Lenovo ThinkPad P70 BIOS Flash Upgrade
I got my Lenovo ThinkPad P70 Mobile workstation model 20ER002KUS for $1,349.99 plus $10.49 shipping and handling for a total of $1360.48 from vendor Soft Networks selling on Amazon. This is a pretty basic model with a 500 Gb semi-crappy but-not-too-bad 7200 RPM rotating rust drive and 16Gb of RAM (but note that the 16Gb of RAM does come as a single 16Gb chip which is nice because then you can just add 3 more 16Gb chips to get the full 64Gb memory capacity and don't have to "pitch" any chips away - which you would have to do say if they gave you 16Gb of memory as 4 x 4Gb chips) . As of today the same laptop is now going for $1,595.00 so the price has gone up. This laptop support M.2 NVME storage so I planned to order some separately as it seemed I could get them cheaper as add-ons rather than OEM options.
So I ordered 2 x 256Gb Samsung EVO 950 M.2 NVME. But after I installed them I had an issue getting the laptop to boot when I installed some NVME M.2 (which has since been solved by making some reconfigurations to the BIOS) but at the time I was working on the problem I thought perhaps the BIOS needed to be flashed to the latest REV, and in fact when I checked the BIOS was many, many, revs back from the latest BIOS release for this laptop - and the most recent REV from Lenovo for the BIOS was released 8/9/2016 (most recent release of BIOS) which was more than a year more recent that what was on my laptop as-delivered.
Begin Update: 2018-02-07 (Spectre Lenovo P70 BIOS 2.21 v2 Update)
Lenovo has released BIOS update 2.21 (a re-release of 2.21 was apparently made on 2018-02-06 from the original release of 2.21 on 2017-12-25) which is the fix for CVE-2017-5715 (Spectre / Meltdown) for Lenovo P70 mobile workstation. I applied it to my P70 with no extended drama, although there was some sloppy planning on my part of the BIOS flash:
I have a windows 10 OS installed in this P70 on an NVME, but I also have an Oracle Linux 7.3 on the other NVME. I downloaded the Lenovo Windows 10 BIOS flash file and ran it rather haphazardly considering the destruction a muffed BIOS updated can wreak. Fortunately, it turned out well, but here is how I would do it over again.
First, because I have multiple OS's, and because the Oracle Linux 7.3 is set to boot by default, I would before flashing the BIOS go into BIOS and set the Windows OS to boot by default. This is because the BIOS reboots the laptop a couple of times, and when I was halfway into the update (P70 was doing it's first reboot) it occurred to me that I was going to have to hit enter when the P70 started, then F12, and choose the Windows boot, and it occurred to me that because I was updating BIOS itself, there could be some weirdness possibly with doing an F12 to choose the boot device.
Second, the Windows OS had not been updated in over a year, and Windows as one might guess, had ALOT of updates pending, so when I fired off of the BIOS updated, the shutdown of Windows sat there processing a truckload of Windows updates for at least 20 minutes, and I had no choice but to sit there watching paint dry to be sure that I was there to switch the boot to the Windows OS when the P70 finally shutdown, applied BIOS flash, and rebooted (at which point I had to hit enter and F12 and switch the boot to the Windows track). Well that went OK happily, and, at the appointed time, played my bit part in the BIOS update, switching to the Windows track at the required moment.
So the takeaways for your benefit are
BEFORE kicking off the BIOS update from Windows check for Windows mandatory updates and process ALL of those first (and reboot).
AFTER the Windows mandatory updates look at processes using task manager and be sure it has finished everything! (took awhile).
BEFORE kicking off the BIOS update from Windows ensure that BIOS is set to boot into Windows by default and test it (and reboot).
NOW kick off the BIOS upgrade. The machine will shutdown, then apply the BIOS update, then reboot 2x (without loading OS)
Finally the machine will reboot into Windows.
As far as the final results, it looks good. The revised 2.21 BIOS update was re-released yesterday by Lenovo as part of the industry-wide wobbly releases and re-releases of the spectre/meltdown fix. Hopefully since this is a recent re-release of the fix, perhaps then I got a fix that will be THE fix for awhile like maybe a year I hope.
Note that if the machine doesn't have a Windows OS, the BIOS can be flashed as described below and similar caveats apply as described above.
End Update: 2018-02-07
So I found the page here that explains how to flash the BIOS using a CD/DVD. I run CentOS7 GNOME Linux Desktop Edition on my Lenovo P70 ThinkPad, and the instructions at the website don't mention Linux at all, but since it's a DVD method, one would think this is pretty much independent of whatever OS you are using, so this method would apply for any OS (I would think). In this case, it worked for my CentOS7 Linux desktop OS, but YMMV and no guarantees are given for this procedure, but it worked for me.
The webpage where you get the downloadable flash BIOS upgrade for the P70 is here. Grab the latest version.
When you run the CD it gives some instructions as you go along, and they are a bit confusing so I took some photos with my cellphone that show some of the key screens below.
Before you start make sure that you go into the BIOS and enable "Flash BIOS Updating by End-Users".
Boot the Lenovo P70 up with a DVD or CD that has the BIOS update downloaded burned onto it. This is the screen you will see when the DVD loads up as shown below (ignore the blue Information screen below - that is the popup you get if you choose item (3. update model number) which you do NOT want to do. I was just checking to see what that option is and this is the only photo I have of the main screen).
The option (2. Update system program) is the main one we want to run as shown below.
When you choose option (2. Update system program) it shows you this kind of slightly scary and confusing "yellow" popup box screen as shown below. IGNORE the 3RD paragraph about "Or, remove the CD, ...) because what I did was just leave the CD in and that worked great. It's confusing because after you think about it for awhile (maybe that's why they call them "Think"Pads *smirk*) you realize that option 3 is simply the option you take when the whole BIOS update is completed, so what this yellow screen is really saying is that the second paragraph ("Do not remove the CD...") is that the second paragraph is your BIOS update options, and the 3rd paragraph is what you do when the whole thing is done. So, the second paragraph is what you do for the BIOS upgrade: You leave the CD in and press "Enter" from the yellow popup box and then the BIOS upgrade(s) will occur and the laptop will reboot 2 or 3 times (I think it's twice but can't remember for sure) but when it's all done you'll get that menu back (the 1,2,3 options menu).
Again, realize is that the P70 is going to reboot two more times for this process, so don't touch anything while it reboots twice. It's going to flash the BIOS, and some controller and some firware and etc. so there will be two reboots. Just wait until you get the menu (1., 2., 3.) options screen back and then wait a few minutes after that to be sure it's completed!
One of the reboots will show this screen.
One of the reboots will show this screen. I believe it reboots after this, and there is yet another update of a controller or something, and then it reboots one last time and you will know it's done when you get that (1.,2.,3. main options screen) and if it all worked ok you are done. My update worked fine and I went and grabbed a beer glad to be done with the BIOS flash!