Samsung Q1 BIOS upgrade available

Eagle-eyed jkOTR reader Bill spotted a BIOS upgrade for the Samsung Q1 on the company's website; the 912 Kb file is dated July 28th and will bring your BIOS up to version "MA02". Bill and I have both run the upgrade without any major issues. Bill had to re-install Norton AntiVirus and also repair Office while I have yet to see any negative impacts. I don't use Norton and I'm running the Office 2007 Beta on Sammy.

Samsung doesn't really provide much info on this BIOS upgrade so it's not yet clear what this fixes or adds. This short description is all we have to go on at this point: "You can update the BIOS & Micom in yourself". The upgrade is a simple five-minute process: download the executable, close all programs and run the upgrade directly in Windows; the upgrade will force a reboot. I HIGHLY recommend that you have your Q1 plugged in with the AC adapter when running the BIOS upgrade. I've got a note in to Samsung for additional details and will share them once I get a response. Thanks to Bill for spotting the upgrade!

-kct

Comments

[Mike Cane]

Well, I hope this is an encouraging sign. But perhaps it was demanded by their corporate customers and still doesn't reflect any *expanded retail presence*.

I mean, they're still selling this in stores *only* in Texas, right?

Awaiting Q2...

[Matt Smith]

The BIOS updated just fine for me. I noticed that under the software tab on the download page there are a number of software updates that are showing 8-8-06 as the update date. If those dates are correct, it looks like Samsung was really busy yesterday.

[Alslayer]

What does it do?

Is the bios menu any different?

[Oliver]

Mike,

Fry's stores are selling the Q1 outside of Texas, e.g., here in CA.

[Mike Cane]

Tell Fry's to get its a** out to NYC then!! I'm so jealous of you people with Fry's... and with Q1s on sale in stores!

[Mike Cane]

OUCH! Can you guess what happened?! I'm at the Apple Store using a MacBook and WiFi latency hit me big time! I will email jk to clean up!

[John in Norway]

I'm confused. I've just run Samsung update and it says my system is up to date. However, it says my last update was on the 27th July (Display manager update). So obviously it isn't up to date. Or is it?

[Kevin C. Tofel]

John, I purposely ran the Samsung Update program just before I downloaded and installed the new BIOS. The Update program didn't indicate any new downloads for me either.

[Stu Gisburne]

I was looking at the Sumsung software updates and their version numbers. From what I can tell, even though the update date changed from July to 8/8, the version numbers remained the same. I wonder what the deal is there. On another note, they must use the update manager for critical or major updates as my Q1 didn't pick up any new updates either. As a matter of fact, it has only picked up one...the display manager update.

[Stu Gisburne]

Ooops...something was running slow and I got impatient and hit the Post button twice. Sorry for filling up your internet space. Although, this message fills it up even more. Ok, I'll hold back on posting somewhere else here to make up for it. :)

[Bill]

Matt commented that there are several software downloads on Samsung's site dated 8/8/06. My Samsung updater still says I'm up-to-date even though the display update is the only thing that has been updated.I guess that updater isn't totally reliable. Does the tip Keyboard look different to you after the update? Also, the one thing that seems to be fixed is using the soft Keyboard. My keys now display properly after using shift.

[G]

I've applied the BIOS update but now my Q1 doesn't boot into the AVStation.

Anyone else seen this, or am I special?

[Kevin C. Tofel]

I'm seeing the same issue G, but don't worry; we still think you're special. I use the AVStation NOW functionality so infrequently, I never thought to test it. Just tried and it and I get the AVStation splash as it boots, but then nothing but a blank screen. Not good Samsung, not good...

[Stu Gisburne]

I'll be the third to say that AVS doesn't work. (I would have been the second, but I waiting until I got to work to reply) Same splash screen and then nothing. It appears to be on but the screen is blank. I thought I saw something about this on origamiproject.com. I'll take a look.

[Bill]

"Don't Panic!" I too suffered the broken AVS now but I was able to restore it with the orange restore cd. Of course, I haven't upgraded my RAM so your mileage may vary. Now, if I only actually used AVS Now.

[Stu Gisburne]

Ok, I got AVS working. This is what worked for me. I remembered doing this after I upgraded my memory to 1gig. Plug in a keyboard for this to work.

1) Turn the power switch to the left to go into AVS Now.
2) After doing this, keep pressing F8 (maybe once is ok, but I am impatient)
3) You should get a prompt with an option to delete restoration data. Choose this option
4) Your machine should then boot into Windows, it will continue for a while and shut down. Mine did anyway.
5) Turn the power switch to the left to boot into AVS and it should work now.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Although, I have only used it once, but I hate having something not work.

[G]

That's what I like to see, a solutions man.

I'll be giving this a try as soon as I get home.

Cheers

[Kevin C. Tofel]

Worked like a charm, thanks Stu!

[mckenzie douglas]

please mail me samsung software

[cobra]

How you enter bios setting in Samsung Q1?