On Sunday 13 October 2002 07:34 pm, John Richard Smith wrote:
> Bios upgrades
> =============
>
> First off, not the fearsome thing it is made out to be.
>
> I just learnt the hard way a few precautionary things
> that saves time and grief.
>
> 1) Go into BIOS and turn of all virus detection settings.
This is a good idea in any event
> 2) Buy a spare bios chip(they don't cost much - £5 UK PCCI)
> 3) Back up your old bios to a floppy.
see below
> 4) My MSI bios chip upgrade website is very confusing,at first.
>
> I did mine the "dos floppy" route, as I cannot trust
> freeserve , my ISP, not to cut me off.So no flash bios.
>
> In any case I think I prefer the dos floppy route, more
> real control.
>
> Now, even if you don't have a second bios chip and you screw
> up, all is not lost provided that you have access to
> another computer with the same type of bios chip.An
> upgrade of that chip can be effected by means of substituting
> the machine's bios chip for the reprogrammed chip at the
> critical last moment before it is written to chip. After all
> you still have the machine's original bios chip to fall back
> on.
>
> The result.
> I now have very large HD capability
> I noticed on first boot that the mounting of my smart card
> reader went smoothly, something it has never done before.
> Too early to tell if that is final, but encouraging
> nevertheless.
>
> John
Well good John. Now next time you buy a motherboard, check
around for one that has a second bios backup already onboard and
doesn't need a DOS boot floppy, or Windoze runnin, to flash the
bios. If for any reason the flash fails, or the bios is corrupted
(Winsux virus?), the board automatically boots from the backup
bios chip. Many of the newer boards are movin to this. Some have
had it for years.
It's always a good idea to check your motherboard's web page
for bios updates. Usually updated for about the first 18 months
the board is on the market. It's not always neccessary to update
tho. EG, my board (also a dual bios, no boot floppy needed board)
has a new bios version available, but the changelog shows it's to
fix a problem with hardware I don't have. So it's helpful to read
the changelog before updating.
--
Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
