Insyde Software is one of the companies producing mainboard firmware development frameworks, which are licensed by mainboard hardware manufacturers to produce firmware for a given mainboard model.
The following mainboard and laptop vendors are known to (not necessarily exclusively) use Insyde mainboard (UEFI) firmware:
The most widely used UEFI BIOS in production.Insydeflash Windows Bios Flash Utility Download - goodhistorybInsydeflash Windows Bios Flash Utility Download. Download insydeflash. Flash Applicationinsydeflash. (V4.29) Windows BIOS Update Utility has been.Insydeflash Tool Download - channesskInsydeflash Tool Download. BIOS. How to update BIOS? Insyde Software is one of the companies producing mainboard. The latter two are not available as a free download from Insyde. At the time of writing, a recent copy is available in the UDOO UEFI BIOS + and Update Utility.
- Acer
- HP
- Lenovo
- Toshiba
- Udoo
To verify that a mainboard uses an Insyde firmware, run:
Unfortunately, to date, most companies selling hardware with Insyde firmware, only provide a firmware upgrade path for the 'InsydeH2O UEFI BIOS' for the Windows platform. I.e. neither MS-DOS nor UEFI nor Linux upgrade methods are supported by them.
As a result, alternative firmware upgrade approaches, such as those discussed here, will void warranty.
- The hardware model (and hardware revision, if any) specific firmware upgrade files, as provided by your mainboard / laptop vendor, in their support area, for your hardware model. These consist of two files:
- platform.ini
- A file with (usually) a .FD file extension, containing the actual firmware wrapped in an MS-DOS executable
- A copy of the isfl_drv.c / isfl.hLinux module source code
- A copy of H2OFFT-Lx64, the Insyde Software Linux amd64 platform flash utility, which was released at the same time or later than the firmware file
- A copy of the configuration files platform.ini, message.ini, command.ini, usually provided with the flash utility.
The latter two are not available as a free download from Insyde Software. but included in mainboard firmware upgrades from Linux friendly hardware vendors. At the time of writing, a recent copy is available in the UDOO UEFI BIOS + and Update Utility.
This paragraph is yet to be written.
- BIOSUpdate
- https://fwupd.org/ - fwupd, LVFS, a new vendor firmware upgrade method for Linux
CategoryHardware
Some of the malware these days are targeting even the firmware stored on a small BIOS/UEFI chip that resides on your computer’s motherboard. At this point not many security products are capable of scanning the BIOS/UEFI firmware and therefore these kinds of rootkits are very dangerous. As we explained in a previous article – how to protect against Lojax rootkit, the only way to get rid of these type of malware is to re-flash the firmware in the BIOS/UEFI chip on your motherboard.
If you have a computer that uses Insyde BIOS/UEFI then it is very easy to re-flash or update the firmware. The first obvious step is to find and download the update. You won’t get these updates from the Insyde website. If you have a desktop computer, then you should get it from the motherboard manufacturer’s website. If you have a laptop/notebook computer, then you should get it from the device manufacturer’s website. Usually these updates are located in the “Support” section of their websites.
Once you have procured the firmware update file for Insyde BIOS/UEFI, then you can follow these steps:
- Attach the AC adapter cable to your notebook even if battery is fully charged.
- Close all the programs running in your computer.
- Launch the Insyde firmware update tool for your computer.
- When asked “Continue to update BIOS”, click on the OK button to proceed.
- It will erase the older firmware first, then it will continue to write newer firmware.
- When the firmware is flashed completely, your computer will be restarted automatically.
After computer has rebooted back into Windows, it should work without no problem. But an old method to ensure that the new firmware works properly is to reset the BIOS to default values and adjust the values again after each firmware update. This step is not really necessary, but you can take this step if you know how to change the values in the BIOS/UEFI settings for your computer.