How to update BIOS safely?

Lola2012

Lola2012

Lola2012

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15 Nov 2012
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I bought a gaming rig a few years ago, a recommended custom build computer thanks to the lovely people in this forum that helped me put together everything I needed and bought.

I haven’t ever updated the BIOS, and believe I’ve heard that you can cause problems if done wrong, so I was hoping someone would be able to explain how I would go about it. If you don’t think I’d need to them that’s also helpful if you’re able to let me know. This computer was bought, and I put it together, in the middle of June 2019.

My gaming pc is made up of the following (copied from my Overclockers Invoice):
• £106.66 x 1 - Gigabyte X470 Aorus Ultra Gaming AMD X470 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard.
• £141.66 x 1 - Team Group Dark T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black/Grey (TDGED4
• £82.49 x 1 - TeamGroup 480GB L5 Lite SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 3D NAND Solid State Drive
• £33.29 x 1 - Cougar MX330-G Midi-Tower Case - Black Tempered Glass
• £216.66 x 1 - AMD Ryzen 7 Eight Core 2700 4.10GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail
• £374.99 x 1 - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070Ti Gaming 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
• £66.66 x 1 - Seasonic Focus Plus 550W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply

Thanks in-advance!
 
If theres nothing wrong with your pc i wouldn't update the bios but if your updating for a new cpu there are many guides.

The best way is to download the bios and put on a usb drive and use q flash its never wise to do it threw Windows or internet update. Your motherboard manual will show you how.
 
download new bios from manufacturers site
extract to a usb stick (old usb2 sticks are least troublesome)
go to bios, think the section is called Q-flash on gigabyte
browse to the drive and extracted bios file, press the big button for flashing
during flash is the only dangerous bit. Never ever turn off power here, guaranteed motherboard brick.
your bios settings will be reset to defaults, so after reboot go and set XMP etc again
 
mickyflinn said:
If theres nothing wrong with your pc i wouldn't update the bios
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This.

mickyflinn said:
but if your updating for a new cpu there are many guides.
Click to expand...

Yes, you'll want to update if you're upgrading to a 3000 or 5000 series CPU.

Lola2012 said:
so I was hoping someone would be able to explain how I would go about it.
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@alec 's guide is good. The only thing I would add is an inline UPS if you have one. This will save you from external power outages.
 
If your PC is doing everything you need it to with no issues and you are not changing to a newer CPU then no need to update bios.

Another vote for do nothing.
 
You can download the latest version F61 from X470 AORUS ULTRA GAMING (rev. 1.0) Gallery | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global
Update your BIOS following this instruction:

alec said:
download new bios from manufacturers site
extract to a usb stick (old usb2 sticks are least troublesome)
go to bios, think the section is called Q-flash on gigabyte
browse to the drive and extracted bios file, press the big button for flashing
during flash is the only dangerous bit. Never ever turn off power here, guaranteed motherboard brick.
your bios settings will be reset to defaults, so after reboot go and set XMP etc again
Click to expand...
 
You can't really say if it's working alright then leave it alone anymore, especially on a AMD system. There have been some pretty big performance updates from updating AMD bios since Ryzen launched and just about every new Agesa release brings more performance and/or more stability so it's well worth keeping them up to date. Even though I am on Intel I always update to the latest bios after it's been out a few weeks just in case any problems are mentioned with it.
 
Hmm, interesting replies. I am always updating my PC's BIOS to ensure it has the latest bugfixes and whathaveyou. Besides any modern PC will store a backup copy of the BIOS for rescue purposes anyway.
 
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