. Holding down the keys while powering up gets a quick amber flash 1 time, fans start, and then machine reboots almost immediately, like < 1 second and just cycles endlessly.
I've tried two different flash drives with the BIOS recovery and tried using different USB ports front and back.
Pretty much out of ideas, as it seems to now just be a 70 lb brick.