Is your BIOS up to date?

IceDigger

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Is your bios up to date on all your computers?

When was the last time you checked to see if you had the latest bios for your motherboard?

Not many people do this at all or often. So here is a friendly reminder to do it!
 
Devil's advocate question, as I am A+ Certified and have performed some hot flashing of BIOSes after an upgrade gone wrong. 🙃

If the system is working as intended, is stable, works with all of the features expected, can the risks outweigh the benefits of the update?
 
I haven't had a bad flash in a loooong time and I flash hundreds of computers a year.
 
My ASUS are all up to date, never had a problem with a bad flash IIRC.
 
Nope. I'm one or two versions back. I don't generally update a BIOS unless I decide to try and push for a higher overclock or I'm installing a new processor or something. Generally, if it isn't broke don't fix it. I've run into problems updating BIOS versions when not needed. Manufacturers sometimes take away features down the line, or break compatibility with these fixes.
 
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My current system is still using the bios that it came with. Everything seems to work fine so I never bothered.
 
I'm with Dan on this. If it's working fine, I don't **** with it. Given I built the system just after Skylake was introduced, I'd imagine I'm a few rev's behind.
 
Every now and then I change the configuration of my system, or decide to see if I can get more out of it. That's when I usually do it. I'll sometimes check on the BIOS ROM updates and if I see some value in one of the changes I will update it. I tend to do stuff like that along side Windows updates or major driver updates. Still, I often remain a couple BIOS revisions back, sometimes more.

I probably let my last motherboard go 4-6 months in between BIOS updates though.
 
BTW, how do you like your threadripper?

I'm doing a lot of video encoding and am curious if I should upgrade my ryzen 2700x to a threadripper.

New PC build of course.
 
I've been very pleased with it. As for changing from a Ryzen 2700X to any Threadripper, it would depend on how much encoding you do as to whether or not that would pay off in any way. If you let encodes run over night, there is little point in that. If you do them during the day, that's another matter.
 
IceDigger said:
BTW, how do you like your threadripper?

I'm doing a lot of video encoding and am curious if I should upgrade my ryzen 2700x to a threadripper.

New PC build of course.
Click to expand...

It might be worth holding your horses until the Ryzen 3000 comes out unless you find a ripping great deal If you're looking at the 16c/32t threadripper and rumors are true, you may be able to drop a 16c/32t AM4 CPU into your existing rig.
 
David_Schroth said:
It might be worth holding your horses until the Ryzen 3000 comes out unless you find a ripping great deal If you're looking at the 16c/32t threadripper and rumors are true, you may be able to drop a 16c/32t AM4 CPU into your existing rig.
Click to expand...

Indeed. Of course Threadripper will still have some advantages over a Ryzen 3000 when it comes to memory bandwidth and PCIe lanes but if your on AM4 now, I think you should hold tight and wait to see what Ryzen 3000 series CPUs can do.
 
I usually keep everything up to date and don't lag more than a month behind on my motherboards. There was good reasons to update Intel motherboards for security reasons. For AMD Ryzen, there was a lot of kinks that took time to iron out.
 
Like @Dan_D and @TheCur, I don't update the BIOS unless there is an actual reason to do so on a running system. If I am going to re-install Windows then I always upgrade all firmware that I can first, including the BIOS, SSD and anything else that may have a firmware update.

For example, I'm currently on BIOS 0804 on my C7H MB which is many revisions behind. I am planning on rebuilding my system later this summer and will upgrade to the latest BIOS at that time.

The exception to the rule of not upgrading a running system is when the product is brand new, just released. Improvements to the BIOS in the few months after release can be significant, including important bug fixes that improve stability and memory compatibility updates, so I will generally update the BIOS a few times and then stop, like I did with the C7H. I don't want to break things if the system is running OK as it is. Sometimes a new BIOS can fix one thing and break something else that used to be working just fine.
 
I keep BIOS updated on my gaming machines. For other things, I update if I have stability or security concerns(which is turning to a twice monthly thing with my gaming laptop and server)
 
For Ryzen, the newer bios's were usually a big improvement plus there were some that I went back to the previous version. The Biostar board has a dual bios switch, the newer bios would get put on the next bios while the current one would be there if needed. I just don't see why not in updating the bios - memory improvements and a host of other issues were resolved for example on the ASUS Crosshair 6 Hero.
 
I keep mine up to date, but I'm not diligent at checking. Despite having the practice of always updating my personal machines and always making sure a new build has the latest BIOS before I give it to some one, in my 20+ years of IT experience, I have had zero firmware/BIOS update failures. There have been a couple of updates that caused problems (issue with the updated file, not the process) that have had to be rolled back to resolve the new problems, but otherwise, I don't hesitate to update.
 
Almost never once stability is achieved. Have given up on running any real OC on non-GPU components a couple years ago, guess I am mainstream now. My focus for security has moved more to the network side, if it cant get in or out....
 
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