11th Gen Intel Core BIOS 3.20 Release and Driver Bundle Update

Framework Laptop 13
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Oh as I do data recovery the tears of students with all their work on a 8GB USB2 stick their mum got from a conference 8 years ago sustain me.

That and Mac users losing connectivity with their external USB HDDs…ahhh bliss.

Always buy quality data storage products folks! Just a friendly reminder!

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Final update: I’ve fixed everything! I think the steps that resolved everything for me from the initial broken state were as follows:

  1. Initial broken state - After updating BIOS from the windows utility, no display output on any adapter, however Framework is still booting about 50% of the time, just with no display output. To get back in, I pulled up another Windows computer for comparison and then ‘blind-typed’ my way around to use Windows Quick Assist to view and control the display
  2. I re-ran the BIOS update again, even though it said I was already updated. After this, the ports on one side of the mainboard started giving me display output
  3. I swapped the power of the mainboard to the other side and then re-ran the BIOS update for the third time, even though it still said I was updated again.
  4. After this, now the mainboard boots in under ten seconds and display output is working from both sides of the board. After the initial time it flashed up, I haven’t seen the “BIOS update error” again.

Please note I also tried the troubleshooting steps for leaving the CMOS battery to charge and resetting the mainboard prior to step 2, although I don’t think this was related. Also, prior to step 2 I had a lot of instances of ‘stuck boots’ where even though I knew the mainboard should boot, just without display, it didn’t.

I hope this helps others fix their update and hopefully this was just some kind of unlucky issue that happened to me and not systemic with the update for standalone board users.

I’d be interested in knowing the technical reasons behind what might have happened from anyone at Framework, just out of curiosity - There’s two ECs updated differently on either side of the laptop, and if neither is updated (but the BIOS is) no video?

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Posting this message to say how much I appreciate this BIOS update. It actually marks the 3-year anniversary for the 11th gen mainboard. It’s a major milestone for a startup for the following reason, IMO:

  1. Framework has now proven they can support their first and oldest product longer than most other established ‘consumer’ laptops (lucky if you even get 24 months of BIOS updates). Entering into what’s typically considered as the enterprise support period / space.
  2. The BIOS update continue to get reviewed by software / firmware supply chain risk management firm Binarly. This alone, times 3 years so far, (to me) justifies / is worth the extra / premium cost of a Framework Laptop.

Not sure if this was mentioned / felt by anyone earlier in this thread. But I thought it’s worthy of a celebration, not just merely a BIOS release note.

Thank you, Framework.

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Hi @Kieran_Levin

I use the last version of Linux Mint (22), which is based on Ubuntu 24.04 => so current kernel is “6.8.0-40-generic”.

I have switched to Manjaro for the moment, until there is a solution, but is doesn’t work as expected. Here’s what to notice:

  • I have used Timeshift to restore an install of Manjaro (the restore used to work as expected before)
  • I don’t know if there is a link between the two problem, but it doesn’t boot if I let it go normally (it is stuck to a grub menu).
  • if I want Manjaro to boot, I have to press F3 and navigate to the menu (I have tried this with Mint, but it didn’t help)

One question: why is there always a track of previous OS installs when you navigate to the BIOS menu (even if there is only one system installed)? Is that normal?
I was just wondering if there would be a link with this.

Thank you.

Vincent

PS: I can restore Linux Mint if some tests are needed.

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Thank you @anon81945988

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Ok, perfect. I’ll try as soon as I have some time. Thank you.

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Ok :sweat_smile:, I did not pay attention to this, I had only seen the one at the top of this page : “11th Gen Intel Core BIOS 3.20 Release and Driver Bundle Update”.

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Hello,

This is kind of urgent…

I’m updating the bios on my laptop 13 intel 11th generation and it’s been stuck for 1h on :
Update PD2 progress: Completed

17254389303497696658778688405101
172543893034976966587786884051011920×2560 242 KB

What am I supposed to do ?

Thanks

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Ok I finally manually restarted the computer.

I’m able to boot on Linux.
But none of the 4 usb ports of the laptop are working. Neither charging nor connecting a peripheral like a mouse or a keyboard.

I just have 20min of battery left.

…

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Well, I’m a little late, but you could try to reboot the embedded controller (EC):

  • turn the laptop off (complete shutdown, no suspend, no hibernation)
  • plug out everything (power, other peripherals)
  • wait a couple of minutes
  • plug in power
  • turn the laptop on again
  • check if it starts charging (color of LED)
  • check if mouse, keyboard, etc work again
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And, on an unaltered 11th gen., disconnect the RTC battery.

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My subject was: 3.10 → 3.20, gets “Secure flash interface failed! / Interface return error code 0x02)”, before some kind soul moved my post here. My original FW13 with 11th gen Intel is unable to update from 3.10 to 3.20. Booted from a Windows 10 USB installer (with the bios update .exe on an SD Card) since my Windows 11 SD card stopped being recognized as bootable (dunno why, no message, but that’s Windows for ya). Do I need some particular intervening update first? Anybody know which one? Thx

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From searching that error it looks like you may need more space on your EFI partition.

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Thanks. I don’t have any hdd/sdd in the computer when booting from the USB with Windows 10 (which is mbr not uefi), so that seems like an unlikely issue. Where did you search for the error code? Thx

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Found it here: BIOS update problems [SOLVED]

I don’t recall the inner workings of the windows bios updater, but I am wondering if it unpacks things into the EFI partition on the primary drive, then executes them from there on reboot? Absent an internal drive that obviously would not work. There have been a lot of threads around the BIOS updaters for various versions, perhaps there’s something in one of them that lays it out more clearly.

Best of luck getting your system updated.

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Seems you are on to something. When I plug in my (non-functional) Windows 11 SDD in an external case, but still boot from the Win10 USB installer, and run the Framework Bios Installer via Administrator cmd.com with the file on an SD card, it gets further! It takes the whole screen for the Insyde installer, but then stops with “Error: Invalid firmware image!!!” in a blue box. I’ve done sha256 of both copies of Framework_Laptop_13_11th_Gen_Intel_Core_BIOS_3.20.exe that I downloaded and the copy on the SD card, and they are all the same. So I’m having to put this off for a few days since I’m out of time. But helpful replies would still be gratefully received, esp. from the FW support team! Thanks.

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I don’t think that the windows version requires stepping from 3.10 → 3.17 → 3.19 → 3.20, but it might be worth trying. Maybe. Seems to add risk, but maybe you could try the first one from 3.10 → 3.17 and see if that works. Or possibly try a different USB or SD card. Good luck!

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Hello @Kieran_Levin and @anon81945988,

Thank you again for your help. I have reinstalled Linux Mint from scratch and it’s working fine.

Vincent

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Well, I found another Windows 11 disk and it booted fine and the installer worked. Case closed. Thanks for listening.

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Thanks for the follow up, and glad to hear that it worked!