Dell released a new System BIOS firmware for Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 version 1.1.3 at the end of last year. This release marked as Urgent, and it fixed the following issues (as taken from Dell’s site):

  • Fixed the incorrect panel size information in the BIOS setup menu.
  • Fixed the issue where the MAC Address Override fails during the Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE) boot process.
  • Change default setting of “Enable Thunderbolt (and PCIe behind TBT) pre-boot modules” to disabled by default

If your laptop runs Windows 10 and has Dell Update utilities installed, this System BIOS firmware update process is very simple. You just need to run this utility and click on Update button.

However, on my test system I run Fedora 31, and this new system firmware is not yet available via fwupdmgr. Fortunately, I still can flash the firmware using a USB flash drive. If you want to know more, check out this document Dell BIOS Update for detail on how to create a USB flash drive.

Like many things that I only have to perform once in a while, I usually forget almost everything in the following week. So here is something to remind myself in case I need to flash the BIOS firmware on any Dell laptop.

  1. Create a bootable USB flash drive by following this guide
  2. Download the system firmware. In this example: XPS_13_7390_2-in-1_1.1.3.exe, drop it in the USB drive
  3. Boot the laptop, and select BIOS (F12), and perform the BIOS update

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