Question about updating motherboard BIOS.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Shinnokxz
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Shinnokxz

This is the one I'm looking at:

http://www.msicomputer.com/support/...el=K8N Neo-FSR/Platinum (MS-7030)&newsearch=1
(or http://tinyurl.com/ahgvw)

I bought the motherboard at around November, so I assume the
motherboard's BIOS is at version 1.4

My question is this... could I just install the most recent release
(1.7) and it will do just fine, or must I do it incrementally to 1.5,
then to 1.6, so on and so forth? I ask because patching these days have
swayed that way, especially towards gaming. For example, in order to
install the latest Far Cry patch you need an earlier patch.

Thanks for any help.
 
Traditionally the latest bios has all the changes made from previous bios
versions. It should not be necessary to incrementally install. One can jump
two, three or more bios versions to the very latest without fear that they
will miss something from the last version. In terms of comparing a newer
bios version not taking because the sequential last version was not
installed first as with software is irrelevent. The more important
consideration is if you can take advantage of the changes that newer version
has to offer. If there is nothing that the newer bios can enable your
machine to do then you may simply be taking an unneccessay risk.
 
what is the risk? If the flash is from the manufacturer is there still a
possibility it will hose the board, and if it does,
can you get back to where you were?


Jan Alter said:
Traditionally the latest bios has all the changes made from previous bios
versions. It should not be necessary to incrementally install. One can
jump two, three or more bios versions to the very latest without fear that
they will miss something from the last version. In terms of comparing a
newer bios version not taking because the sequential last version was not
installed first as with software is irrelevent. The more important
consideration is if you can take advantage of the changes that newer
version has to offer. If there is nothing that the newer bios can enable
your machine to do then you may simply be taking an unneccessay risk.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks-

I went ahead and did it with MSI LiveUpdate utility which actually did
it from within Windows, which I found extremely handy. It also gave me a
chance to make a rescue floppy incase anything unforeseen happened.
Everything went well, though it did not fix the problems I've been having.
 
what is the risk? If the flash is from the manufacturer is there still a
possibility it will hose the board, and if it does,
can you get back to where you were?
Click to expand...

Not following flash directions exactly or using the wrong bios update
can make an incomplete flash to the cmos and can result in a ruined chip. If
power goes out during the flash it can also ruin the cmos chip. The chances
of these things is small, but not that rare that there are companies to sell
users replacement bios chips for the ones that have been screwed.



--
Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)
or
(e-mail address removed)12.pa.us
Mike Hollywood said:
what is the risk? If the flash is from the manufacturer is there still a
possibility it will hose the board, and if it does,
can you get back to where you were?
Click to expand...
 
Congrats on using the liveupdade program perfectly.. I had an Asus
board die on me cause the update program didn't update properly. So I
had to take out the chip and send it to them.. I had to pay for
shipping but they fixed it the first time for free saying there had
been problems with thier updater in the past..
 
what is the risk?
Click to expand...

Dead motherboard.
If the flash is from the manufacturer is there still a
possibility it will hose the board, and if it does,
can you get back to where you were?
Click to expand...
You can only flash a motherboard with the manufacturers utility. Many
things can go wrong which will hose it. You MAY (although I have never
managed to) be able to recover a dead board providing the boot block
hasn't been overwritten otherwise its a new BIOS chip providing its
socketed or a new motherboard if not.
 
Shinnokxz said:
This is the one I'm looking at:

http://www.msicomputer.com/support/...el=K8N Neo-FSR/Platinum (MS-7030)&newsearch=1
(or http://tinyurl.com/ahgvw)

I bought the motherboard at around November, so I assume the motherboard's
BIOS is at version 1.4

My question is this... could I just install the most recent release (1.7)
and it will do just fine, or must I do it incrementally to 1.5, then to
1.6, so on and so forth? I ask because patching these days have swayed
that way, especially towards gaming. For example, in order to install the
latest Far Cry patch you need an earlier patch.
Click to expand...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the new BIOS will always be a
replacement. So you should be able to go from any version to any version,
including downgrading.

I've never known any hardware (like DVD ROMs, routers, etc) to pick and
choose which portions of the 300K firmware code will be updated.
 
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