P15 Gen 1 scary BIOS update!

[theoldhundy]

Hi all, long time lurker, first time poster...

I just did a BIOS update on a P15 gen 1 at work and ran into a crazy issue with it. Once the BIOS update was finished, the power light started blinking slowly as if it was asleep, except the CPU fans were on FULL and blowing hot air! I left it for a full 10 minutes (propped up to give as much airflow as possible) and nothing changed. The unit would not respond to anything: pressing the power button, closing the lid and reopening it, disconnecting/reconnecting the power adapter, nothing. The P15 doesn't have a removable battery, and I didn't want to open it because it's a company machine that's still under warranty. I thought "well, looks like she's done for".

As a last resort, I stuck it in the refrigerator, still blowing hot air, still totally unresponsive. I checked on it about an hour later and it had stopped. I allowed it to come up to temperature, pressed the power button, and all was fine! The BIOS was the latest version and everything was 100% functional. That was a week ago and it's been working great since. Has anybody run into anything like this?? I haven't had troubles with a BIOS update in... oh... 20 years or so. I've done many BIOS updates on all of my machines using Lenovo Vantage and never ran into anything wild like that.