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I have a Dell Precision M3800 laptop, 64bit, with a single SSD. Due to a series of problems, probably caused by a corrupted partition table, I completely formatted the drive and installed Windows 10 (64bit) from scratch. Because of this I clearly had to download and manually install all the native Dell drivers, which I did from the [Dell site][1].

Among these was the recommended update of the System BIOS to the A10 version. I downloaded and ran this update. I'm not sure what the version was before because I didn't pay enough attention but I'm pretty sure it was a precedent version, something like A06 or maybe A09.

I had some problems during this updating which I won't mention here for now because I'm not sure they're relevant. Anyway I finally ended up successfully completing this update and everything works fine (sort of). However, trying to see if the updating was successful I noticed in the System Information panel that the BIOS mode of this results as LEGACY.

Now, for what I know, new devices (such as this laptop which has something like 6 months) are UEFI by default, so this seems strange to me. I tried searching online for documentation regarding these BIOS versions but I couldn't find anything useful, and this brings me here:

  1. Is there a way to know what the BIOS type of this A10 version is supposed to be? (for example by someone which has it)
  2. Is it usual, or at least not so strange, for a modern BIOS version for a modern laptop to be of LEGACY type?
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For #1: For operating systems not supporting the UEFI as you suggested, I think the BIOS set to legacy is to support those. If you're on Windows 10 I thought it supports the UEFI and secure boot features, but you may need to change other BIOS settings; enable secure boot features, disable legacy features, etc. for it to work as expected.

For #2: I think what the manufacturer has on their website for the latest update firmware BIOS update wise is usually always best and trustworthy. I think the default for the BIOS is set to legacy and you have to explicitly enable it, etc. This may be especially true if you originally purchased the laptop without an OS or a downgraded version of an OS that doesn't support UEFI features.

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  • so if I'm getting this right, the BIOS type that I see in system information depends on what I set on the BIOS settings, not on the BIOS version itself? Which means that all UEFI BIOS will result as Legacy as long as I don't change the option In the boot menu?
    – glS
    Commented Oct 22, 2015 at 18:51

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