Bis Gone?!?

TheStang · 07-03-05, 09:42 PM

I did the A04 upgrade and noticed it was fine when I did it, then yesterday it was much slower than normal and just went to use it now and SPB weather hung the system.. It was installed on BIS which is now apparently GONE from the system.. Not even in devicemanager (PPC version). I called Dell and they said it's an issue with A04 and they are going to recall A04 ROM. A new dell unit will be shipped out when mine gets to them.

What a load of crap.

Gigi · 07-03-05, 09:55 PM

Originally Posted by TheStang

I did the A04 upgrade and noticed it was fine when I did it, then yesterday it was much slower than normal and just went to use it now and SPB weather hung the system.. It was installed on BIS which is now apparently GONE from the system.. Not even in devicemanager (PPC version). I called Dell and they said it's an issue with A04 and they are going to recall A04 ROM. A new dell unit will be shipped out when mine gets to them.

What a load of crap.

I'm not so sure it's all crap...you're the second person I've heard of losing BIS after the A04 update:

http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=89395

EDIT: actually the third!

http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=89356

**Frenchy** · 07-03-05, 10:03 PM

I went to Dell site and don't see anything related to the missing BIS after A04 upgrade. Calling them is still the best solution for now.

Morphy · 07-03-05, 11:47 PM

Man! I'm glad to be a procrastinator. I'll call DELL............if I can ever get around to doing it.

Ungoy · 07-04-05, 01:34 AM

Why are only some units affected? Does this mean that all our units could possibly lose our BIS? Should I revert ot A03?

*Edit* After seeing the possible risk, I decided not to chance it, and I'm moving back to A03. Boy am I glad I did a ROM backup before updating to A04. It's too big a risk to me. I don't want to lose my BIS, and have to send back another unit...

r8derhed5150 · 07-04-05, 04:04 AM

NuB question.

What is "BIS"?

Adrian Knack · 07-04-05, 04:08 AM

BIS = Built In Storage (ie. the ROM of the device which is not deleted when you do a hard reset or run out of Battery)

r8derhed5150 · 07-04-05, 04:17 AM

Ohhh, duh. Thanx!

07-04-05, 04:32 AM

Originally Posted by Ungoy

Why are only some units affected? Does this mean that all our units could possibly lose our BIS? Should I revert ot A03?

*Edit* After seeing the possible risk, I decided not to chance it, and I'm moving back to A03. Boy am I glad I did a ROM backup before updating to A04. It's too big a risk to me. I don't want to lose my BIS, and have to send back another unit...

I had previously lost my BIS when I had A03 installed. I was hoping that A04 had fixed this issue, but obviously not...

As far as I can tell, there is not a common set of "requirements" to making the X50 loose its BIS. I lost mine during a soft-reset. once gone, there is NO way of restoring it.

It also happened to a friend of mine with his X5 - he managed to restore his BIS by reverting to PPC2002 ROM (had WM2003 ROM installed before) - because the ROM size is different, it caused the BIS to be completely reformated.

As there is only WM2003 SE for the X50, we don't have that option other than call Dell.... :(

Adrian

Adrian Knack · 07-04-05, 07:01 AM

I am suprised Dell don't just offer an upgrade which formats the BIS completely for people with these issues.

TheStang · 07-04-05, 07:02 AM

Well damn, just turned as a last check before I put it away in the box to ship back to dell and BIS was there! WTH? I immediately reflashed it back to A03...

I'm wondering, the "Memory Chip Frequency" changes in A04... Do you think they pushed the limit on the RAM chips in these things? Maybe they OC'd chips that were already at their limit? That's what seems the most logical.

07-04-05, 07:05 AM

Originally Posted by TheStang

Well damn, just turned as a last check before I put it away in the box to ship back to dell and BIS was there! WTH? I immediately reflashed it back to A03...

I'm wondering, the "Memory Chip Frequency" changes in A04... Do you think they pushed the limit on the RAM chips in these things? Maybe they OC'd chips that were already at their limit? That's what seems the most logical.

I was hoping/assuming that that change ("Memory Chip Frequency") in A04 would have fixed this issue... :(

Adrian

07-04-05, 07:07 AM

Originally Posted by Adrian Knack

I am suprised Dell don't just offer an upgrade which formats the BIS completely for people with these issues.

When I called Dell Tech support, they said that it needed to go back to the factory to have the FLASH memory completely re-flashed...

Given that the technique of user re-flashing appears to work for the X5, I would have thought a little utility would do the trick. But who are we to question Dell tech support!!

Adrian

Adrian Knack · 07-04-05, 07:25 AM

Clearly it is electronically erasable (or we would not be able to write to it in the first place) so I see no reason why it can't be done in circuit. Ok I didn't design the systems but I would think as long as you can communicate to the system you should be able to format BIS. It is probably caused by a sector getting corrupted for some reason... be interesting to know what actually causes it...

07-04-05, 07:30 AM

Another interesting fact - apparently BIS has no FAT! If you use any file system tools (sk tools, RESCO Explorer), there is not even any option to format the BIS (even assuming is has not already died).

It is as if the BIS uses a Dell home-brew file system.

Adrian