ecs k7s5a bios update

[ZippyDan]

i know a lot more posts were made about the k7s5a in the past, so if someone could point me to one of those repositories of information, that would be cool

im wanting to update my k7s5a to latest bios, just becuz i like to have the latest stuff (just like having latest drivers), but ecs seems to be intent on discouraging me from doing this. the website says 'do not update bios unless something is not working correctly.' tech support says 'why do you want to update bios? i would recommend against it.' another tech support even says, 'new bios could make things worse, especially on earlier versions of k7s5a [which i have], as it may not have the hardware to support a bios update.' he goes on to say, 'unless u have specific chips soldered to the board that support the update, dont do it. if u have a version 3 or higher you are ok'

wtf? my Pentium 133mhz motherboard from 1996 had a flashable bios, is there anything particularly different about the ecs board that makes it bad to flash the bios?

or is it more what i truly suspect: ecs fears the average-consumer-idiocy and doesnt want to deal with all the problems that could be caused when someone screws up a bios update...? as i remember from updating my Asus PentiumII board, they also had a similar warning against updating your bios unless something wasnt working, but they werent as discouraging and fatalistic...

i have a 1.0 version board, and a 1.3 version k7s5a board

~Zippy!

 

[DannyBoy]

Not sure about the earlier versions but i have revision 3...i think

I have updated my bios to the latest "CheepoBios" for the K7S5A which allows you to change the FSB for the board, thus being able to overclock my processor somewhat.


ANyways off out now, will sub to the thread and if im around later make another comment

Dan

 

[Lord Evermore]

There's nothing "wrong" with updating the BIOS, but there's often no reason to. If your system is stable and functional, most official BIOS versions aren't important to update to, as they only either enhance stability under certain conditions (which you don't care about if you're stable) or add features like faster processor support (which you only need if you upgrade). The thing is that it's relatively easy to do a bad flash, and for most consumers that means their board is dead and has to be sent in to have the BIOS chip reflashed or replaced; even though it is possible to fix it usually, most users wouldn't have a clue how to do that, but don't consider that when they go ahead and flash the BIOS for no reason.

As long as the BIOS you download is made for your board revision, then you can flash without expecting the BIOS to be wrong for the board. If they make a single flash file available and don't specify it won't work on older revisions, then it is their fault if the flash fails, but they could easily weasel out of responsibility since nobody made you flash it. The "not recommended to flash the BIOS" warning is just to keep people from doing it recklessly.

 

[majewski9]

I recommend flashing the ECS BIOS seeing how their BIOS right out of the box was unstable when I got mine. I couldnt run my 1.33 ghz TBird @ default 10 * 133 without it being severly unstable. SO I had to run my processor @ 10 * 100 @ 1 ghz for stability. I flashed the BIOS to the newest version even though they didnt have any stability fix update. I set my processor to 10 * 133 and all my stabilty problems went bye bye. Wow I was amazed! K7S5A stomps KT133A even with SDRAM. I know!

BIOS flashes are considered routine and I wouldnt be that worried about flashing your board.

 

[bocamojo]

I have a Rev 1 board also, and just flashed it about two weeks ago. No problems. Don't worry about those tech support weenies. They're just trying to make sure that nothing goes wrong and their company has to waste more time supporting you, and possibly RMA'ing your board. If you know what you're doing, you should have no problems. I have even recovered from a bad flash on this board once (about 9 months ago), so I don't even worry about flashing anymore.

 

[ZippyDan]

just to make certain, are you using http://www.ecsusa.com/downloads/k7s5a.html 02/10/29 on your revision 1 board with no problems? it seems to me that ecs doesnt distinguish between board revisions when it comes to the s5a's bios, so i should use the same bios update for both version 1.0 and version 1.3...

~Zippy!

 

[Lord Evermore]

Ugh. ECS's site doesn't work well in Mozilla. And what kind of stupid layout person decided to put the newest version at the bottom?

That BIOS is what you need for any revision of the K7S5A. It wouldn't work with the Pro version, or the + version or the 2 version.

 

[Boogak]

Originally posted by: ZippyDan
just to make certain, are you using http://www.ecsusa.com/downloads/k7s5a.html 02/10/29 on your revision 1 board with no problems? it seems to me that ecs doesnt distinguish between board revisions when it comes to the s5a's bios, so i should use the same bios update for both version 1.0 and version 1.3...

~Zippy!

I had the original 1.0 board and flashed it to that 02/10/29 BIOS w/ no problems. I think every mobo mfg. has that disclaimer up to prevent noobies from killing their mobo w/ bad flashes.