Mobo flashing

danceMB · 8 Apr 2006 at 14:41

How safe is flashing exactly? I see so many places, some say flashing is good and worth it, while others say to stay away as its not worth the risk of having an inactive mobo if it goes wrong, even if you do get the latest BIOS from the official website of your mobo supplier.

After all these years and advances in everything, why on earth hasnt someone made the choice to make upgrading the BIOS a very easy thing to do, especially if it would be in Windows, which would make things easier.

_Ad_ · 8 Apr 2006 at 14:53

If it aint broke dont fix it.
I would rather keep the mainboard working, even with an old bios, than risk having a dead mainboard.

It can help tho if your having problems with the mainboard, if the flashing process is successful.

Topitoff · 8 Apr 2006 at 16:10

danceMB said:
How safe is flashing exactly? I see so many places, some say flashing is good and worth it, while others say to stay away as its not worth the risk of having an inactive mobo if it goes wrong, even if you do get the latest BIOS from the official website of your mobo supplier.

Providing you read carefully the instructions, use the correct BIOS and don't switch off the PC until it's finished, it's safer than you may be led to believe. I have flashed the BIOS on just about every mobo I've ever had, and I've had quite a lot, with some like the ArSock S939 Dual I've flashed many times (7 I think); I've lost count on how many at work; and then theres the graphics cards and DVD-RWs too. So far - crossed fingers - I've not had a failure.

danceMB said:
After all these years and advances in everything, why on earth hasnt someone made the choice to make upgrading the BIOS a very easy thing to do, especially if it would be in Windows, which would make things easier.

MOst mobo manufacturers (MSI; Gigabyte; ArSock; Asus - ones I've used) have a flashing utility that works within windows - check websites; but I would not use an option that flashed directly from the internet, I download file first then flash.

xirokx · 8 Apr 2006 at 19:09

what mobo dya have and what bios are u running?

danceMB · 9 Apr 2006 at 19:03

I have an AsRock K7S8X, and BIOS 1.10, I got the mobo just as it got released. I dont normally flash the BIOS, but its only because the chip I have is a AMD 2800+, and at the moment the BIOS supports upto 2000+

At the website, it says that I have to use there special flashing utility from DOS, which makes me all the more wary

subxero · 9 Apr 2006 at 19:06

danceMB said:
I have an AsRock K7S8X, and BIOS 1.10, I got the mobo just as it got released. I dont normally flash the BIOS, but its only because the chip I have is a AMD 2800+, and at the moment the BIOS supports upto 2000+

At the website, it says that I have to use there special flashing utility from DOS, which makes me all the more wary

Just follow the instructions, try not to worry

WJA96 · 9 Apr 2006 at 19:34

They use DOS because it's a known quantity. You've got no processes running in the background that could do something silly like shut down the PC.

DOS is pretty solid too. Very few crashes.

subxero · 9 Apr 2006 at 19:39

WJA96 said:
They use DOS because it's a known quantity. You've got no processes running in the background that could do something silly like shut down the PC.

DOS is pretty solid too. Very few crashes.

I can't remember the last time I managed to crash DOS, must have been about 12/13 years ago

danceMB · 10 Apr 2006 at 08:45

Will it still be safe after I boot into DOS using a Windows 95 boot disk, even though im using Windows XP?

squiffy · 10 Apr 2006 at 11:25

danceMB said:
At the website, it says that I have to use there special flashing utility from DOS, which makes me all the more wary

Why?

Nothing wrong with DOS. As long as you download the correct firmware and flash, have reliable media, follow the instructions, don't interrupt the flashing, and have no power failures it should work. Course there's a possiblity it might fail, but personally never had a failure (yet) probably flashed things 30+ times.

danceMB · 10 Apr 2006 at 11:46

I just needed to be reassured after others here have said that they have had filed flashings. Suppose its worth it seeing as I will have my machine running at least 40% more powerful afterwards