strboul blog - Flash BIOS of Thinkpad E14 with Arch Linux

Update BIOS on Thinkpad E14 on Arch Linux. This workflow can also be applied to other similar models such as T14 or X1.

First of all, I don't very much recommend updating BIOS if you don't see any critical updates. The chance of getting a "bricked motherboard" still exists even though it's a low chance just because the BIOS backup methods are in much better state than 2000s.

To proceed, you need a USB stick with a minimum size of 4GB at hand.

First, confirm the BIOS version and machine type model from the Lenovo UEFI.

It's also possible to obtain those information version with dmidecode.

sudo dmidecode
# ...
BIOS Information
        Vendor: LENOVO
        Version: XXXXXXXX (1.15)
        Release Date: 01/21/2023
# ...
        BIOS Revision: 1.15
        Firmware Revision: 1.15
# ...
System Information
        Manufacturer: LENOVO
        Product Name: 21EBCTO1WW
        Version: ThinkPad E14 Gen 4
        Serial Number: XXXXXXXX

Go to https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/ and search by the product name. Most of the times, you can search it by the first 3-4 letters of the product name.

Lenovo PC support

Create a bootable image with geteltorito (install from AUR and check the PKGBUILD) and write it to the (clean) USB stick with dd.

biosimg="bios.img"
usbdisk="/dev/sda"
geteltorito.pl -o "$biosimg" r20ur35w.iso
dd if="$biosimg" of="$usbdisk"

Then reboot the machine from the USB and follow the instructions carefully.