Flashing the Bios

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Quick question

I am going to build a new system, the CPU I am going to buy for the mobo requires the BIOS to be flashed with the latest version. Does that mean that the CPU wont work until the BIOS is flashed? and if so how can I flash the BIOS if the computer wont work?

 

I havent got the mobo or cpu yet, I was just reading the cpu support list on the ASus website and it says I'll need to update the bios.

I take it when I buy this board the BIOS will still be the release date version.

 

It will work but just some of the features of the CPU wont be available or supported.

 

The motherboard is Asus maximus flormula and the cpu is E8400. Now the mobo supports 45nm cpus but it says on the cpu support qvl that I need BIOS 0907.

 

ahh right, so atleast it will work and then I can flash the bios once I have everything running.

 

You dont need to boot the system to flash the BIOS mate, so the PC will work fine so that you can get that done. Im running that mobo and its a doddle to flash, its just a case of pressing a key at boot up which will then take you to the flash screen.

 

dont you have to download it to a disk first?

 

Easier to use a USB stick.


Oops, I meant yes, download it to a USB stick. Then boot up, watch the startup and press the right keys. That will take you to the flash utility.

 

So is it best to flash the bios before installing the OS and other apps?

 

Yep, I wish I had done it first on my mobo.

 

Not necessarily. The first thing I usually do is install the Bios Updater program/utility. Then you also have the choice of flashing the bios from a file that you downloaded or it will download it for you. And the best part is that you do all of this from within windows, so no messing around.

Nice and easy.

 

I am always a bit wary of flashing a BIOS from within Windows...

 

Why is that?

Sounds good

 

I think he was more concerned that the system wouldn't even post given that it needed a BIOS update before it supported that CPU. I think it will work myself, but I'd be wary of buying a board that need an update to support the CPU I was buying at the same time. I'd be more inclined to get one that already supports it.

You could do a search GBL for people who have bought that mobo and chip and see if anyone ran into issues with it?

As someone mentioned though, most Asus mobo's support updating the BIOS from a memory stick, from the BIOS itself (hotkey when you first turn it on). I have done this before with my current Asus mobo and it worked fine.

 

I never flash the BIOS from windows either, there is just more that can go wrong as you have more things running, much safer to do it at boot up when nothing else is running

 

I had an ASRock mobo before my Asus. Whenever I updated the BIOS you had to reset the default settings. Now to be honest I don't think I need to do that with my Asus, (I need to read their best practice for BIOS flashing) but I have spent quite some time setting up my overclock and I have a RAID 5 running from the Southbridge. I really don't want to loose any of my settings, so have left the BIOS with the version the mobo shipped with. If I had flashed it before I started setting the PC up, would have saved myself some worry.

 

Agreed

 

Yeah ya could be right.

Ive had a few systems in the past that needed a BIOS update to suport the CPU and they have booted fine, the only issue ive encountered is that the BIOS doesnt report the correct CPU model, but the flash sorts that out straight away.