About the BIOS

[Anon_me]

How do you know when you have to flash it? Thanks

 

[Luis G]

That's a toughie, but this always works for me: "if it ain't broke.......don't fix it"

Generally BIOSes have no bugs, unless you are having a serious hardware problem you should not attempt to flash it.

 

[PT]

That's the general guideline. My motherboard originally didn't support the XP chip, so I had to flash it to recognize it properly. If it isn't something like that, or some feature that you just can't live without, it's usually not worth the risk.

 

[Aunty Em]

It took me about a month to prepare to flash mine including learning to use Dos and reading up everything I could find on the subject. But I still wasn't aware of the need to disable caching and shadowing in the old BIOS first. Fortunately mine weren't enabled anyway. Plus I have an ABit board and their site and readme files enclosed with the utility and new BIOS are excellent. I also read the instructions carefully several times before flashing and followed them to the letter, then crossed my fingers and prayed. I was lucky, it worked, but I wouldn't advise it unless you really need it like PT says - I intended to overclock or install a larger processor which my old BIOS didn't support. I still intend to at a later date when I have a replacement system sometime after christmas - so it's prepared and ready to go.

 

[PostCode]

That's a toughie, but this always works for me: "if it ain't broke.......don't fix it"

Generally BIOSes have no bugs, unless you are having a serious hardware problem you should not attempt to flash it.

They're getting better at it, but one of the biggest, if not the biggest reason that manufacturers started using flash ROM was because of bugs, both new and old. A flash by the user is much cheaper then pulling the CMOS and sending it away or purchasing the equipment to do it onsite. You can read my Bios Flashing FAQ over at XiBase ot my site.


BIOS Flashing FAQ

Like the others have said though, if it's working with your current hardware/saoftware then don't flash it. A bad flash can prove to be costly.

 

[Aunty Em]

You can read my Bios Flashing FAQ over at XiBase ot my site.

That's where I read abut the shadowing and caching.

 

[PostCode]

I remember a buddy who flashed his video cards BIOS while the Video BIOS Shadowing was enabled. The flash appeared to work but on a reboot he got no DOS. Once it went into Windows, he aquired video. What had happened is the flashing program had flashed the portion of the BIOS that was shadowed, or real mode I think this is the first 32k of the BIOS), while the portion that wasn't shadowed, which controlled virtual mode, did get flashed properly. Ruined a then high end Matrox video card.