What's new in this week's GL702VMK bios update?

[Hamra]

I have a GL702VMK. Windows updated the bios from 303 (2017) to 305, which on Asus download website, was released only yesterday. So Microsoft must have had it earlier.

No changelog no nothing, any ideas what's in this update? What fixes? Any official changelog somewhere (apart from the useless "Stability fixes").

PS: Oh, and thankfully, the update went fine, no problems.

[FULLMETALJACKET]

Probably related to this, since they're pushing it to pretty much every model in the past few days.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pan9wn/hackers-hijacked-asus-software-updates-to-install-backdoor...

[binaryLV]

Hamra wrote:
PS: Oh, and thankfully, the update went fine, no problems.

Good for you.

When I saw something that probably was a BIOS update screen, laptop seemed to be unresponsive, so I just turned it off. Not the best thing to do during BIOS update, you know... Now my answer to "What's new in this BIOS update" is "brick". Any ideas how to "unbrick" it?

P.S. Now I hate automatic/forced updates even more.

Edit: managed to unbrick it.

[FULLMETALJACKET]

binaryLV wrote:
Good for you.

When I saw something that probably was a BIOS update screen, laptop seemed to be unresponsive, so I just turned it off. Not the best thing to do during BIOS update, you know... Now my answer to "What's new in this BIOS update" is "brick". Any ideas how to "unbrick" it?

P.S. Now I hate automatic/forced updates even more.

Oh boy.

So what exactly happens when you press the power button? Just a black screen or is it stuck on the ROG logo or something?

[binaryLV]

Black screen, some LEDs turn on. No logo.

Edit: Laptop unbricked. Formatted flash drive (FAT32), wrote BIOS file to it (same file, different names - GL702VM.ROM, GL702VMK.ROM, GL702VM.bin, GL702VMK.bin; I'm not sure if filename matters, because I later had to choose the file from the list), pressed Ctrl+Home, turned on the laptop. After some 10-15sec there was a barely noticable flash of the "activity LED" on the USB flash drive. After some more 10-15 secs, ASUS logo appeared and then BIOS flash utility started.
I tried this method before, but probably wasn't patient enough. This time I was holding Ctrl+Home all the time until that logo appeared.

[FULLMETALJACKET]

Man, that's scary. Good to know you brought it back from the dead.

I have a complete flash dump of my bios chip and spare blank chips in case something goes south when updating the bios. Dumped it using a cheap flash programmer. And even then, I avoid playing around with bios updates.

I even blocked this bios update Microsoft is pushing through windows update. Better safe than sorry.

[binaryLV]

Found this in ASUS FAQ - https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1040162

BIOS updated to ensure more security when setting BIOS password
Last Update : 2019/06/06 17:15

ASUS has released a BIOS update for notebook PCs to ensure a more secure and convenient computing experience.
This update only affects the users who currently have a password for their BIOS or hard drive.
Concerned users with a password should install the new BIOS update via Windows Update or download it from https://www.asus.com/support/.

Oh, and someone in another forum shared this link - https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/10/17/introducing-component-firmware-update/
So we can expect to see more UEFI updates via Windows Update in future (with "we" I mean PC users in general).

[binaryLV]

So... How to prevent Windows Update for installing that v305 BIOS on GL702VMK? Until now, I didn't have any problems with v305, but now I decided to fill 2.5" port with additional SSD and laptop cannot find m.2 NVMe drive anymore. When I install v303 BIOS manually, it just gets upgraded to v305 automatically.

I tried using wushowhide.diagcab, it shows KB4497165. "Disabling" it doesn't seem to help.

Edit: Damn… Neither v303 nor v300 allow using m.2 NVMe and 2.5" SATA SSD at the same time 😞
Edit(2): NVMe + 2.5" HDD (not SSD) also doesn't work…

[binaryLV]

So... How to prevent Windows Update for installing that v305 BIOS on GL702VMK? Until now, I didn't have any problems with v305, but now I decided to fill 2.5" port with additional SSD and laptop cannot find m.2 NVME drive anymore. When I install v303 BIOS manually, it just gets upgraded to v305 automatically.

I tried using wushowhide.diagcab, it shows KB4497165. "Disabling" it doesn't seem to help.