[PCWorld]

Post your comments for How to Update Your BIOS here

[bushwakka]

I remember when I was doing a BIOS update for the first time, I was so paranoid thinking what if something went wrong. I went investigating how to backup the BIOS or what to do if somerthing did go wrong. I didn't get to back-up the original and I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best! I was thrilled that it went smoothly.

Maybe your article should contain some help on backing up your current BIOS as well as what to do if something goes wrong....or maybe links to articles which can explain such?

[mstax]

I went to the Acer support site... and under the BIOS tab (which showed an updated bios as available for my laptop) was this warning (in red ink!)

"Flashing the wrong BIOS can cause harm to the system. Acer recommends that you should only upgrade your firmware/drivers if you have been instructed to do so by an Acer Customer Care representative. By using these firmware/drivers you agree to accept the possibility of product failure."

Scary, huh? What to do, what to do?

[Gatewaygeek]

mstax, on 25 January 2010 - 08:46 AM, said:

I went to the Acer support site... and under the BIOS tab (which showed an updated bios as available for my laptop) was this warning (in red ink!)

"Flashing the wrong BIOS can cause harm to the system. Acer recommends that you should only upgrade your firmware/drivers if you have been instructed to do so by an Acer Customer Care representative. By using these firmware/drivers you agree to accept the possibility of product failure."

Scary, huh? What to do, what to do?

That is just a warning for people who are not experienced at PC Repair/Upgrading.

[JimH443]

Gatewaygeek, on 25 January 2010 - 09:31 AM, said:

mstax, on 25 January 2010 - 08:46 AM, said:

I went to the Acer support site... and under the BIOS tab (which showed an updated bios as available for my laptop) was this warning (in red ink!)

"Flashing the wrong BIOS can cause harm to the system. Acer recommends that you should only upgrade your firmware/drivers if you have been instructed to do so by an Acer Customer Care representative. By using these firmware/drivers you agree to accept the possibility of product failure."

Scary, huh? What to do, what to do?

That is just a warning for people who are not experienced at PC Repair/Upgrading.

This describes 90% of the general public.

I go by the following credo: If it ain't broke, don't "fix" it.

[GordonGipson]

PCWorld, on 21 January 2010 - 06:01 PM, said:

Post your comments for How to Update Your BIOS here

One thing that IBM/Lenovo has always required is that the laptop NOT be in a docking station when updating the BIOS. The instructions for the Thinkpad T400 do not have that in the web site update instructions. I made the mistake of thinking there had been a change to the BIOS update requirements so I left it in the docking station. Big mistake. The machine became unusable but Lenovo was kind enough to overnight my machine out and back with a new motherboard. So, the rule is: double check and then double check again.

[TonyRony]

bushwakka, on 22 January 2010 - 06:52 AM, said:

I remember when I was doing a BIOS update for the first time, I was so paranoid thinking what if something went wrong. Maybe your article should contain some help on backing up your current BIOS as well as what to do if something goes wrong....or maybe links to articles which can explain such?

Yes, I have to say that my first BIOS update scared me to death too. I wasn't too worried about a problem occurring; I was wondering how to recover. Doing ANY such rarely-used procedure that is tricky to recover from, is always worrisome to me.

With my first PC, I seem to recall having a utility that would save all my BIOS settings to a text file. The reason for wanting this is that corroded/dead main board batteries were an occasional problem I read about. I'd want such a copy of all my settings so if I had to adjust the BIOS, I'd know what all the proper settings were supposed to be.

I wonder whether lost/corrupted BIOS settings is a problem today? And if a BIOS update does not succeed, what do you do then? I wish the Patrick Miller article would have addressed this or referred us to another article covering this issue.

[JimH443]

TonyRony, on 25 January 2010 - 01:02 PM, said:

Yes, I have to say that my first BIOS update scared me to death too. I wasn't too worried about a problem occurring; I was wondering how to recover. Doing ANY such rarely-used procedure that is tricky to recover from, is always worrisome to me.

With my first PC, I seem to recall having a utility that would save all my BIOS settings to a text file. The reason for wanting this is that corroded/dead main board batteries were an occasional problem I read about. I'd want such a copy of all my settings so if I had to adjust the BIOS, I'd know what all the proper settings were supposed to be.

I wonder whether lost/corrupted BIOS settings is a problem today? And if a BIOS update does not succeed, what do you do then? I wish the Patrick Miller article would have addressed this or referred us to another article covering this issue.

The BIOS is more than just settings. It's actually a program that's been put into a chip. What you're doing when you update the BIOS is to change the program that your computer runs the instant you turn on the power. If it's been changed and is now the wrong program, you're S.O.L. Far too often, the only recourse is to replace the motherboard.

[SnyperTodd]

JimH443, on 25 January 2010 - 01:12 PM, said:

Far too often, the only recourse is to replace the motherboard.

Actually, almost every modern motherboard can be reflashed with an SPI flasher, either through the parallel port (if present) or an onboard SPI header (which almost every board has). You can buy an SPI flasher online or build one yourself with a quick trip to Radio Shack. Replacing the motherboard is an absolute last resort and completely unnecessary nowdays in most cases. Most of my boards have socketed BIOS chips that can be hot-flashed, which is yet another option to recover from a failed BIOS flash. One of my boards even has two completely separate socketed BIOS chips, and if a flash goes bad I can either boot from the good one and reflash the bad one, or boot from the good one and hot-flash the bad one. That's good for me, because I flash that board's BIOS quite often, and many times with a BIOS that I've edited myself. Things don't always go as planned...

[JimH443]

SnyperTodd, on 25 January 2010 - 02:27 PM, said:

JimH443, on 25 January 2010 - 01:12 PM, said:

Far too often, the only recourse is to replace the motherboard.

Actually, almost every modern motherboard can be reflashed with an SPI flasher, either through the parallel port (if present) or an onboard SPI header (which almost every board has). You can buy an SPI flasher online or build one yourself with a quick trip to Radio Shack. Replacing the motherboard is an absolute last resort and completely unnecessary nowdays in most cases. Most of my boards have socketed BIOS chips that can be hot-flashed, which is yet another option to recover from a failed BIOS flash. One of my boards even has two completely separate socketed BIOS chips, and if a flash goes bad I can either boot from the good one and reflash the bad one, or boot from the good one and hot-flash the bad one. That's good for me, because I flash that board's BIOS quite often, and many times with a BIOS that I've edited myself. Things don't always go as planned...

Yes... there technically are other options to replacing the motherboard. For those with the technical know-how, it's not extremely difficult to fix. But take into consideration that few people actually fit into this category. Their only recourse is to either learn how to do it, or replace the motherboard. I'd bet that there aren't many people who'd even give a passing thought to actually learning something.

[TechieXP]

I too remember I use to cringe when flashing the BIOS. Mostly bec back in the old days the only way to do it was in DOS. And if it failed there was no fix...you had to replace the board.

Its much easier now and if you break there are options for fix. With the exception of some OEM brands, the BIOS can be update using a lil utility from directly inside Windows.

Asus is one of few mfr's that offer crash protection. On many of their boards there is more than one chip that conatins the BIOS image. In the event something goes wrong, the second BIOS will or can be used to reimage the original BIOS. Anothet option is the BIOS chop itself can be replaced. An option you most likely won't get from Dell or HP.

You should only updare the BIOS is you are experiencing hardware problems, or the ipdate provides a function you need...like the ability to use update processors or ram. Other than that it is best to just leave it. a BIOS update is very similar to firmware updates.

It is a good idea to always save your original BIOS image for just in case you need to revert for compatibily issues.

Also be careful...some BIOS revisions can force Windows to need reactivating. Though this is a rare occurance it has happened.

[SnyperTodd]

JimH443, on 25 January 2010 - 02:34 PM, said:

Their only recourse is to either learn how to do it, or replace the motherboard. I'd bet that there aren't many people who'd even give a passing thought to actually learning something.

Wow. Such a cynical statement, and yet so true. Good point.

[chevrolet1994]

I "updated" the BIOS in my laptop even though it has the latest BIOS.

It seems to run faster than before.

I know this sounds ridiculous,but maybe some the 1's and 0's in the BIOS "disappeared" over time,
and all I did was to "reinstall" them by re-flashing the BIOS.

This post has been edited by chevrolet1994: 25 January 2010 - 02:50 PM

[TonyRony]

SnyperTodd, on 25 January 2010 - 02:27 PM, said:

JimH443, on 25 January 2010 - 01:12 PM, said:

Far too often, the only recourse is to replace the motherboard.

Actually, almost every modern motherboard can be reflashed with an SPI flasher, either through the parallel port (if present) or an onboard SPI header (which almost every board has). You can buy an SPI flasher online or build one yourself with a quick trip to Radio Shack. Replacing the motherboard is an absolute last resort and completely unnecessary nowdays in most cases. Most of my boards have socketed BIOS chips that can be hot-flashed, which is yet another option to recover from a failed BIOS flash. One of my boards even has two completely separate socketed BIOS chips, and if a flash goes bad I can either boot from the good one and reflash the bad one, or boot from the good one and hot-flash the bad one. That's good for me, because I flash that board's BIOS quite often, and many times with a BIOS that I've edited myself. Things don't always go as planned...

I'm relieved to hear that there's a way to recover without having to replace the motherboard. Now, please note I'm not disputing anything you've said. However, IMHO, it would be even nicer if the BIOS chips were designed with a portion of the memory being "reserved" and not re-programmable. This "reserved portion," as I called it, would not be re-programmable and would only serve to present the screen interface for editing, thereby allowing changes to be made manually, if necessary. Makes sense?

[JimH443]

TonyRony, on 25 January 2010 - 02:54 PM, said:

I'm relieved to hear that there's a way to recover without having to replace the motherboard. Now, please note I'm not disputing anything you've said. However, IMHO, it would be even nicer if the BIOS chips were designed with a portion of the memory being "reserved" and not re-programmable. This "reserved portion," as I called it, would not be re-programmable and would only serve to present the screen interface for editing, thereby allowing changes to be made manually, if necessary. Makes sense?

The chips they use are so inexpensive, they could install 2 BIOS chips on every board. The main one would be flashable, and the second (a backup) one wouldn't (it would have the original BIOS version hard-burned into it). It could sense the difficulty booting, and use the backup if needed. This would add maybe 10 cents to the cost of the motherboard.

But the CFO's probably won't approve something like this. For every 10 million computers sold, they'd lose a million dollars in profit.

[chevrolet1994]

That's the name of the game,make it as cheaply as you can and hope the motherboard makes it through the warranty period.

[doothomp]

i have an everex comp.with phoenix bios,tried to go to maker of computer for bios upgrade,but just my luck,the co. is no longer with us(i dont know should i thank goodness they are gone or kick my own behind for gettin this thing?)anyway any body got any idea's??

[SmilinBlonde]

My computer (Windows XP Professional) has slowed down upon restart but after reading all of the above, I think I will look for another reason...not computer savvy!

[Jcstewsr]

I recently updated my BIOS (K9MM-V) MSI motherboard, I think I would rather have a root canal than do it again.
The process was fairly complex but the research was horrendous. Booting from an OEM boot98se.exe disk in diagnostic mode in XP, create a RAMDRIVE, copy the .exe and BIOS flash file to the RAMDRIVE and finally execute the flash.
No thank you very much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All this and being a neophyte to boot.
YUK

[Kagamex]

Mate, the BIOS updates for my computer costs money ^^