Wrong BIOS installed on W500?

[mbdave127]

Hi all - I am trying to update the BIOS on my W500 (4058 CTO, I have the 128 GB Samsung SSD, 4 GB ram, win vista business 64 bit, not sure what else folks need to know).

When I try to update to the BIOS version released 10-09 I get this error, "BIOS directory cannot be found. The utility process cannot be completed."

The BIOS I have installed on my machine is version 2.16 7UET66WW. Through checking the support website, this BIOS seems to be associated with the T400 and not the W500. So my questions are:

Do I really have to wrong BIOS on my machine and is that a problem?

How do I update to the current BIOS for the W500 if I have the wrong one currently installed?

Thanks for any help!

[Wendel]

If you have a W500, try looking here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-70353

Note there are 2 different .exe files depending on if you have the 32 or 64 bit version of Windows. To run the update correctly be sure to download the correct exe for your particular Windows version (32 or 64 bit).

[mbdave127]

Thanks Wendel - the link you provided is to the BIOS I had previously tried to install and received the error, "BIOS directory cannot be found. The utility process cannot be completed." I made sure to choose the .exe that applies to the 64-bit version of Windows since that is what I have.

Since posting I looked at the BIOS update files for the T400: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-70350

The BIOS versions for the T400 match what I have on my W500. Again, I have the following BIOS installed on my W500: Version 2.16 7UET66WW. This BIOS version is listed in the txt file in the above link for the T400.

I'm not sure what the differences are between the BIOS for the T400 and the W500. Should I go ahead and install the upgrade for the T400 on my W500. Or how do I correct this so that the BIOS for the W500 is on my machine?

Thanks for any help

[Wendel]

I'm not sure why you refer to the T400. If you have a W500, those drivers are the same as a T500. Go to this page: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-70443

There you will find the BIOS for the W500 and T500. If you have a W500, the above page is where you want to go for drivers. The non-CD BIOS update has 2 versions: One if you are running 64 bit Windows and the other for 32 bit Windows. Hope that helps.

[rahathaway]

I've got exactly the same isue with my W500: When I download the 32-bit BIOS update (6fuj34us.exe) and open it, it installs the ThinkPad BIOS Update Utility Setup Wizard. I click Finish when asked if I want to update my BIOS. But everything quick stops with the error message, "BIOS directory cannot be found. The utility process cannot be completed."

None of the three links above is still active ("Our apologies: The page you requested cannot be displayed"), so I wasn't able to try them.

Can anyone tell me where the BIOS directory _should_ be located? And what would I need to do to point the BIOS Update Utility to it?

My W500 runs XP Pro, has 3 GB RAM, and the current BIOS on the machine is v2.16. I'm trying to update it to v3.09/3.10 to see if that will fix the other problem plaguing this new computer: the dread ati2dvag-induced Blue Screen of Death.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give me.

[hazart]

In the worst case, download the BIOS Update (Bootable CD) for your machine, burn the image onto a CD, boot your machine with the CD, and update your BIOS from there. It should always work and be more reliable than flashing in Windows.

[rahathaway]

Thank you very much for the quick reply, hazart. Alas, that didn't work either, though. When the DOS screen opened, I selected "2. Update system program." The sequence stopped with an error message: "Error: BIOS directory not found. The process did not complete."

Rich

[hazart]

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rahathaway wrote:

Thank you very much for the quick reply, hazart. Alas, that didn't work either, though. When the DOS screen opened, I selected "2. Update system program." The sequence stopped with an error message: "Error: BIOS directory not found. The process did not complete."

Rich

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Odd. I'm pretty sure you've downloaded 6fuj34uc.iso. Because your current BIOS is the rather old 2.16 version, I would try updating it to an earlier 3.x version first. If you scroll down to almost the end of the BIOS update page (http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-70354), you can download a previous release. Perhaps give 3.00-1.03 (6fuj30uc.iso) a try? If successful, try updating to the latest release then,

[mbdave127]

rahathaway - any luck? To update my situation, I had to send the machine back for repair. Customer support never heard of this issue. They replaced the system board. You may want to check the serial number of you BIOS. If it is 7UET66WW (like my original) then I believe you're in the same situation as me assuming you also have a W500. Since that BIOS is not associated with the W500, the links other folks have posted to update your BIOS won't work. You will probably have to contact customer support and send in your machine.

On the plus side, I complained about my flexing keyboard and vibrating DVD drive and those were both replaced.

One other thing though... customer support still screwed up my BIOS update. The BIOS was flashed with the integrated graphics card enabled and not the discrete card. So now I can only use the machine with the integrated graphics card. Need to find out how to fix this still... I suspect another customer support call... I will not be as nice this time around... 

[outouser]

To enable discrete graphics go to BIOS menu by pressing F1 when pc starts

From Config menu “Display” “Default primary video device” Set to Internal “Graphics device” Set to discrete graphics