Reassurance before updating BIOS

id_wright · 11 Aug 2009 at 15:28

Hi there,
Have got an Abit KN9S that has been home to an Athlon X2 4200+ for the last couple of years. Have an Athlon X2 6000+ to replace it with, but this involves updating the BIOS from version 19 to 23.
The Abit driver CD includes FlashMenu, which I was going to use as I don't have a floppy drive installed, and to be honest all the necessary messing around with DOS prompts looks far too scary!
Basically just wondering if anyone has used this software to update Bios before, and need a bit of reassurance that I'm not going to brick my motherboard...
Any help greatly appreciated.
Thanks...

hairydave · 11 Aug 2009 at 17:19

If you have a usb flash drive and the motherboard supports it you can do the update like that, much safer than through Windows.

id_wright · 11 Aug 2009 at 17:53

Thanks for the reply.
How would I do that - what files would I need on the USB stick other than the bios update files? Presumably in order to make it bootable I'd need files similar to that on a bootable floppy disk?

hairydave · 11 Aug 2009 at 19:29

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

I have had success using method 2 on this site.

OpenToSuggestions · 11 Aug 2009 at 19:30

My P5Q just plain did not like the windows method (even using the BIOS app from the ASUS website).
The USB stick method works well and often you can copy and save your old bios before flashing.

setter · 11 Aug 2009 at 19:37

I personally would never use the asus windows flash utility, killed an s939 board with it a few years ago, ez flash via usb stick is a much safer option.

id_wright · 11 Aug 2009 at 19:40

OK, I'll give the pen-drive method a go - if I can get my computer to boot from it.
The options for booting from USB when choosing the boot device are:
USB-FDD
USB-ZIP/LS
USB-CDROM
Guessing it won't be the third, but which of the first two should I try?
Sorry for all the stupid questions, and thanks for the help

JonJ678 · 11 Aug 2009 at 20:10

its more likely to be hdd+ which expands to allow you to pick the usb stick, but I don't know abit so can't really judge.

I think the idea above is to flash from the bios, using a rom file on a usb stick. If you're doing something else, I recommend you stop and not do it. it's not worth the risk if there's nothing actually wrong with the computer

id_wright · 12 Aug 2009 at 18:03

Many thanks for all the replies.
Finally rediscovered an old computer in the loft, swiped its floppy drive and flashed the bios using a windows XP boot disk.
All worked fine, and computer now fully upgraded!