Best BIOS Version for Sabertooth P67

[ErkTR]

Hi everyone. I'm a newly registered member of AT Forums although i've been reading for a couple of years.

I have some questions about ASUS P67 Sabertooth.
What is the best BIOS version for this mobo? I searched a lot on the internet but apparently there's no info on that subject. I've seen a few guys though, that wrote stuff about BIOSes but nothing complete. So i decided to ask about your experiences? The question is, which BIOS i should use to get the most stable OC out of that board and 2600K.

Thanks a lot.

 

[Puppies04]

One would imagine the latest Bios (3602) would be the "best" as it would contain the largest amount of bug fixes. That said, I am a firm believer in the "if it ain't broke and you aren't aware of any potential problems with your existing bios" then leave it well alone ethos.

For example I seem to recall someone updating a P67 or Z68 mobo to a later bios that included compatibility for IB CPUs only to find that their mobo no longer liked their SB CPU. Issues like this are usually fixable but who needs that sort of stress when there is nothing wrong with your system in the first place.

 

[ErkTR]

Well, actually, if i had a stable and established OC setting before, i wouldn't really bother in any possible way. (Except a problematic issue of course.)

But i'll OC since i have a new cooler now. And i'm trying to find the most stable BIOS. This is what i wrote to another forum:

Which version do you think is the best for stable OC'ing?
I've been searching for this and could only find a few people mentioning in their posts about BIOS versions.
The thing is, some of them pointed to the fact that the new (3602) update actually disturbed their previous OC, which was remedied by using manual voltage instead of offset.

What do you think?

I'm using the latest (3602) version but will downgrade (if possible) to a more stable BIOS on your advice.

And additionaly, there are two more things:

1) I heard that it could become problematic with downgrading, (I'm not sure if it's possible, since i've been searching only for the optimal BIOS version)

2) I read that, it is adviced to clear CMOS after succesfully flashing the new BIOS but i wasn't aware of that when i updated to the latest version, a month ago. Should i do that?

I actually only have two things with this board:
1) Even when i didn't overclock the CPU, i got freezes once in a month. That continued for 6-7 months. But i didn't bother since it was just a freeze in a month. But a week ago i got this new cooler (NH-D14) completely disassembled my case, cleaned everything and then setup it again. So it's bothering me somewhat now. :=) And since i want to overclock, freezes may become frequent.

2) Overclocking... If i could get a better clock with just changing the BIOS, why not, right?


Edit: It's P67 Sabertooth with i7-2600K and 2x2 GB RipJawsX 1866 Mhz.

 

[Redinit]

Ideally the best version is the one with little to no issues. What may work for my Motherboard may not work for your motherboard of the same model if we have different hardware.

 

[crazymonkeyzero]

The "best bios" is a working bios. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Bios updates are often risky, and it isn't worth risking turning your mobo into a useless paper weight, unless you really need the update for new hardware. So if all your components are working fine, no point in updating to the latest bios for fun. Just some food for thought.

 

[ErkTR]

I don't think that it's risky to update a BIOS. I've done that at least 20 times and even if the next update fails, the fail ratio will be %5.

BIOS has an EEPROM type memory which means we can control it's read/write behaviour with electric signals. A BIOS doesn't fail under normal conditions and it shouldn't fail if we want to update it. But if system fails during the update process, (which is actually flashing the memory, erasing the existing data and writing the new data) BIOS becomes corrupted because it doesn't have the required info that POSTs and boots a computer. When that's the case, computer behaves strange and most often it doesn't boot.

And also, here is a good info from WikiPedia:

EEPROM chips are advantageous because they can be easily updated by the user; hardware manufacturers frequently issue BIOS updates to upgrade their products, improve compatibility and remove bugs. However, this advantage had the risk that an improperly executed or aborted BIOS update could render the computer or device unusable. To avoid these situations, more recent BIOSes use a "boot block"; a portion of the BIOS which runs first and must be updated separately. This code verifies if the rest of the BIOS is intact (using hash checksums or other methods) before transferring control to it. If the boot block detects any corruption in the main BIOS, it will typically warn the user that a recovery process must be initiated by booting from removable media (floppy, CD or USB memory) so the user can try flashing the BIOS again. Some motherboards have a backup BIOS (sometimes referred to as DualBIOS boards) to recover from BIOS corruptions.

 

[spinejam]

I flashed the P67 bios last week from this thread and it's been great -- v3602 TRIM enabled for RAID0 SSD on P67.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1244232/asus-asrock-msi-gigabyte-bioss-with-updated-raid-orom