This is just a simple note for owners of ThinkPad X1 Yoga 4th / Carbon 7th laptops on how to upgrade Thunderbolt Controller Firmware. Please note that upgrading the firmware always comes with unexpected risks! If unsure you are better NOT to proceed!
First and the foremost, before you do anything make sure that you reboot your Laptop to BIOS and set the Thunderbolt BIOS Assist Mode to “Disable”.
I performed the upgrade on Arch Linux however any decent Linux bistro with available fwupdmgr command line tool should be fine.
Once ready, open up a terminal and execute:
$ fwupdmgr refresh
Fetching metadata https://cdn.fwupd.org/downloads/firmware.xml.gz
Downloading… [***************************************]
Fetching signature https://cdn.fwupd.org/downloads/firmware.xml.gz.asc
This will download the latest firmware index file. Next, retrieve all available updates:
$ fwupdmgr get-updates
20QDCTO1WW
│
└─ThinkPad X1 Yoga 4th / Carbon 7th Thunderbolt Controller:
│ Device ID: f388b1939351229f5cd3016ff13b2df354e9d38e
│ Summary: Unmatched performance for high-speed I/O
│ Current version: 41.00
│ Vendor: Lenovo (TBT:0x0109)
│ Flags: internal|updatable|require-ac|supported|registered
│ GUID: c7920601-0cda-507f-851e-92129eb1d470
│
└─ThinkPad X1 Carbon 7th / X1 Yoga 4th Thunderbolt Controller:
New version: 43.00
Remote ID: lvfs
Summary: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 7th / X1 Yoga 4th Thunderbolt Firmware
License: proprietary
Size: 262.1 kB
Vendor: Lenovo Ltd.
Flags: is-upgrade
Description: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 7th / X1 Yoga 4th Thunderbolt Firmware
• Before update, set the Thunderbolt BIOS Assist Mode to "Disable" in BIOS setup under Config > Thunderbolt 3.
• DO NOT FORCE UPDATE Thunderbolt Controller. This may damage the firmware.
From the output above we can see that the Thunderbolt Controller firmware upgrade from version 41 to 43 is available. The Thunderbolt Controller will restart/disconnect after update so if you have anything connected to this port it would be wise to disconnect it.
To perform the actual Thunderbolt Firmware upgrade execute:
# fwupdmgr update
Downloading 43.00 for ThinkPad X1 Yoga 4th / Carbon 7th Thunderbolt Controller...
Fetching firmware https://fwupd.org/downloads/c656c45c56fe417ac38dab5a57f451c8340292e7-Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1Carbon5th-Thunderbolt-Firmware-N1MTF28W-Secured.cab
Downloading… [***************************************] Less than one minute remaining…
Decompressing… [***************************************]
Authenticating… [***************************************]
Updating ThinkPad X1 Yoga 4th / Carbon 7th Thunderbolt Controller…
Restarting device… [***************************************]
To confirm that the upgrade was performed successfully execute:
$ fwupdmgr get-updates
No upgrades for ThinkPad X1 Yoga 4th / Carbon 7th Thunderbolt Controller, current is 43.00: 43.00=same
________________________________________________
Devices that have been updated successfully:
• ThinkPad X1 Yoga 4th / Carbon 7th Thunderbolt Controller (41.00 → 43.00)
Uploading firmware reports helps hardware vendors to quickly identify failing and successful updates on real devices.
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All done.