update my bios

nocter

i'm looking to update my bios system. can this be done... if so how.
Where can i download a good bios.
Me pc is

Athlon 1700xp

Hellrazer

First of all you need to tell us your motherboard manufacturer before we can get the info for you.Usually the motherboard manufacturer has updated bios on their website with details of how to update it.
Richie

Saruman

Good boy Noctar.. how about your motherboard name and model please??

zAbbo

You need to know your motherboard make+model before you can start looking for a bios.

Either refer to your motherboad manual or open the machine up and have a look around there.

Personally i`d use this program Sisoft Sandra

It gives you a feull system rundown.

nocter

The manufacturer is hsing tech enterprise
I dont know the model name. I'll have it tomorrow.

zAbbo

I`d like to stress that its important that you have the correct bios for the corrct motheboard.

otherwise its crap creek without paddel situation

nocter

Is there any whay of saving my old bios.....

zAbbo

Do you really need to update your bios.

nocter

Well i dont know... SISoft Sandra says i its old and can be updated in improve performance.

Saruman

Thats the best reply yet PCIRL.COM...
DO NOT update your bios just to get the latest thing... only do so if advised to do so by a techie to solve some issue that cant be resolved any other way! Its dangerous.. ok no its piss easy but if something goes wrong you can be fecked sometimes... if your lucky you will have a recovery jumper to force update a bios if you feck it up the first time... otherwise good bye mobo (do NOT tell manufacturer/retailer you flashed bios if you look for a warranty replacement!!)

nocter

i cant check my mobo model now cos i'm not at home....

zAbbo

ahhh

Updating you bios wouldn`t give you any extra performance over your existing one, unless you are

Upgrading memory / CPU / Hard Drive etc.

Leave it as it is.

Saruman

You want to upgrade because a piece of software says it might be a good idea? Eh forget it!! no point unless we are talking serious issues addressed in a bios upgrade.

nocter

I think i'll leave me bois be..i just woundering how is it done... is it like installing a normal program like MSWord.....

zAbbo

Sisoft sandra states that because you will have to update your bios if you want to improve performance be it new cpu/ ata133 etc.

If you were looking for a simple system improvement maybe have a look into overclocking or if you`re not up to that maybe some windows tweaking.

Saruman

No it depends on mobo but its not windows based at all..
Usually you download a bios file like a *.bio file or something and run a flash utility in Dos off a floppy.. the better ones make a boot disk, run it and it does it automatically (just an autoexec.bat config for that but its handy)

Gerry

Originally posted by pcirl.com
ahhh

Updating you bios wouldn`t give you any extra performance over your existing one, unless you are

Upgrading memory / CPU / Hard Drive etc.

Leave it as it is.

That is incorrect, a new bios will often include faster timings for chipset and memory, and as the bios writers figure out the chipset more, they will enfigure out the best values for each chipset register for maximum performance, and sometimes include settings which were not there before.

In this case though, I reckon if its not broke don't fix it.

BTBB

A word of warning: my uncle tried to flash his BIOS and was successful but the idot whose website he got hte new firmware from had put up the wrong file. He managed to borrow a BIOS from someone while they were on holiday.

Thankfully he had a copy of the old BIOS and had contacts who could rewrite the BIOS with the right hardware. He was very lucky not to have to buy a new BIOS to fix it.

What was the original problem? Large files(bigger than 500mb) crashed windows 2k out. He read that this was a BIOS problem and so flashed his BIOS. The cause: write-behind caching(MS).

Don't flash your bios unless its absolutly nessecary. These days there is very little use of the BIOS by OS, it is really only involved in booting, clock(barely) and some Plug and Play setup (for incapabile OSs i.e. NT4)

BTBB