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Wyse: BIOS update 

BIOS update

Having tried several methods over the years I've ended up using the linux application flashrom. This is fine if you're planning to use your Z series as a Linux box, either with your own flavour of Linux or the Wyse variant. The Binary BIOS image is available from Dell's support pages, but only if you select ThinOS as the operating system.

However, if you are using (or intending to use) Dell's versions of Windows this may not be a good idea. I believe (tho' I haven't verified it) that an element of the Wyse/Dell Windows licence is built into the BIOS. If you update a box using the 'ThinOS' BIOS and then try and use one of the Wyse/Dell Windows builds you may have a problem. At least, with flashrom, you can save a copy of what was here to start off with and go back to the old version if necessary.

See Updating the BIOS for details.

Support

[March 2019] Unfortunately Dell have now withdrawn support for old Wyse products and shut down the old Wyse support server: see here. As a consequence I've removed the old now dead links in the descriptions below but left the articles in place in case you may be able to track down the firmware elsewhere.

Firmware and/or BIOS update on a Z90

Unfortunately updating the firmware and/or the BIOS on a Wyse thin client is often not as slick as it should be. What you'll find here are three approaches to the problem. The first is one that I wrote back in February 2017 that describes how to go about updating the firmware and/or the BIOS using the standard Wyse tools. The second, contributed by Jouni from Finland in January 2019, describes an alternative


Wyse Thin Client BIOS Update Guide
by fish4rk

Background

Updating just the BIOS on your Wyse Thin client using the official Dell/Wyse tools is a non-trivial and time consuming task as can be seen in this article: Updating a Z90D7. To start with, just for a single update, you are supposed to download a huge software package gigabytes in size. This huge "Software" pack includes a complete embedded Windows operating system along with the small BIOS-update file. Then for installing the software package(s) you'll also need the Dell USB Imaging tool. This is a Windows program that creates a Linux bootable USB-stick which includes all the updates together with the installer program. This stick should run happily on your Wyse box - but it doesn't always.

The USB Imaging tool will install (Dell made) special Linux distro with the updates. As well as the firmware update the updater includes various checks. These checks are to ensure you are installing the correct patches to your system in the right order and also that your particular model has the right licence for the firmware update. Unfortunately the whole process seems to be buggy and can make a simple BIOS update a trial and error process.

After multiple failed BIOS update attempts I noticed that the Dell Linux update environment had been writing to a log file on the usb-stick. In that log file there were two lines that got my attention. Those lines stated something like "signature mismatched" and "LinFlash failed"". So it seems that at the heart of the process there is a simple command-line tool called LinFlash that is doing the actual BIOS update.

This led me on to....

A simpler method to update Wyse Thin Client BIOS

Caveat:I don't know exactly what side effects there maybe from following the steps below, but I do know that I've now got two updated Wyse boxes that are running perfectly happily. The only thing I've noticed is that I seem to have lost the Wyse branding (the logo) when they power up. So proceed at your own risk.

Having discovered the existence of the LinFlash program it became clear that the process could be made a lot simpler. All I had to do was:

  1. Locate and extract the LinFlash tool from the Wyse USB Firmware Updater.
  2. Create my own Linux environment in which to run it.
  3. Locate and extract the BIOS file.
  4. Boot and run Linflash to write the new BIOS.

The steps below show how I went about this.

One final warning:

*WARNING* Flashing the wrong system BIOS to your box can "brick" your Wyse thin client. The approach below skips most (it not all) of the extra safety/signature checks which are in official Dell tools. This method is a "low-level" update which just pushes the new firmware straight to EEPROM chip. But don't worry too much, Wyse thin clients are pretty cheap on eBay if you manage to totally mess up your box.

So make sure that you do download the files that are intended for your Wyse thin client. LinFlash is pretty general tool and should work with all modern Wyse boxes, but the BIOS firmware file needs to be specific for your Thin client model. *WARNING*

If you want to play it safe then you need to use the Dell/Wyse USB-Imaging tool version that is mentioned in the documentation for your particular model. In my first attempts I was using version 3.1.0 of the tool.

Doing the update

The steps below are what I went through to update the BIOS on my Wyse Z90DW from version 1.0F to version 2.0C. This method should work for other Wyse models which use the USB Imaging tool platform type of installation.

Before starting you need two USB-memory sticks. One to hold the BIOS and LinFlash files and the other stick for a Linux OS that will be the environment from which the BIOS is flashed. In my case I used Puppy Linux for this. Note that in creating the Linux installation on this USB-stick it will probably be formatted and so you should first back up any data on it that you want to keep.

  1. Tools you may need

    These are few tools you may need along the way.

    1. 7zip for extracting the Wyse BIOS.
    2. Etcher for creating a bootable USB stick with a Linux distribution on it.
    3. Puppy Linux. This should be a 32-bit version. Do not download a 64-bit version. This link is for Ubuntu Tahr 32-bit Tahrpup 6.0.5.
  2. Prepare the Linux installation environment

    1. Install Etcher and flash Puppy Linux to your empty USB-stick (not the one with BIOS file)

    [David: I would use LiLi and Tiny Core as that's what I use all the time. LiLi also has the advantage of using a FAT32 file system that is readable under Windows so that you can add the BIOS and LinFlash files to the 'Linux' USB stick rather than needing a separate USB stick for them. It's your choice here - stick with what you're comfortable with.]

  3. Find your BIOS

    1. Go to Dell Wyse support pages [old link removed]
    2. Select your model and click on 'Search'. In my case the Z90SW/Z90DW appears in the Active category under 'Windows Embedded Standard'.
    3. With the Z90 example the file you need to download is #2 in the list: 2nd_Gen_Compatibility_Kit (WES2009) (3.33 MB) V8.01 B709/710.This file includes the latest BIOS file for your Z90SW/Z90DW. This file is small in size (3.33MB) and we can skip the monstrous gigabyte updates. (#1 in the list is 1.11GB download). In this case we don't want them and we don't need them. You may not be so lucky.
    4. After downloading unzip the 2nd_Gen_Compatibility_Kit(WES2009).zip file. It contains 3 executable files:

      AXA8_BIOS_B02C0.exe (This is for the X-class Wyse)
      AZA0_BIOS_B02C0.exe (This is for Z-class Wyse computers)
      WES_Flash.sys_C0.exe

      for my computer (Z90DW, which is Z-class) the AZA0_BIOS_B02C0.exe is the right one. Run this executable and it will auto extract itself.

      Go to the location where you unpacked it and then follow the path AZA0_BIOS_B02C0\AZA0_BIOS_B02C0\AZA0_BIOS_B02C0\ where you should find the file bios.img. You need to unpack this .img file (1.6MB in size) with 7zip to get the 4MB BIOS image named bios.

      Copy this bios file to USB-Fat32 formatted stick.

  4. Find LinFlash

    1. Download the Dell USB-Imaging tool 3.1.0 (This has the LinFlash tool which we need to extract). At the time of writing this is here
    2. Install the Dell USB-Imaging tool on your Windows computer
    3. Go to the installation folder of the USB-Imaging tool: C:\Program Files (x86)\Wyse\USB Firmware Tool\
    4. Inside this USB-tool folder, find the initrd folder and from there copy & paste the initrd.pxe file (it's about 62megs) to your desktop.
    5. Unpack initrd.pxe file with 7zip (select with right mouse button -> extract to folder initrd)
    6. Go to initrd folder and unpack this file as well with 7zip
    7. Go to extracted initrd folder. Amongst the list of folders there you should find one named Miranda. Open the folder and in there you should find the Linux executable LinFlash. Ignore other variants such as LinFlash32 and copy LinFlash to where you copied the bios file.
  5. Flash the BIOS

    1. Plug in the Linux USB stick you prepared earlier and boot from it.
    2. Plug in the USB stick with the bios image and the LinFlash application.
    3. Open up a terminal with WIN+T and run "fdisk -l" from command line
    4. Mount the last device on the list (should be the 2nd USB-stick) sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt
    5. Go the /mnt and find the place where you put LinFlash and BIOS file (they should be in same folder)
    6. Execute LinFlash tool with the command ./LinFlash /file:bios . The screen output should look like this, check that there's no errors/failures:
      Phoenix 32-bit Linux Flash Tool, version 1.0.4.0. Copyright (c) 2011-2014 Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
      	
              Parse command line options....                   [  OK   ]
              Initialize..                                     [  OK   ]
              Read BIOS image                                  [  OK   ]
              Check BIOS image format                          [  OK   ]
              Please shutdown system to start flashing BIOS!   [  OK   ]
      
    7. Now run "halt" command in the console window, wait about 10 seconds and then a short press on the power button should be all that is needed to complete the process.
    8. System should reset-itself and start Phoenix UEFI Shell Flash utility which will flash the newer BIOS to your box.

After the flashing completes the system will reboot again. Press DEL and go to BIOS enter password: Fireport. The BIOS version should be now 2.0C. After BIOS update it's usually good practice to set default values so press F9 to do it.

From Advanced menu I noticed there is a new Digital Audio LED option (Enabled/Disabled). In older BIOS this was all ways on and LED was lit. If you're interested to use digital audio feature on you box, you can find "3.5mm to Toslink adapter" on eBay. Maybe there's some other stuff as well. At least the new BIOS should be more stable with the fixes for your future Linux installations. Enjoy!

If you managed to update your Wyse Thin Client with this guide (or not), please send me a update on Twitter: @fish4rk

Acknowledgement

This article was contributed by Jouni from Finland.

 


Any comments? email me. Added January 2019