How many times cud i flash my BIOS??

[TheMASK]

i have heard ppl say that i shudnt flash my BIOS unless its absolutely necessary. is there any limit??

somebody stop me!!

 

[TKH]

People suggest you don't flash your BIOS unless it's necessary because if only you face problem with your current BIOS that you must update the BIOS to fix it. Updating BIOS takes caution, if it fails you would get a dead mobo. It is not necessary to update every new BIOS release though if you do not face any problem.

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
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[Crashman]

I have seen Asus boards that died from rebooting because the ESCD data gets flashed every time you boot, and the BIOS chip was only good for a few thousand flashes at most! So I don't think you'll flash your BIOS so many times for updates that it makes much difference.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[TheMASK]

hey, u know its so easy to update ur BIOS with the AFlash utility. Its just like copying a file from a floppy to the HDD. so far i have had no problems and hopefully my luck continues in future too...

somebody stop me!!

 

[Teq]

Ummm... crash, aren't there two different types of memory in use?

The NVRAM which holds the bios code ... this could be destroyed by flashing the bios more than a dozen or so times.

The battery backed CMOS RAM ... Where you're bios settings and ESCD parameters are stored.


Yes, repeated flashing can destroy the NVRAM.

But I wouldn't think, at least on newer boards, booting too often is going to hurt anything.



---><font color=green>It ain't better if it don't work</font color=green><---

 

[TKH]

I didn't say updating is hard, I just say if something undesirable like power failure or system crash happen during the flashing your mobo is dead for sure. And Teq is also right about the NVRAM would be damaged if it's flashed to much but unless you are a BIOS Updating freak that always flash your BIOS to newer one than recover back I don't think that would be a serious problem.

It is morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=22996" target="_new">My System Rig</A>

 

[Crashman]

Well, I just know about one board series, the Asus P2B's, which would after many years of booting on a regular basis return the error "unable to update ESCD". And if you've ever used a BIOS flasher with advanced options you know there's an option called "flash ESCD".

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[TheMASK]

i really appreciate u all helping me out...looks like i got to do my homework and findout more about it, i mean the NVRAM ESCD et al...tnx again guys..

somebody stop me!!

 

[DSzymborski]

What to do if you need help with something: start a new thread with a detailed description of your issue, a history of the problem, what you've attempted to remedy the problem, and a completely rundown of your specs, including any specs that recently changed.

What not to do if you need help with something: make a random post in a thread from 18 years ago.