Have you ever flashed your bios in windows? Seems like more people everyday don't have floppy drives with their pcs. I know you can always use a usb flash drive, cd, or even dvd but its a little more difficult than just using a floppy drive I think. Do you think its pretty safe to upgrade your bios within windows ? It must be the easiest way because you get a GUI for everything. Backup of the old BIOS and flash of the new BIOS. No more dos commands but then again what happens if windows freezes on you ? Surprised a lot of these programs in windows to flash your BIOS actually support windows vista 64 bit! Good to know because I thought may it would have some kind of protection where you weren't allowed to access the bios rom within windows vista 64 bit as a security feature or something.
Using the windows operating system to upgrade your bios
- Thread starter pcslookout
- Start date
RebateMonger
Elite Member
- Dec 24, 2005
- 11,586
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I'll use a Windows flash program when available. I've never had a problem with it. But, apparently, there CAN be problems. Dell has Windows-based flash versions for many of its PCs.
BTW, many motherboard makers recommend that the flash data be stored on the hard drive, even when flashing from a floppy. The reason is the poor reliability of floppy disks.
BTW, many motherboard makers recommend that the flash data be stored on the hard drive, even when flashing from a floppy. The reason is the poor reliability of floppy disks.
Great to know. I just flashed my bios on my gigabyte motherboard using @BIOS with Windows Vista 64 bit. First backing up my known to work BIOS then upgrading the the latest. Seem to work pretty well and quickly. For a few seconds though right before it said for 10 seconds the pc would not respond I think windows crashed or froze because it took a little more than 10 seconds. Thankfully it was only about 30 seconds still it seem like forever and had me bitting my finger nails. I like that you can upgrade your bios in windows now because it makes it a lot easier, quicker, and not having to have any kind of media to put the bios on anymore! That way we can go without floppy drives and still have bios flashing done easily just instead in windows instead of dos!
I wonder how they were able to get bios flashing to happen within windows itself ? Quite interesting!
VirtualLarry
No Lifer
- Aug 25, 2001
- 56,570
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I never flash from within Windows. The problem has to do with the timing algorithms needed for the flash chips, and the fact that Windows can intefere with those timings.
You need special flash chips (self-timing) to be able to reliably flash from within Windows. That is, as long as Windows doesn't screw up on you during the flash, which can also happen.
Edit: I still use good old-fashioned floppy drives.
You need special flash chips (self-timing) to be able to reliably flash from within Windows. That is, as long as Windows doesn't screw up on you during the flash, which can also happen.
Edit: I still use good old-fashioned floppy drives.
Do you flash from a floppy or a usb flash drive? I don't have either. How do you flash from a cd-rw or dvd-rw if you shouldn't flash from within windows?
Schadenfroh
Elite Member
- Mar 8, 2003
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MmmSkyscraper
Diamond Member
- Jul 6, 2004
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I've done it quite a few times with different boards, closing all other apps and disabling anti-virus etc.
I had done it many times within Windows with no problems at all...
Until one day I was flashing the BIOS on my old P5N32E-SLI, everything seemed fine, rebooted, no POST.
Now I have a P5K Deluxe, and I don't flash from Windows anymore.
Until one day I was flashing the BIOS on my old P5N32E-SLI, everything seemed fine, rebooted, no POST.
Now I have a P5K Deluxe, and I don't flash from Windows anymore.
:thumbsup:
So many times I've seen stories like that.
Almost never with the floppies - they are just plain and simple.
They either work, or they don't.
And you can never use the BIOS command line switches in Windows...
And very often the Windows based utilities will NOT allow you to revert to the lower version, or dowgrade to the previous release (if you're not happy with the new BIOS version, and want to re-install the old version).
I didn't have any problems in the past flashing within Windows, however the last time I did I got f*ed over pretty good. MSI mobo. Did fine with Asus though.
You should disable your Anti Virus and Anti Spyware.
And then, in Task Manager, "end" all the user tasks except explorer.exe and taskmgr.exe. DO NOT disable the SYSTEM, LOCAL or NETWORK tasks!
Hard to remember, but generally I would disable my AV etc. Using Asus Update I would have saved the old BIOS, and made sure the new BIOS was correct. I remember that it looked like it had completed, it rebooted but wouldn't POST.
While investigating the bad flash afterwards I found many people complaining about bad flashes from Windows on Asus 680i mobos. Unfortunately the Asus "crash free bios" did not work either.
Bateluer
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2001
- 27,730
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I flashed my old Asus P4P800 Deluxe dozens of times in windows and never had a problem. My current Abit IN9-32X MAX has only been flashed in Windows a few times, though it went without a problem each time. My previous MSI K9N SLI board was flashed from within windows as well, though it displayed some quirkiness, but I would attribute that to a poorly designed board by MSI more than I would a bad flash.
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