How Many Have Had Problems With Bios Update? (Poll)

[Atreus12]

My friend recently bought a laptop which wouldn't boot X in any distro. After looking online (yeah, google before you buy) we found that it needed a bios update to a specific revision. We found the update on the dell site, and I warned him that if a bios update goes wrong....it renders your computer inoperable.

I guess that kind of freaked him out, because he didn't end up doing it. So I started thinking about it. I have done Bios updates in the past and never had any issues. In fact, I don't personally know anyone who has bricked a computer doing one (although I don't know that many people who have done bios updates at all).

So...I figured it was a good poll question.

If you answered yes, please explain the circumstances.

-Andrew

[FuturePilot]

I've never had an issue doing it. As long as you don't cut the power it should be relatively safe.

[euler_fan]

I'll admit that I did it using the installer package for Windows . . . but it did work fine.

[PatrickMay16]

I updated firmware for the DVD drive in my laptop, and the bios of my desktop computer's motherboard. Both of them went successfully, though I needed to clear the CMOS on my desktop.

[starcraft.man]

Never had any trouble. Done it via floppy and from within windows the odd few times. BIOS updates aren't anything to be scared of.

[PriceChild]

I've got a nice dual bios machine mobo so I never worried when I tried it out. It was a couple of years ago when I was still on windows... everything seemed to go fine... but I noticed that Windows Media Player wouldn't work anymore. Realised what had changed after a day, reverted and then all was good.

Pricey

[Atreus12]

Well, somebody claims to have bricked one

I'm waiting to see what the scenario was

[FuturePilot]

I've got a nice dual bios machine mobo so I never worried when I tried it out. It was a couple of years ago when I was still on windows... everything seemed to go fine... but I noticed that Windows Media Player wouldn't work anymore. Realised what had changed after a day, reverted and then all was good.

Pricey

How can a BIOS update affect a piece of software? I thought the OS didn't interact with the BIOS? Now I'm really confused. :-?

[a12ctic]

I update my bios whenever a revision is made, I also update them on every computer I make (about 10 in the last year or two) I have never had a remote problem with updating a bios and I've never had anything go wrong. The only way a bios update can go wrong is throug incompitence (in the user) and in some very rare cases a defunct manufactorer.

[PriceChild]

How can a BIOS update affect a piece of software? I thought the OS didn't interact with the BIOS? Now I'm really confused. :-?"Good" OS's don't use BIOS hooks :P


Well, somebody claims to have bricked one

I'm waiting to see what the scenario wasThat was me... but there wasn't a "I updated bios and it half worked" option :)

[DBStevens]

Oh good grief.

Show me an OS that doesn't interact with a bios.

[Atreus12]

That was me... but there wasn't a "I updated bios and it half worked" option :)

I guess I should have been more specific. I was looking for either: bios update bricked computer, or didn't brick computer

[FuturePilot]

"Good" OS's don't use BIOS hooks :P
So I'm guessing Windows does and Linux doesn't? Hehe:p

[Papi-KB7VGW]

I have updated several bios and firmware over the years and never had a problem. I have to admit that I haven't done it in Linux yet. It has always been windows, :(

[Rotarychainsaw]

I bricked a mobo once updating the bios. The stupid thing would brick itself when changing options though too, so I had to learn to hot swap the bios or whatever it's called.

[Circus-Killer]

well, i've only updated the bios on one occasion. this was back when XP SP2 was first released, and XP would freeze up on boot up of sp2. i had to update the bios to get it working.

but i basically never update the bios unless i really have to.

[kvonb]

I've been updating BIOSs since it was first introduced, (early Pentium 1s), and have done hundreds, maybe thousands in that time including video cards and DVD drives.

In all that time I have had 1 that went bad, it was a cheap brand P2 board and I used the wrong version of the flash utility.

So it was my own fault, although no flash util was provided by the manufacturer so I had to guess which one would be the best, I guessed wrong :(


Lesson: ALWAYS make sure you have the correct BIOS file and flash util!

[hardyn]

I miss flashed one (allways use a cold boot), although it still has a sufficient bios to boot; however with no video.

I wrote a batch file to do the flash automatically, its saved the machine, yay for me.

:)

[ahaslam]

Just did it for the first time last week.

Gigabyte only offered a self-extracting .exe, so I had to use Wine to get the image. My mobo's manual said to write to a floppy, not having one I took my chances with a msods formatted flash stick which was recognised & even allowed me to back up the existing bios.

So even after deviating from the manual, the update was faultless ;)

[Atomic Dog]

I wonder if a Windows VM (using VirtualBox or VMware) will run a bios flash utility without problems? I have never tried it.

I have flashed a bunch of machines and never had a problem. Of course I always hold my breath and pray there is no power failure when it's writing.

[Sunforge]

I've flashed all sorts of devices over the years with some rare problems.

During the Y2K panic I did a bunch of IBM PCs and found one that died due to a bad BIOS update from IBM (we didn't bother updating other machines with the same batch/BIOS revision number until IBM posted the right BIOS).

Straying off the subjet of BIOS to general flash upgrades:

One Cisco router died (bad flash), swapped flash card and did it the hard way.

So in 12 years of working in IT across several companies I can point to 2 devices going bad on me.

I think that's my very long winded way of saying that it's pretty risk free as long as you don't chop the power half way through a flash update which would guarantee a poor result.

[zugu]

Right after I bought my MSI motherboard I updated the BIOS, using the LiveUpdate thing from MSI. The damn thing chose the wrong BIOS, and after a cold reboot my mobo was b0rked. I had to manually search the MSI site for the right BIOS version, put it on a floppy disk, search through my old junk for a floppy disk drive, and update the BIOS manually.

In the end I did it, but I was inches away from buying another motherboard.

I hear some manufacturers are making dual-BIOS motherboards: if one is fried, the other kicks in. I will be looking for something like this when time to purchase another motherboard comes.

[Ebuntor]

I think that's my very long winded way of saying that it's pretty risk free as long as you don't chop the power half way through a flash update which would guarantee a poor result.

If it is pretty risk free I guess the real question is: What are the advantages of updating your BIOS? For example will there be improvements in performance in any way?
I think that the "If it isn't broken don't fix it" policy would apply here.

EDIT: Atreus' example of not being to start X is a good reason to update of course, but I imagine that is very rare.

[Sunforge]

If it is pretty risk free I guess the real question is: What are the advantages of updating your BIOS? For example will there be improvements in performance in any way?
I think that the "If it isn't broken don't fix it" policy would apply here.

EDIT: Atreus' example of not being to start X is a good reason to update of course, but I imagine that is very rare.

Absolutely right: in a production environment I only update firmware when I'm forced to as you can introduce problems to an otherwise stable system and I don't need that kind of headache.

If you have a home PC and like having the latest update for everything (and some people do) then, as long as you are aware of the risk, I can see no great harm in it. If you ask me how many times I've updates a BIOS on a machine that I had at home it was once, about 8 years ago, because a machine refused to recognise a new hard drive.

[hellmet]

I once updated my Mobo's BIOS and my DVD RW's firmware. None posed any problems at all. It was a smooth process.

[moredhel]

When looking online from my motherboard's website, it referred to a website where you had to /pay/ for the bios upgrades... i mean WTF?

Then i noticed that in my motherboard driver cd it had a thing called @bios, which updated it fine.

How dodgy is that?!

[brim4brim]

My friend recently bought a laptop which wouldn't boot X in any distro. After looking online (yeah, google before you buy) we found that it needed a bios update to a specific revision. We found the update on the dell site, and I warned him that if a bios update goes wrong....it renders your computer inoperable.

I guess that kind of freaked him out, because he didn't end up doing it. So I started thinking about it. I have done Bios updates in the past and never had any issues. In fact, I don't personally know anyone who has bricked a computer doing one (although I don't know that many people who have done bios updates at all).

So...I figured it was a good poll question.

If you answered yes, please explain the circumstances.

-Andrew

Had to do it when I first got my Dell to get my video's to play properly. Something stupid with an ATI graphics card.

What a stupid company, they can't do anything involving drivers etc.. right. Its great that they have good graphics cards but they must be abusing their programmers somehow to get this crap code out of them.

[PriceChild]

Oh good grief.

Show me an OS that doesn't interact with a bios.Mac OS X

Erm... so yes :)

Interact is also the wrong word for it IMO even if I don't explicitly know what I'm talking about :)

I think some of the bsd's have problems but linux should be ok.

[DBStevens]

Mac OS X

Erm... so yes :)

Interact is also the wrong word for it IMO even if I don't explicitly know what I'm talking about :)

I think some of the bsd's have problems but linux should be ok.

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,190,000 for Mac OS X bios interactions.

[PriceChild]

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,190,000 for Mac OS X bios interactions.The new intel macs don't have a BIOS, they use EFI.

Linux has supported EFI using elilo for boot since 2000 according to wikipedia.

[DBStevens]

A rose by any other name is still a rose. Call it firmeware or bios makes no difference. The renaming/restacking game should be old hat to folks by now.

[PriceChild]

I'm afraid you're just wrong though... an EFI doesn't provide old BIOS support... you need the bootcamp software to emulate the bios for installing windows for example. Its like an EFI being a rose... and a BIOS a rock.

Anyway back on topic.