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Capsule Updates

Introduction

This document lists devices which support UEFI Update Capsules and demonstrates how to use them for a firmware update. There is a more detailed overview which can be helpful in showing how this compares to other update methods.

Supported devices

Note

Update Capsules are only supported in UEFI/EDK2 firmware versions, not in SeaBIOS or Heads-based firmware flavors.

The following table describes which devices support Update Capsules and since which firmware release, if applicable. If a particular device isn't mentioned, it means that it doesn't support this update method.

Manufacturer Device Starting with FW version
MSI Z690-A PRO TBD
MSI Z790-P PRO TBD

TBD (to be delivered) is used as a placeholder for upcoming releases which should have this feature enabled.

Prerequisites

  • UEFI Shell
    UEFI Dasharo firmware has this, but won't hurt to call it out explicitly.
  • Storage device available from UEFI Shell
    Not all file-systems are available to UEFI, so not all storage devices and partition on them will be usable for the purpose of capsule updates. An ESP (EFI System Partition, where EFI/ directory is located) is a good choice because it should be always readable by UEFI.
  • CapsuleApp.efi
    This is a UEFI application which passes a capsule file to firmware to perform an update.
  • Firmware capsule
    The firmware update capsule file itself. Should have .cap file extension.

What's preserved by an update

Type Notes
SMMSTORE holds UEFI Variables such as settings or boot order
ROMHOLE only on MSI
SMBIOS unique data like serial number or UUID
boot logo set by the user

Preservation is done as a best effort. However some firmware changes are expected (e.g., current custom logo can be too large for the new firmware), thus a failure to move data in some cases won’t necessarily abort an update.

How to use UEFI Update Capsules

Note

Out of technical necessity, Intel Management Engine (Intel ME) must be HAP-disabled in order for firmware to process a capsule successfully. If you're sure that the supplied capsule is the correct one, but you keep getting this error:

CapsuleApp: failed to query capsule capability - Unsupported

Then double-check that Intel ME is in Disabled (HAP) state in the corresponding menu or switch it to that state before performing an update.

  1. Copy CapsuleApp.efi and firmware.cap files to a partition (the shorter the path from the root, the easier it will be to find in the UEFI Shell).

  2. See the note above about Intel ME and HAP-disable it if it's enabled or soft-disabled at the moment. An update won't be initiated if this isn't done (CapsuleApp.efi will make an effort and give up, so no harm other than update not happening).

  3. Enter Boot Manager Menu and select UEFI Shell entry. Alternatively, if you're in Setup, use One Time Boot which is a different way to do the same.

  4. Press Escape to get to the prompt. In practice pressing any key works the same in most cases, so no problem if you didn't make it in 5 seconds.

  5. The first thing that UEFI Shell prints, even before the prompt with the timer, is the list of file systems and block devices (it can also be retrieved later by running map command): Top of UEFI Shell The hard part is to find the drive with CapsuleApp.efi and firmware.cap among them. One way of doing it is going through FS* sequentially using ls command: ls command in UEFI Shell Once the file-system is identified, run its name to switch to it: Change file-system in UEFI Shell

  6. If files are in file-system's root, no need to do anything here. Otherwise, use cd command to open a target directory to not have to enter full paths: Change directory in UEFI Shell

  7. Now you should be in a position to initiate a capsule update (run ls again if in doubt about current location) via CapsuleApp.efi firmware.cap (substitute firmware.cap with an actual file name): Initiating a capsule update A sign of success is an immediate reboot followed by a dialog of Firmware Update Mode: Firmware Update Mode warning Read the text and press the key it asks you to press if you want to proceed.

  8. An ongoing firmware update looks like this: Ongoing capsule update

Warning

Don't reboot or power off the device until the process is completed!

After either a successful or failed update, the machine should reboot automatically. After that, if everything succeeded, you should have an updated firmware with data migrated from the previous version.

Note

Since the settings were preserved, remember to re-enable Intel Management Engine after the update.

Version verification

Current version of the firmware can be seen in the top-left corner of the main page of the Setup.

Main page

Troubleshooting

In case the update process has aborted, one can run CapsuleApp.efi -S in UEFI Shell to get basic information pointing to the reason:

Failed update debug output

The most interesting field is Capsule Status:. The error codes there are quite generic but still useful:

  • Security Violation indicates an issue with capsule's signature
  • Not Ready indicates that the capsule is unsupported by this firmware, likely because it isn't compatible

Further information