BIOS - Added processor updates: Worth the updating risk?

L

lesm

Hi group

I use computers since a very long time, well before Internet was part
of our life. However I never flashed a BIOS in a modern PC computer
although I have programmed hundreds of chips.like ROMs, CPUs and so
on.

I have revamped an old computer I wish to use as my "LAN server",
installing Windows 2000. Specs: MOBO Intel SE440BX-2, Pentium II 400
MHz, 256MB RAM, 3 HD etc. Chipset is 82443BX and 82371EB.
Current BIOS is 4S4EB2X0.86A.0023.P16.
Updated BIOS is 4S4EB2X0.86A.0024.P17.

Acording to Intel's documentation there are only two fixes in this
update:

-Correct ACPI reporting of ComB when set to IRDA mode
-Added processor updates.

Per my experience I see no reason to update the BIOS casue the MOBO
works fine, besides I don't use IrDA. However, I'm not sure if the
"Added processor updates" is worth the flashing risk.

Wiil appreciate any comments?
 
N

Noozer

lesm said:
Hi group

I use computers since a very long time, well before Internet was part
of our life. However I never flashed a BIOS in a modern PC computer
although I have programmed hundreds of chips.like ROMs, CPUs and so
on.

I have revamped an old computer I wish to use as my "LAN server",
installing Windows 2000. Specs: MOBO Intel SE440BX-2, Pentium II 400
MHz, 256MB RAM, 3 HD etc. Chipset is 82443BX and 82371EB.
Current BIOS is 4S4EB2X0.86A.0023.P16.
Updated BIOS is 4S4EB2X0.86A.0024.P17.

Acording to Intel's documentation there are only two fixes in this
update:

-Correct ACPI reporting of ComB when set to IRDA mode
-Added processor updates.

Per my experience I see no reason to update the BIOS casue the MOBO
works fine, besides I don't use IrDA. However, I'm not sure if the
"Added processor updates" is worth the flashing risk.
Click to expand...

Is the computer working fine? Then you shouldn't need any updates.

Of course, with an old PC it might be worth the risk just for the
experience.
 
P

Pen

Noozer said:
Is the computer working fine? Then you shouldn't need any updates.

Of course, with an old PC it might be worth the risk just for the
experience.
Click to expand...
The processor updates deal usually with reporting correctly what the
newer processors are.. As long as what it says your processor is, is
correct then forget it.
 
K

kony

Hi group

I use computers since a very long time, well before Internet was part
of our life. However I never flashed a BIOS in a modern PC computer
although I have programmed hundreds of chips.like ROMs, CPUs and so
on.

I have revamped an old computer I wish to use as my "LAN server",
installing Windows 2000. Specs: MOBO Intel SE440BX-2, Pentium II 400
MHz, 256MB RAM, 3 HD etc. Chipset is 82443BX and 82371EB.
Current BIOS is 4S4EB2X0.86A.0023.P16.
Updated BIOS is 4S4EB2X0.86A.0024.P17.

Acording to Intel's documentation there are only two fixes in this
update:

-Correct ACPI reporting of ComB when set to IRDA mode
-Added processor updates.

Per my experience I see no reason to update the BIOS casue the MOBO
works fine, besides I don't use IrDA. However, I'm not sure if the
"Added processor updates" is worth the flashing risk.

Wiil appreciate any comments?
Click to expand...


You don't need the updated bios to support a PII-400, it
will have no gain. Because you are running Win2k with ACPI
power management, it is good that you have the P16 bios
instead of the original shipping bios, but no further bios
update is required.

I assume you are aware that motherboard has hard drive size
limitations. I believe it supports up to 128GB, and it only
has ATA33 support. To increase these parameters a PCI
ATA133 controller card might be used.
 
K

kony

The processor updates deal usually with reporting correctly what the
newer processors are.. As long as what it says your processor is, is
correct then forget it.
Click to expand...


It's even more forgiving than that, it could call the
processor something completely wrong but so long as the FSB
speed wasn't manually set wrong (is left in "auto" mode,
though on that board I think there is no mode other than
auto), the processor multiplier is locked.

Unfortunately, past a certain point (bios version) the bios
on that particular board will unnecessarily halt for no good
reason- Intel set it to refuse to run if it can't ID the
processor. The primar impact of this was to those who
wanted to use a slotket adapter to run socket 370 coppermine
P3 or Celeron on that board. They couldn't use the
last/newest bios, had to use one before a certain revision,
but at the moment I don't recall which revision was the
break-point.
 
L

lesm

Thanks a lot for all responses.

Regarding the "processor updates", at first I thought that Intel
referred to some sort of "function". Some years ago we talked about
microprocessors to avoid such ambiguity.
Intel set it to refuse to run if it can't ID the
processor. The primar impact of this was to those who
wanted to use a slotket adapter to run socket 370 coppermine
P3 or Celeron on that board. They couldn't use the
last/newest bios, had to use one before a certain revision,
but at the moment I don't recall which revision was the
break-point.
Click to expand...

This is a very interesting point kony. Since I use Intel processors
only I never thought of such possibility.

Thanks to all again.
 
L

lesm

On 29 Apr 2007 09:02:14 -0700, lesm
Click to expand...
I assume you are aware that motherboard has hard drive size
limitations. I believe it supports up to 128GB, and it only
has ATA33 support. To increase these parameters a PCI
ATA133 controller card might be used.
Click to expand...

Yes, the computer has two 30GB drives and have installed an external
USB 250GB drive which is enough for my needs. However there is some
speed limitation due to the USB 1.0 the mobo has.
 
N

Noozer

lesm said:
Yes, the computer has two 30GB drives and have installed an external
USB 250GB drive which is enough for my needs. However there is some
speed limitation due to the USB 1.0 the mobo has.
Click to expand...

A cheap PCI card with USB2 on it would be well worth the investment if you
move a fair amount of files to the USB drive.
 
G

GT

lesm said:
Hi group

I use computers since a very long time, well before Internet was part
of our life. However I never flashed a BIOS in a modern PC computer
although I have programmed hundreds of chips.like ROMs, CPUs and so
on.

I have revamped an old computer I wish to use as my "LAN server",
installing Windows 2000. Specs: MOBO Intel SE440BX-2, Pentium II 400
MHz, 256MB RAM, 3 HD etc. Chipset is 82443BX and 82371EB.
Current BIOS is 4S4EB2X0.86A.0023.P16.
Updated BIOS is 4S4EB2X0.86A.0024.P17.

Acording to Intel's documentation there are only two fixes in this
update:

-Correct ACPI reporting of ComB when set to IRDA mode
-Added processor updates.

Per my experience I see no reason to update the BIOS casue the MOBO
works fine, besides I don't use IrDA. However, I'm not sure if the
"Added processor updates" is worth the flashing risk.

Wiil appreciate any comments?
Click to expand...

I agree with Noozer - if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
 
L

lesm

A cheap PCI card with USB2 on it would be well worth the investment if you
move a fair amount of files to the USB drive.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's a good idea. I will order that together with an
additional 256MB RAM.
I also though in a Pentium III at a maximum 650 MHz allowable but
maybe that's not a good idea for such an old mobo. Sooner or later
the mobo will die and I will end with a PII and PIII siiting in a
closet as arqueological dinosaurs.

Thanks to all again.
 
K

kony

Yes, that's a good idea. I will order that together with an
additional 256MB RAM.
I also though in a Pentium III at a maximum 650 MHz allowable but
maybe that's not a good idea for such an old mobo. Sooner or later
the mobo will die and I will end with a PII and PIII siiting in a
closet as arqueological dinosaurs.

Thanks to all again.
Click to expand...


Nothing lasts forever but those were very high quality
boards for their time, it's possible you could get several
years out of it.

However, although you haven't described much of the duties
of this "LAN server", typical fileserving will not be
bottlenecked by the PII-400, there would be no gain in
putting a PIII-650 in instead.

Your present bottlenecks are going to be the LAN speed and
ATA33 ATA controller, or if you use USB, the USB1 especially
or even with a USB2 card it would still be a significant
bottleneck.

The best performance upgrades are to add an ATA133 PCI
controller card, to not use USB at all (not USB2 either) and
use a 1000MB (gigabit) ethernet card, which of course would
require the rest of the network segments and clients be
gigabit capable as well. If you don't have or want gigabit
ethernet, suddenly the ATA33 will not matter much (except
for the lower capacity support), but you might still have a
bottleneck using USB2 with 100Mb ethernet when transferring
a lot of medium to smaller files rather than few larger
ones. Whether that is significant in your use, we cannot
say.
 
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