Updating BIOS and Other Drivers

[NIMDog]

Hi all!

I am in need of a BIOS update. However, I can't find any versions of my bios for Ubuntu! I have a Dell Optiplex 745 Mini Tower, running Ubuntu 13.04. The current bios version is 2.3.1. The latest version is 2.6.6. I tried to install the driver from Wine and it said that it was not allowed to flash the bios, so it couldn't continue. Any ideas?

[SuperFreak]

You don't flash BIOS from within the OS or at least not usually. Typically you have a copy of the new BIOS on a USB stick in your computer and you flash from within BIOS. However you do this at your own risk; if there is a power failure or something goes wrong you may bork your system.

[grahammechanical]

Motherboard makers do not support Linux users the way they support Windows users. The motherboard maker should have provided a utility for flashing the BIOS. My motherboard came with a CD of drivers and utilities. Windows based, of course. But it does include a DOS based utility that will run from floppy disk. I have never used it. But look to the motherboard maker for a means to flash the BIOS and take care. It should be possible to backup the present version so that you can re-install it.

I have found this for you

http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/...&categoryId=BI

It says this

This file format consists of a BIOS executable file. To use it, download the file and copy it to a DOS-bootable diskette. With the diskette in the floppy drive, reboot the system and run the program.

Regards.

[Bashing-om]

NIMDog;
Best advise; If It ain't broke, don't fix it !

Possible with updating BIOS to introduce additional problems.

regards

[ajgreeny]

But if you must update, and you can not find any other way to do it, have a look at FreeDos which apparently can run the BIOS updates on many machines.

It could be that it will not work for you, but it must be worth a try, though only if you really need to update the BIOS at all; as Bashing-om says, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

[ahallubuntu]

~

[SuperFreak]

I realize it is possible with some motherboards to update from Windows but I have always updated directly from the BIOS and I was led to understand that was the safest means. I have used Asus and Asrock motherboards on my custom machines. Updating BIOS is sometimes necessary for hardware changes such as new CPUs but even the manufacturers do not recommend updating a perfectly working system

[mörgæs]

On most Dells it's an easy job to upgrade BIOS. I have done many times. Just create a bootable USB stick with Freedos using Unetbootin and copy the exe file to the stick.

Of course you should first spend some time searching for reports on the particular version you are planning to install. If noone has posted bad experiences I would consider the risk minimal.

[Mark Phelps]

IF you don't have a way to (1) save off the current WORKING BIOS version and (2) restore that if the BIOS upgrade goes badly -- then doing a BIOS update is a bad idea and asking for trouble.

[Yellow Pasque]

The changelog lists the following changes. Which of those do you need so bad that it's worth a BIOS update?

System: OptiPlex 745 Version: 2.6.6 Release Date: 08/24/2011 
* Add digital sign

2.4.1
* Correct Quadpack LED code when no memory is installed
* Optimize PCI Memory allocation

2.3.1