a few quick questions about BIOS

[DeathSlayer]

hi,

im not sure if this is the right forum, but sorry if it isnt.


1. how can i update my BIOS? is this a legit site to upgrade/update my BIOS? http://www.unicore.com/biosagent/index.cfm

2. i cannot find "AGP aperture size" ANYWHERE in my current BIOS. i looked everywhere, several times. if i update my BIOS, will it show up then?

if you need to know something like my specs, just tell me

thanks!!

 

[Navid]

You should get the latest BIOS from the motherboard manufacturer website.

If the PC is an OEM (like HP), you should get it from the OEM web site.

You should not update the BIOS unless you know exactly what you are doing! Things can go quite wrong!

What motherboard?

 

[DeathSlayer]

A7N8X-LA

its an HP i bought 2 years ago. sadly i didnt even know what a processor was back then, so that's my excuse

 

[drag]

Ya.. if HP issued any updates on your BIOS then it would be present on their website. You just have to look around and find it, usually in support or downloads section. They'll also provide a utility and directions on how to do it.

However if everything is working and there aren't any bugs with your hardware then upgrading your bios is usually pointless.. It's only realy used at boot-up nowadays. Read the readme or any other docuementation you can find on HP's site in regards to your updates.. they may have a changelog and it will tell you want bugs they fixed or new features (highly unlikely that they would do something like add 'aperature size').

BTW AGP Aperature size is fairly useless in gaming and such. It only matters when you run out of space in your video card's RAM and it needs more so it has to access your main memory to get some more. If it's not present in your bios it's probably set to a sane limit like 64megs or something like that. It doesn't have any impact on how much on-card memory your video card uses or the speed of it or anything like that. It's only when your card runs out of memory and it needs to steal more from your main memory.

 

[xgsound]

My experience with Unicore is that they sell bios upgrades. At the time, mine was $80. You can get a new mobo (updated everything) for that price now.

If AGP aperture is your concern, that is overridden by video drivers at thier discrection.

If bios update is your concern, then HP is the primary place to check. I would check nowhere else without a compelling reason.

What is the problem you are having that makes you want a bios upgrade?


Jim

 

[DeathSlayer]

i just want to increase my aperture speeds. its now set at 64MB, the default. i want to try 128 or 256 to see how things work out. ive heard that increasing it provides greater performance from it once was.

is there any program out there that lets you change it? or... can you only change it through BIOS?

thanks

 

[DeathSlayer]

http://www.myplc.com/sony/agp_aperture.htm

is that a legit program to change my aperture?

thanks again!

edit: oh crap, is that only for sony vio's?

 

[piasabird]

From my experience changing the aperture size does nothing.

 

[xgsound]

A program to change that setting (also known as as pci latency) is here
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=951

The bios setting is often changed by drivers as you may find when you run the program.

You will see a reference to forum comments on the download site. Please review them to see what results people have had. This lets you change the latency for most of your devices, but the one you are looking for is the graphics card.

Generally this is used to lower high settings, but you can raise them as well. The "favored" settings are 32, 64, and 128. Higher settings tend to offer no speed improvement and interfere with other (sound, disk, network) devices. Lower settings tend to lessen interference with the other devices.


Jim