I thought it was perfectly safe using the Asus bios tool. What are the risks involved?
If something goes wrong during the BIOS update it can render the board unusable. It's rare but it happened to me once; the utility hung during the flash and I had to RMA the board.
CrashFree BIOS 3
The ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 allows users to restore corrupted BIOS data from a USB flash disk containing the BIOS file. This utility saves users the cost and hassle of buying a replacement BIOS chip.
On my Asus Crosshair, I have updated and gone back to previous BIOS files multiple times utilizing the update utility in BIOS and the BIOS files on a flash drive with no problems.
I've flashed my GA-G33M-DS2R BIOS twice using the update utility in Windows. I'd be confident that the Asus utility would be just as good. My PC is plugged into a UPS. That's a good peripheral to have.
Using the Asus bios update utility would it be safe to update the bios or is there a risk to it?
Safe? Hahah, I've had various updater programs crash after corrupting BIOS. Then you can't reboot, ever, because the BIOS is hosed.
Most boards include another tool in BIOS that allows you to update BIOS from BIOS. I use a USB thumb drive for that, because floppies are too unreliable.