Bios update

[Satanta]

Hey,

After multiple suggestions by Sandra (the utility not the/a girl) I thought I'd look into this. I've never investigated or attempted a BIOS update before so thought I'd check out some of the pros/cons in advance. Having flicked around the net for a while I thought I'd also throw up a post on here and gain from the knowledge of the AAM techies.

Should a Bios be updated regularly on most systems? (from the warning on Sandra they seem to suggest that 3 years is out of date, should a BIOS be updated frequently - annually? more/less? [my own is running on a Bios from 25/6/2003)

Should a Bios be updated at all by a regular user? (I'm still unsure what benefits it will provide or problems it will cure. Everything that the Bios is meant to control is working just fine so should it be tinkered with at all)

Is there an easy way of ensuring it's the right update? (I assumed it'd be a simple task of going to the Samsung website and checking the system I'm running to see if any updates are available, how wrong I was. Currently using a Samsung Aquila Slim Platform Notebook ([broken link removed] similiar as detailed here, though my Bios is dated 25/6/2003 re Sandra).

Is it a case of if it ain't broke, don't fix it or should this be done?

Any other advice/comments appreciated.

 

[tallpaul]

Is it a case of if it ain't broke, don't fix it or should this be done?

Any other advice/comments appreciated.

Is your system operating abnormally?? If not, why would you bother?? You are unlikely to get any major benefit out of updating the bios and (more likely) you may be opening a Pandora's Box of trouble...

Usually you only need to meddle with the bios if there is a fairly major system failure.

My tuppence worth is to leave it alone...

 

[Satanta]

Is your system operating abnormally?? If not, why would you bother?? You are unlikely to get any major benefit out of updating the bios and (more likely) you may be opening a Pandora's Box of trouble...

System is operating fine, I've just no real idea of why it should/should not be done as it's something I've only just, as in the last 20 minutes, started investigating.

Is this something which would be more relevant should new hardware be added? (Still using all the stock memory, RAM, etc that came with the notebook) Or is it something that you only go for when problems start kicking off?

 

[ClubMan]

Yeah - if you don't have problems that you know for sure can be fixed by a BIOS update then don't bother. Just adding/changing the system's hardware is no reason in itself for doing a BIOS update. You only want to do one if there is some known bug in the BIOS or some feature missing from the BIOS configuration utility that you need and that you know is rectified by an update. The risk of rendering your BIOS/motherboard useless if you don't know what you're doing is not worth it if you don't know that you need the update. On the other hand if you insist then read the docs on your motherboard, BIOS, BIOS update(s) and updating tools to make sure that you know what to expect. And only ever use a BIOS update file sourced direct from the motherboard manufacturer and don't expect generic updates or ones for other motherboards with the same BIOS/chipset to work - they probably won't. It's not difficult to do a BIOS update but the risk of damaging your hardware could be significant especially if you've never done this before and don't know what it's all about.

 

[Satanta]

Yeah - if you don't have problems that you know for sure can be fixed by a BIOS update then don't bother. Just adding/changing the system's hardware is no reason in itself for doing a BIOS update. You only want to do one if there is some known bug in the BIOS or some feature missing from the BIOS configuration utility that you need and that you know is rectified by an update.

Just what I wanted to hear. I'd never heard of a need to update the Bios, but thought it worth checking if it's something I should should have been doing. I defiantly ain't going to do it just for fun, everything is working so not worth messing about with.

Thanks for the advice TP and CM. Hugely appreciated.

 

[zag]

BIOS updates can sometimes be worth doing as they can introduce usefull benefits.

I normally check for updates for the BIOS on relevant sites every few months and if there is one I would normally apply it.

There could be a number of upgrades released over a period of years and these may or may not be cumulative, so it is worth checking the details for them all when you find the correct site to see whether you need to apply only the most recent or each of them in turn. Normally you would just apply the most recent one.

It is well worth noting that all manufacturers will include a text file with the upgrade indicating exactly what has been addressed, so you can get a very good idea of whether or not there will be any benefit to you. For example, you might see something along the lines of "Fix compatibility issue between nVidia xyz video card and Creative xyz sound card which caused occasional lockups." - if you have those two elements and you have had these symptoms then it would be worth applying.

However, as above, if you are reasonably happy with your machines performance and you are a little unsure about the upgrade then it might be worth holding off. You won't get the performance improvement, but you also won't run the (effectively) tiny risk of damaging your machine also.

It is also worth noting that manufacturers only upgrade the BIOS for a few years. After that period it is not worth their time & money to do the work to address an issue on a 3 or 4 year old machine when they have released 20 new models in the interim - all of which also may need work done on upgrades.

z