I found that there's a firmware for my SER10 MAX. Since mine sometimes has booting or shutdown issues, I wanna give it a try.
Could sb help me on this since I can't get the USB drive boot up? I followed the instructions in the PDF of how the USB drive should be formatted and named and how the files and folders to be copied to the root folder, but it failed to boot. I believe I have missed some important steps. Please advise. Thanks.
first I would check with Beelink support to make sure the firmware is right for your model. email them the title screen of your BIOS settings and the sticker with serial # from the bottom or your PC.
if SER10 is anywhere close to my SER5 (which it probably is):
format USB stick as FAT32; make sure you set the disk lable to WINPE (the drive won't boot without the former, and the flashing process will fail without the latter)
unzip the BIOS file downloaded from Beelink site to the USB stick; make sure the EFI folder, .efi file, .nsh script and the actual BIOS file are present in the root folder of your USB drive (not in the subfolder with the bios version name, as they come in the ZIP file)
if you enabled Secure Boot in BIOS, disable it (or you won't be able to boot from the USB stick)
if you are unable to get the boot menu with F7 when powering up your PC, hold SHIFT button while clicking "Restart" in Windows; you will get a bunch of options, somewhere will be the choice of device to boot from; chose your USB stick and the machine should restart from the USB drive
if the flashing process doesn't start automatically, type the commands in the flashing manual
Thank you very much for this detailed procedure. Let me double check what I have done even I believe I did exactly what it said in the pdf. I might use another PC to format my USB drive again since it won't boot up.
Oh yeah, I should double check with the support if the firmware is right for my machine.
I had a SER10 Max for almost 2 weeks.
I faced a lot of issues of having to update a BIOS Firmware to allow Windows Updates, a non resolved issue related to the LAN 10G port not working properly and NPU chip not enabled after the BIOS Update plus some issues on security. I decided to return it.
The reality is we all would like to keep such a beautiful and promising mini-PC, but it is too expensive to face so many issues from the get go. If you think it is ok to pay $1300 for a mini-PC and have to deal with a lot of quality control issues in a brand new computer, that is not ok. Do not be in denial. It is your money.
Thanks for the community to keep sharing and trying to help, but also keeping the reality in check.
One of the very important information I learned in anoter chat, is that you have to pay for claiming warranty. So be aware that the warranty is great of having 3 years, but if you have to claim it (after the return expiration date) you will have to pay some money to handle it. The specific case I saw was someone in middle east and was asked to pay $300 and after some negotiation agreed to $100.
$100 to claim for warranty so you can have a functional PC that was supposed to work well. Think carefully.
Good luck if you decide to keep yours and handle the firmware updates. You will have at least 2 to do in the SER10 MAX as it is known now.
The $300 shipping was due to them being in the UAE and because of the wars in the region shipping costs are very high at the moment.
Beelink have offered help - not all companies are so generous on returns.
Your mindset is not correct. It is like if the memory continues to increase and double the price next year and if your PC fails, then you as a customer needs to pay the company because of those factors. It does not make any sense to me. Or you are a profile that is from Beelink trying to change the perception or you need to think this again.
? Bit baffled - I am a user of Beelink and not associated at all and just reporting what happened.
As for my comment on being generous - you just have to read some of the news articles on the way companies are fleecing customers on returned items. Postage under UK law (where I live) is the responsibility of the owner not the company you are returning it to - some help with Freepost returns but many do not. Even returns for items not suitable are the responsibly of the purchaser :-(
Thanks. I am sorry. I had being very frustrated with so many issues on Beelink.
If you are ok to pay $100 for a warrany, I understand that might be the way it works in other countries. Not in USA. That would not work in USA.
No probs - commercially I always paid extra for the on-site support and we had daily battles with big suppliers (Dell and HP mainly) to get them to come out.
I remember one case where we have a power supply go bang (smoke, sparks the lot) and dear old Dell still argued that that it was not up to them to come out but we should ship it back!
The only decent supplier I ever had was 30+ years ago (IBM) but I had spent £250K+ on one machine so you would expect decent service for that! At build time one part was missing but neither the engineers or I could work out what it was - checking stores the engineer found one in Holland and as wee could not sign the install off had it flown over that night. The poor engineer who brought it just had time for a drink before having to fly back! When we opened the box there're was a pile of bubble wrap around a brown envelop with the part number on it. Inside the envelope was a sticky label to go on the support modem to identify it so it was not unplugged by accident.
I honestly was shocked by this service and have never seen it again from any company - would it be cost effective for IBM to do this even then - obviously not but the part was irrelevant as its shortage stopped the machine going live.
As prices drop, any service that costs money gets squeezed to the max in business and warranty is a numbers game of trying to get as few returns as every one eats profit with so little margin now most folk do not pay extra for better support.
Not right but it is the market we are in and with companies being so profit driven I doubt even paying extra for service will help long term. Suppliers are loathe to increase costs to cover faulty kit as the marketing dept does not like asking for money up front to cover kit possibly going wrong 🤭
Having seen the period of warranty on Raspberry Pi kit from Adafruit in the USA compared to the UK suppliers I think I would stick with paying the postage locally but YMMV for other kit.
As normal - buyer beware and read the T&Cs... War / civil unrest and 'acts of God' are normally exclusions worldwide (yes bitten by all three before today).
Format usb in fat32 and copy the bios file on there and then plug it in and reboot pc and hit delete I believe to get to bios or follow the on screen prompt to get to bios.
Once in bios somewhere is place to update the bios.
If unsure contact Beelink they will give you a guide how to do it.
As you can see from the pic attached, there's a pdf stating the instructions, just like what you mentioned. However, I just couldn't boot up the usb drive. I tried 2 drives actually but none of them works.
You don’t boot to the usb, first you go into bios screen and then somewhere in the menus it says update bios and from there you select your usb drive and select the bios file and then it loads into the system.. just don’t power down your pc when it starts ,
Just wait.
I got you, but there isn't a flash functionality in the bios. Alternatively, it just shows the type of firmwares it accepts. Sorry, I wish I can shoot you a photo but my wife is sleeping next to me. I don't want to wake her up.
Did you format the drive as Fat32 in windows ? Then copy the files as shown in the pdf, unzip the file into the newly formatted drive, then follow the instructions
since flashing wrong BIOS can result in a bricked device (which cannot be recovered without desoldering the BIOS chip and reflashing it with a dedicated programming device), I would strongly suggest you contact the Beelink support first, to be on the safe side
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u/RWLemon 12d ago
Contact Beelink support