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How to repair a Dell Alienware Area 51 r2 with a corrupt BIOS

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A family member of mine has a Dell Alienware Area 51 r2, which suddenly – stopped working. We tried all sorts of things to get it working again but nothing worked. We eventually came to the conclusion that the BIOS was corrupt. When the power button was pressed:

  • The machine switched on and the fans spun up.
  • The LED light strips on the front of the case illuminated

But nothing more. There were no post messages, nothing from the bios at all on screen. No beeps, nothing at all. I found some posts about possible BIOS corruption and by gathering all of that information together we were able to bring it back to life. Horray!

We also spoke to Dell, they offered no useful advice, but did offer a replacement motherboard for £280. We felt this was too much money to spend on an this machine.

To save you the hassle of having to find all of the required files, software and guidance I have written it up here and done a video for you:

Table of contents

How to Flash the BIOS of the Dell Alienware Area 51 r2

Because the machine was completely unbootable, it was not possible to flash the BIOS using the hardware itself. So I bought a cheap USB CH341A BIOS programming tool from Amazon. To see if I could reflash the chip using a working machine.

Software and Hardware Requirements

If your Alienware Area 51 r2 is suffering from the same problem and you want to try this out, you will need the following:

Once you have installed all of the software. you are ready to continue and setup the hardware.

Connecting the USB Programmer

To connect the my working computer to the the BIOS chip on the Alienware Area 51 r2, I did the following:

  • Removed the covers from both sides of the case.
  • Completely disconnected the mains power.
  • Laid the machine on it’s side with the motherboard exposed.
  • Plugged the CH341A USB Programmer into a USB3 port on my working machine.
    • Attached the chip clamp to the BIOS chip on the mother board.

I think this YouTube video is worth watching just to get an overview of the CH341 before continuing with the process.

Here is an image of the motherboard that shows the location of the BIOS chip. It is sitting between a heatsink and the printed image of the Alien head. In the image below pin one of the chip is on the bottom right hand side of the chip and it has a small circle to indicate that it is chip 1.

Image of Dell Alienware Area 51 r2 Motherboard, indicating the position of the BIOS chip

I didn’t change the setup of the USB Programmer out of the box, it looks like this:

An image of a CH341A USB BIOS Programmer.

Note the red cable on the ribbon, this also denotes pin one and should be connected to pin one on the BIOS chip. It is quite tricky to get the clamp on to the chip between the heatsink and the SPI1 connector just below it. It took me a number of attempts to get a positive connection. You will know if you have connected it correctly or not in the next step when you fire up the programming tool. ]

Here you can see the clamp connected and it is slightly bending the pins of the SPI1 connector, but I pushed them back after the process was complete:

Image of CH341A USB Programming tool connected to the corroup BIOS chip of a Dell Alienware Area 51 r2.

Run AsProgrammer

With all the drivers installed and the hardware connected you can run AsProgrammer. The first thing to do is change the hardware settings to CH341a:

AsProgrammer IC Programmer tool being used to read the BIOS chip from a Dell Alienware Area 51 r2.

Next, you can ensure the chip is properly connected by clicking on the Read-ID Button:

AsProgrammer tool successfully identifying the BIOS chip from a Dell Alienware Area 51 r2.

If it brings up a possible list of ICs like the image above, then you are good to continue. I didn’t know what the correct option was, so I just clicked the first one.

If it cannot recognise the chip it will just show this:

When you are sure you have your chip properly connected, you can move on to the next step.

Backup the corrupt BIOS

There seemed to be little value in taking a backup of the current BIOS as it didn’t work anyway. But I took one just in case, and I would recommend you to do the same. It only takes a few minutes and it is only 16Mb.

Write the new BIOS

With the existing BIOS backup complete, you can write the downloaded BIOS Image to the chip. Click on the Open File button and then press the down arrow next to Program IC and choose Unprotect -> erase -> program -> verify.

AsProgrammer being used to write new firmware to a Dell Alienware Area 51 r2

It took about 3 minutes to write the BIOS back to the chip on this machine and AsProgrammer shows a nice progress bar to indicate progress. The USB Programmer itself has a small LED to indicate that it is reading/writing.

Disconnect Programmer and Clear the CMOS

Once the flashing process is complete, disconnected the clamp from the BIOS chip. Then, before trying to boot for the first time, I suggest that you clear the CMOS. Ensure there is no power connected to the machine and then:

  • Locate the CMOS jumper (CLEAR_CMOS1) on the motherboard. It can be found just underneath the coin cell battery.
  • Remove the jumper plug from pins 2 and 3 and fix it on pins 1 and 2.
  • Wait for approximately five seconds to clear the CMOS setting.
  • Remove the jumper plug from pins 1 and 2 and replace it on pins 2 and 3.

You are now ready to try booting the machine for the first time!

First Boot

The first time I booted the machine it had lost of all its previous settings and returned to defaults. So I setup the basic boot settings again and then the machine was able to boot normally.

PCIe NVMe Upgrade

To celebrate the machines renewed life I decided to reinstall Windows on to a Samsung 970 EVOPlus which I had spare, which gave the machine a decent performance boost. Any NVMe drive would provide a big boost in performance over a SATA SSD. These were the figures I got from CrystalDiskMark:

Image of CrystalDiskMark Results on a Dell Alienware Area 51 r2 with a Samsung PCIe NVMe SSD installed.

I used one of these cheap NVMe to PCIe adapters from Amazon to install the Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD into one of the spare PCIe slots:

Image of a Samsung 970 EVOPlus installed on a PCIe adapter for installation in a Dell Alienware Area 51 r2

Additional Resources

During this process I gathered a number of additional resources which I am uploading here just in case you might find them useful:

Conclusion

Overall, I think this is an amazing result. Being able to repair a corrupt BIOS with such a cheap bit of hardware from Amazon is brilliant. Given the number of machines that this has happened to I think Dell should be providing repair or replacement free of charge outside of the warranty period, but I can equally understand why they would choose not to.

Install and boot from an NVMe SSD on a Dell OptiPlex 3010, 7010 or 9010

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In this post I will show you how you can modify the BIOS of a Dell OptiPlex 3010, 7010 or 9010 so that it can support an NVMe SSD drive as a boot device. This is a follow up to a post I did on how boot a Dell OptiPlex 7020 with an NVMe drive.

I also wrote an upgrade guide for the Dell OptiPlex 7010 which showed how to use Boot Disk Utility to boot from an NVMe drive by using a USB Stick. The method described in this post will allow the machine to boot natively without the need for any additional hardware.

Although these machines have a UEFI BIOS, they do not contain the NVMe driver. By adding the driver into the BIOS you can boot from a PCIe NVMe SSD. I managed to achieve these speeds with a Samsung 970 EVO Plus from Amazon:

Speed results from a Samsung EVO Plus NVMe drive installed into a Dell OptiPlex 7010

This is the same drive that I put into an OptiPlex 7020, but for reasons that I do not understand, the same drive is even faster in the 7010.

Here is the PCI adapter and the Samsung NVMe SSD installed in an OptiPlex 7010 Small Form Factor:

Samsung 970 Evo Plus installed into a Dell OptiPlex 7010 on a PCI Adapter.

Warning

This blog post contains instructions on how to modify your BIOS.

You could easily break your machine. Proceed at your own risk!

Table of contents

Required Hardware

In order to carry out this upgrade, you will need a few things:

The procedure is slightly different depending on the model and form factor, but mostly the same.

Procedure Overview

This process involves the following steps:

Install the Required Drivers and Software

Before being able to read from or write to the BIOS, you need to install the Intel Management Engine Components from Dell.

Download the Intel Management Engine System Tools v8 r3, which contains the tools required to flash the new bios.

Also download the NVME Driver which will be injected into the BIOS Image.

Finally you will need UEFI Tool 0.28 to make the actual BIOS modification. Here is a direct link to that version.

Put the machine into Service Mode

Now that you have the machine prepared, you need to put the machine into service mode before you can proceed:

  • Shut the machine down.
  • Remove the mains power supply.
  • Locate the two pin service connector and put a jumper on it.

If you are upgrading a Small Form Factor machine, the service jumper is in an awkward position which will require you to remove the Optical Drive and Hard Drive cage to access it. Once those are out of the way, you can find it just above, and to the right of the RAM slots. Here is an image from a 7010 SFF:

If, like me, you do not have a spare jumper, you can borrow the one from the Password reset jumper.

On a Mini Tower – the jumper is in a different position and easier to access:

Password Reset and Service Mode Jumpers from a Dell OptiPlex 7010 Mini Tower Motherboard

You can now boot the machine again in service mode, but you will receive a couple of warning messages:

Dell Security Warning that is shown on system boot when the jumper is removed from the password pins.
This warning passes after a few seconds and will be gone when the jumper is put back into the correct position.

You will then receive a message informing you that the machine is in Service Mode:

Dell warning that shows when the machine is in service mode.
Press F1 to continue or Press F2 to access the BIOS settings.

If you do not put the machine into service mode you will not be able to backup or update the BIOS properly.

Modify and Upgrade the BIOS

Now that you are in service mode, you can continue with the modification. I’ve also made a video that shows how to insert the NVMe driver into the BIOS:

Backup the existing BIOS

Open a command prompt as an administrator and change to the directory where you extracted the Intel ME System Tools. Then navigate to the subdirectory \Flash Programming Tool\Windows64 (or Windows if you are on 32-Bit installation).

Within that directly use the command:

fptw64.exe -d backup.bin

Image of Intel Flash Programming tool dumping the BIOS from a Dell Optiplex 7010.

Modify the BIOS and Inject the NVMe Driver

Next, open UEFI Tool and open the backup.bin file. Expand the sections as per the following screenshot:

Image of UEFI Tool with a BIOS Image open.

Scroll to the bottom of this section and you should see an area that looks like this:

Image of a BIOS file loaded into UEFI Tool at the correct location for adding an NVMe driver.

Next, right click on item with the name D95D6B4F-92FA-4E78-9C48-C68C0813688E and choose Insert After.

Choose the file NvmExpressDxe_Small.ffs that you just downloaded earlier and you will see it appear right after the OemLinkDELLPwdLib section:

Image of UEFI Tool having has the NVMe driver injected.

Now go to File -> Save Image File and save the file in the same location as the flash tool as NVME.bin. Go back to your command prompt and run the command:

fptw64.exe -bios -f nvme.bin

Image of Intel Flash Programming Tool writing a new NVMe enabled BIOS to a Dell Optiplex 7010.

Shut down the machine and remove the jumper from the service pins and move it back to the password reset pins if you took it from there.

The BIOS modification is complete!

Install the PCI NVMe SSD

If you have not yet installed your SSD into the machine, you can do it now. If possible use the Blue X16 PCI slot, it is much faster than smaller black one.

Optimise BIOS Settings

Now that you have written the new BIOS, restart the machine. If you do not have any SATA drives connected you will receive a warning on start-up that says:

Alert! Hard Drive not found

You can fix this by going into the BIOS Setup and then System Configuration -> Drives. Untick all the SATA ports which do not have drives connected.

Finally, if you want the maximum possible speed from your new drive, consider disabling C-States in the BIOS. This makes it marginally faster, but I doubt you would notice much difference.

Conclusion

Now you can install an operating system of your choice or clone one of your existing drives to your new NVMe drive and enjoy a decent performance increase.

Upgrading the Dell Optiplex 7010 with PCI NVMe Solid State drive is a brilliant value upgrade, and completely transforms the machine. Especially if you are upgrading from a hard drive.

Again, here is the PCI adapter that I used:

Image of Samsung NVME SSD Installed onto a PCI NVMe Adapter.

If you try it, I would love to know how you got on and what your results were.

Install and boot from an NVMe SSD on a Dell OptiPlex 9020, 7020 or 3020

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In this post I will show you how you can modify the BIOS of your Dell OptiPlex 9020, 7020 or 3020 so that they can support an NVMe SSD drive as a boot device. These machines have a UEFI BIOS, but they do not contain an NVMe driver. By adding the driver into the BIOS you can boot from a PCIe NVMe SSD.

I managed to achieve these speeds:

Image of Crystal Disk Mark Showing the performance of a Samsung NVMe SSD in a Dell Optiplex 7020.
Drive Speed result for OptiPlex 7020
Image of Crystal Disk Mark Showing the performance of a Samsung NVMe SSD in a Dell Optiplex 3020.
Drive Speed result for OptiPlex 3020

The speed results above are from the same SSD. ( Samsung 970 EVOPlus )

It took me quite a bit of research to figure out how to do this modification. But it is actually very easy and provides an immense boost in speed. Here is the card and SSD installed and working in OptiPlex 7020.

Samsung PCIe NVMe SSD installed into Dell OptiPlex 7020.

Warning

This blog post contains instructions on how to modify your BIOS.

You could easily break your machine. Proceed at your own risk!

Required Hardware

In order to carry out this upgrade, you will need a few things:

I have personally tried this procedure on the 3020 and 7020 Small Form Factor and a 9020 Minitower. It works for every variant of the machine. There are slight variations in the procedure for each machine.

Procedure Overview

This process involves five steps:

Machine Preparation

Before starting the the physical installation of the NVMe SSD you can do all of the required preparation while the machine is running on your existing drive.

Upgrade your BIOS

The first step, is to upgrade your current BIOS:

Just download the BIOS update from the Dell website and run the update. Before the update runs it will show your current version and the version that you will be updated to:

Dell BIOS Update Utility for Dell Optiplex

Install Intel Management Engine Components

Next install the Intel Management Engine Components from Dell. These management components will allow you to access the BIOS in order to back it up. Reboot once after installation of the management tools.

Download Intel Management Engine Tools

Now download Intel ME System Tools and extract the Zip file to your machine. For the purposes of this blog post I will assume that it has been extracted to: C:\Intel ME System Tools v9.1 r7.

The Intel ME System Tools will be used to backup the BIOS and write the modified image back to the machine.

Backup your current BIOS

Parts of the BIOS are protected and cannot be read to or written from. In order to get a complete backup the machine must be put into service mode.

  • Switch the machine off completely.
  • Disconnect it from the mains Power.
  • Move the jumper from the two pin PSWD connector, to the two PIN SERVICE_MODE connector. It is located between the Power Supply and the PCI Slot closest to it:

Note: If you have a spare jumper you could leave the password jumper in place.

Image of Dell Optiplex 7020 Motherboard Service mode pins.
Service Mode pins for Dell OptiPlex 7020 SFF
Image of Dell Optiplex 3020 Motherboard Service mode pins.
Service Mode Pins for Dell OptiPlex 3020 SFF
Service Mode Pins for Dell OptiPlex 7020/9020 Mini Tower

Once the machine is in service mode, turn it back on, you will receive some warning notifications:

First a warning informing you that the password has been disabled. Don’t worry about this as you will be putting the password jumper back where it should be soon. It will show this message:

Image of Dell Security Manager warning when the password reset jumper has been removed from Dell OptiPlex

Next, you will also receive a message notifying you that service mode is enabled:

Warning from Dell OptiPlex when the service mode jumpers have been set.
Press F1 to continue and continue to boot normally

When your machine is booted up again you can take a backup of your existing firmware. Open a command prompt as administrator:

Showing how to run a command prompt as an administrator

Run the following commands:

cd "\Intel ME System Tools v9.1 r7\Flash Programming Tool\WIN64"
fptw64.exe -d backup.bin
Image of output from Intel Flash Programming Tool when taking a backup of a Dell OptiPlex BIOS

The example above is from an OptiPlex 7020, the output from the 3020 will look slightly different as it only has a single flash device and will give output such as:

Platform: Intel(R) H81 Express Chipset
Reading HSFSTS register... Flash Descriptor: Valid

    --- Flash Devices Found ---
	MX25L6405D    ID:0xc22017    Size: 8192KB (65535Kb)
	
	
- Reading Flash [0x800000] 8192KB of 8192KB - 100% complete.
Writing flash contents to file "backup.bin"...

Memory Dump Complete
FPT Operation Passed

You will now have a file named backup.bin which contains a full backup of your BIOS. Leave the command prompt open as we are going to use it again to write the modified BIOS back.

Modify the BIOS Image

Download and open UEFITool 0.28.0 to modify your BIOS (Direct link to version I used).

Open the backup.bin from the previous step in UEFI Tool and expand it like so:

Image of UEFI Tool with a Dell BIOS Image loaded.

Scroll to the bottom of this section and you should see an area that looks like this:

Image of correct location to insert NVMe driver in Dell OptiPlex BIOS

Now, download this NVMe Express Driver and save it to your machine. Next, right click on the final DXE Driver before the Freeform entries. Specifically these is IDs:

  • D95D6B4F-92FA-4E78-9C48-C68C0813688E for the OptiPlex 7020 or 9020
  • 6C58FC74-64DA-4D83-8BCD-9FD574C97316 for the OptiPlex 3020

Right click the item and choose Insert After:

Choose the file NvmExpressDxe_Small.ffs that you just downloaded and you will see it appear right after the item that you selected:

Image of NVMe Driver being inserted into Dell Optiplex BIOS

Now go to File -> Save Image File and save the file as nvme.bin.

Write the new BIOS to the machine

You are now ready to write the new file back to the machine. Go back to the command prompt session. Type the following command:

fptw64.exe -bios -f nvme.bin

You should get output like this:

Shut down the machine and take the jumper off the service pins and move it back to the password reset pins if you took it from there.

Install the PCI NVMe SSD

If you have not yet installed your SSD into the machine, you can do it now. For the 7020 use the blue PCI slot, it is approximately twice as fast as the smaller black one.

For the 3020 you need to install it into the PCI Slot closest to the Power Supply.

Optimise BIOS Settings

Now that you have written the new BIOS, restart the machine.

You should be able to see the adapter in the BIOS:

Image of System Information screen from a Dell Optiplex 7020 BIOS.

If you are not going to have any SATA drives connected you need to disable them in the BIOS, here you can see I have disabled all of the ports that do not have a drive connected:

Disabling the un-used ports prevents an error on startup.

Finally, if you want the maximum possible speed from your new drive, consider disabling C-States in the BIOS. This makes it marginally faster, but I doubt you would notice much difference:

Conclusion

Upgrading a Dell Optiplex 9020, 7020 or 3020 with PCI NVMe Solid State drive is a brilliant upgrade, and completely transforms the machine. Especially if you are upgrading from a hard drive.

Again, here is the PCI adapter that I used:

Image of Samsung NVME SSD Installed onto a PCI NVMe Adapter.

If you try it, I would love to know how you got on and what your results were.

Install an Intel P3520 SSD into a 11th Gen PowerEdge

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We are still running some 11th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers in our DC and some of the virtual machines were having some performance issues. We considered completely replacing replacing the servers, but found that the CPU load was very low most of the time.

The bottleneck for the database application running on these servers was disk related and we felt that a boost in performance in this area would bring the performance back to where we needed it to be. We decided to put an Intel P3520 NVMe SSD into two of the machines. This card, although not top of the range in terms of performance, has a great price/performance ratio and should be much faster than the existing drive array.

The specification of the server we put them into:

Dell PowerEdge R510
2 x Intel XEON X5670
128Gb Ram
PERC H700 1Gb (For Hard Drives)
VMWare ESXi 6.0.0.5050593

Here is the card in the server PCI slot:

Intel P3520 installed in Dell PowerEdge R510 VMWare recognised the card no problems, but I also installed the Intel NVMe drivers, which boosted the performance a bit. I haven’t done extensive performance testing but I can tell from using the applications hosted on the machine that it is much quicker.

Disk Benchmark with the Intel P3520 NVMe ssd: Disk benchmark showing performance of Intel P3520 on Dell PowerEdge R510 on VMWare ESXi

And for comparison the 8 disk SATA array on the PERC H700: Disk Performance on Dell PowerEdge R510 with PERC H700

So overall adding the Intel SSD provided a significant boost in performance over the existing array, which is now just there for redundancy, the application performance has boosted much more than the performance metrics above signify.