Question BIOS updating, a must or a maybe?

[tinpanalley]

I've been wanting to ask this for some time.

I was told about 5 years ago when I asked about my BIOS that, "if your PC is working fine, don't do anything with the BIOS. You're more likely to mess it up if something arises you weren't expecting. If it's fine now, leave the BIOS alone." And therefore, due to that, I never updated my BIOS. So what's the deal? Is it something I should constantly do as often as my video drivers, etc? Is it something only knowledgable people should play with? Or is it a crucial part of maintaining a system? And why then do so many seem hesitant to update the BIOS when you ask around online? (..maybe I'm asking in the wrong places?)

 

[Kenmitch]

Like, using an actual floppy disk, and praying that the floppy that you chose to use, didn't have a bad spot on it.

USB flashback....I call it going blind man style. See no evil, wonder if it'll ever boot up.

 

[tinpanalley]

Just stay cool and level headed man. I jumped in and gave some input plus you got Mark and UsandThem giving some input to. There ain't two better guys on the forum for helping you work through some teething pains than them.

Thank you.

 

[bbhaag]

You are welcome just happy to help man just don't leave us hanging. A BIOS update should take less than five minutes. Let us know how it went.

 

[tinpanalley]

Ok, seems to have gone fine.
Now, just one thing, my storage drive and for installing certain programs used to be E. But now, it wants to be F on the new motherboard which is fine except that my desktop has all the shortcuts wrong now. Is there an easy way to fix that?
EDIT: Nevermind, I did it by hand.

 

[bbhaag]

Ok, seems to have gone fine.
Now, just one thing, my storage drive and for installing certain programs used to be E. But now, it wants to be F on the new motherboard which is fine except that my desktop has all the shortcuts wrong now. Is there an easy way to fix that?
EDIT: Nevermind, I did it by hand.

See we told you it wasn't gonna be that hard. Congrats man you did it.
Now I'm out because this is the most I've posted in a single thread in a very long time and for some uneven reason it doesn't sit well with me. Best of luck on your new build.

 

[Kenmitch]

I'm trying the 1.0.0.4 beta on my MSi x570 MB currently. Just loaded it today, but have work today. Plays nicely with b-die 3600 c14 overclock and increased all core loaded clocks a little is all I noticed so far. Has a couple more voltage adjustments it looks like. I'll have to poke around in uEFI more tonight.

 

[thesmokingman]

That's crazy to never flash. Sometimes it takes months up to a year for a MB to get fully ironed out thru bios updates.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I prefer to stay current on Mobo bios. Products vary though, and when it comes to other things I'll typically read the readme file first.

 

[GrumpyMan]

The only thing that is tedious for me is re-setting up the OC settings that I had before and rerun the stability tests. Other than that it's pretty painless.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Darn you all!
Making me think about updating my bios for the power changes to Ryzen.

 

[Mantrid-Drone]

Has anyone here mentioned dual BIOS - I thought this was a ubiquitous MB facility designed to act as a safety net when updating the BIOS/UEFI?

I also thought the other safety net was simply shorting the CMOS jumper header pins or simply taking out the CMOS battery would return the MB to the factory default BIOS/UEFI.

Whatever the case I'm with most of the people here: if it ain't broke why try to fix it? MB manufacturers advice, as has been mentioned is often pretty much that as well.

Only factory BIOS I've had which genuinely needed to be updated was a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop. The factory default BIOS actually left the the BIOS itself inaccessible because the F2 and boot device choice F12 keys did not function.

Upgrading the DELL 5100 Inspiron laptop BIOS

Upgrading the DELL 5100 Inspiron laptop BIOS to fix known faults

www.detoxcomic.com

Why it was sold with that major problem - ask Dell. When the non-replaceable CMOS battery died 13 years later it reverted to that default BIOS. Still usable though.

BTW if updating BIOS from a USB flash drive all the MB manuals I've seen (admittedly not that many) state that the flash drive must be either FAT32, FAT16 or FAT12 formatted ie. not NTFS.

 

[thesmokingman]

Darn you all!
Making me think about updating my bios for the power changes to Ryzen.

The agesa updates are very worth it. The latest one enables per CCX overclocking. That is as granular as you can get.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

The agesa updates are very worth it. The latest one enables per CCX overclocking. That is as granular as you can get.

I have the increased memory compatibility bios but I don’t have the ccx thing, I doubt I’ll ever overclock

 

[GAO]

In this day and age it is pretty much a must for security resons.
Never had an issue.

 

[Markfw]

Has anyone here mentioned dual BIOS - I thought this was a ubiquitous MB facility designed to act as a safety net when updating the BIOS/UEFI?

I also thought the other safety net was simply shorting the CMOS jumper header pins or simply taking out the CMOS battery would return the MB to the factory default BIOS/UEFI.

Whatever the case I'm with most of the people here: if it ain't broke why try to fix it? MB manufacturers advice, as has been mentioned is often pretty much that as well.

Only factory BIOS I've had which genuinely needed to be updated was a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop. The factory default BIOS actually left the the BIOS itself inaccessible because the F2 and boot device choice F12 keys did not function.

Upgrading the DELL 5100 Inspiron laptop BIOS

Upgrading the DELL 5100 Inspiron laptop BIOS to fix known faults

www.detoxcomic.com

Why it was sold with that major problem - ask Dell. When the non-replaceable CMOS battery died 13 years later it reverted to that default BIOS. Still usable though.

BTW if updating BIOS from a USB flash drive all the MB manuals I've seen (admittedly not that many) state that the flash drive must be either FAT32, FAT16 or FAT12 formatted ie. not NTFS.

dual bios is for acting as a safety net, yes. But not all motherboards have it, check your manual. I actually had to use it once. I flashed the bios on an X99 board (a hacked bios to allow Xeon overclocking) and the board would not boot after the flash. Used the jumper on the motherboard to go back to the old bios and BAM, all is well.

 

[Mantrid-Drone]

I've only had experience with Gigabyte MBs and they have all had Dual BIOS so, as said, I assumed it was likely a standard feature. If it is not then perhaps it should be - it is potentially more useful than many of the other tools.

 

[Kenmitch]

I've only had experience with Gigabyte MBs and they have all had Dual BIOS so, as said, I assumed it was likely a standard feature. If it is not then perhaps it should be - it is potentially more useful than many of the other tools.

Back in the day I had a Gigabyte MB with dual bios and a 4790k that like to corrupt both of them for some odd reason. It's no fun when they're both corrupted.

I'm a fan of USB flashback these days as it seems like the best option in times of need.

 

[Spjut]

Modern motherboards tend to get loads of various fixes through BIOS updates, so I always update the BIOS eventually.

I do have a bias towards Gigabyte though because even their budget motherboards do tend to have dualBIOS, which makes updating the BIOS much safer.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Just stay cool and level headed man. I jumped in and gave some input plus you got Mark and UsandThem giving some input to. There ain't two better guys on the forum for helping you work through some teething pains than them.

Since I have purchased a board with BIOS Flashback+, I'm going to update the BIOS before installing the processor. I intend to buy the processor on Black Friday, but have all of the other components already.

 

[yeshua]

To the OP: if your system is 100% stable and you have no issues, there's no need to update your BIOS.

In this day and age it is pretty much a must for security reasons.
Never had an issue.

Not really as Windows/Linux updates come with up to date microcode for both Ryzen and Intel CPUs.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Okay so dumb question
Asrock has a new steel legend x570 bios.
I’m very tempted to update (I have never updated a bios)
I am assuming updates are cumulative as in I’m on 1.6 now if I move to 2.1 does that include all previous updates?
Any way to revert back if the update sucks?

 

[yeshua]

Okay so dumb question
Asrock has a new steel legend x570 bios.
I’m very tempted to update (I have never updated a bios)
I am assuming updates are cumulative as in I’m on 1.6 now if I move to 2.1 does that include all previous updates?
Any way to revert back if the update sucks?

BIOS is basically a flash drive attached to your motherboard. BIOS updates usually match this drive size which means updates are indeed cumulative. I remember there have been some BIOS updates which you had to flash before flashing the latest one but it's very very rare and in this case you'd see a note on the BIOS download page.

Do not ever update your devices BIOS if you have frequent/intermittent outages - in this case you absolutely have to have a UPS. An interrupted BIOS update may hard brick the device it's being performed on.

Also, do not attempt to reset/power off or do anything like that after you hit "Flash" unless the system asks you to. Nowadays a BIOS update is quite a complicated, sometimes multistage procedure which in same cases require two or even three reboots which will all be performed automatically.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

BIOS is basically a flash drive attached to your motherboard. BIOS updates usually match this drive size which means updates are indeed cumulative. I remember there have been some BIOS updates which you had to flash before flashing the latest one but it's very very rare and in this case you'd see a note on the BIOS download page.

Sorry I should have been more clear. I understand the process, I am not sure if 2.1 includes all previous bios “fixes”
Also if the new bios doesn’t work well is there a way to revert to an older version without having a dual bios?

 

[yeshua]

Sorry I should have been more clear. I understand the process, I am not sure if 2.1 includes all previous bios “fixes”
Also if the new bios doesn’t work well is there a way to revert to an older version without having a dual bios?

Since you're rewriting the entire BIOS chip memory, yes, all the previous fixes are always included.

For a PC that depends on what is written on the BIOS download page. If doesn't say anything like "After you update to this BIOS you cannot downgrade" then you're safe and a downgrade is allowed. Still remember that certain UEFI updaters may sometimes refuse to downgrade - you'll to Google for that.

As for the laptops I've had downgrades have almost always been not allowed.

 

[himtan]

I personally think that bios update is a must.