Poll: KT7A: Which BIOS is the best?

[TeMpT]

So...what are people's view of the BIOS? I am thinking about flashing and am wondering if it is worth it. If so, which one?

 

[Technonut]

I have tried them all, and am happy with the latest official release WZ final, which could be found Here

 

[bigshot]

award bios i prefer

 

[MCS]

WZ Beta 3. Has most of the fixes of Beta 4 and the Final but seems more stable for o/c.

I can o/c my 1.2 to 1.35 with this and the WW BIOS but with Beta 4 and Final I cannot!!

Technonut - How did you manage it with that BIOS?

 

[sad]

WZ Final. I'm at 6.5X151mhz and totally stable. I can pass prime95's selftest with this setup. Before with WZb04 I can only pass at 6.5X150. Yeehaw!

 

[LickEmSmack]

Quick Newbie type question... What does it take to flash the BIOS, and what kind of improvement does this afford? Will I need to reinstall the OS and/or format the boot HD? I have another drive hooked up as well, so I can "get creative" with my uses of the OS and such. Oh, BTW, I also have a Linux partition on the main HD. I am using the WW BIOS I think... Also, what settings did you guys use in the BIOS for optimal settings?

 

[rkoenn]

Flashing the BIOS will have no significant effect on the OS. On some occasions after flashing on the first reboot, you may detect some new hardware related usually to the motherboard and in the most significant change, it may redetect the Plug and Play BIOS and/or the PCI bus and reinstall a significant number of components. I have never known a BIOS upgrade or downgrade to stop a system from running or requiring a clean reinstall of the OS. They are definitely known for increasing or decreasing system stability as well as offering more or less stability with overclocking or memory compatibility. Finally, be very careful when doing it. If you screw it up you will effectively have a dead motherboard until you either fix the chip by hot flashing in another motherboard or in an EPROM flashing machine. Read up on doing it before you do. Never flash from windows with a DOS based flashing program. Some of the manufacturers, Asus I know, have now released windows based flashing programs. A further warning, my current motherboard, an Asus CUSL2-C, does not have a removable flash chip on it. The chip is hard soldered to the motherboard so if the flash screws it up, I am probably totally dead in the water and will require a return to Asus for repair. I have heard of a reserved area of the BIOS that can be used to recover the BIOS, but have yet to use it and am not sure if it exists. I did do that a few years back on an Intel board and did recover. JUST BE CAREFUL!