NO details about BIOS Update??

[sconnary32]

Am I crazy in this?

Gervai W.
Hello Scott Connary, thank you for contacting ASUS support. Please give me a few moments to review your information. I will be with you shortly.

10:56 am
Scott Connary
Good morning, I was wondering if there was a link that would provide detailed information on what each BIOS revision is doing. Asus X99-A

Gervai W.
Hi Scott. How are you today?

Scott Connary
I am well. yourself?

Gervai W.
I am also doing well, thank you.

The support website would list the improvements the BIOS updates provide.

http://support.asus.…&hashedid=iM7X7ZLgo82aUWwW

Scott Connary
Yeah but it does not detail what it is doing

Improve System Stability tells me nothing

Gervai W.
There is not a area that I could provide to detail further information.

Scott Connary
So I have to blindly install a BIOS update without knowing what it is changing? Increasing the chance that a feature I need is affected in an undesirable way?

Gervai W.
Most BIOS updates enhance performance of Motherboard but mostly with its relationship with other component parts.

Scott Connary
If there is one rule in IT it is do not update BIOS unless you need to. So when a new version is released and it only says "improves system stability" that tells me nothing of what it will change under the hood. Sure it may make a set of RAM work better but then it removes my ability to modify something else because that revision had a bug with it. Windows updates are supposed to 'improve' your PC performance as well but they provide details of what they are doing so you don't hose your system. It is just absurd that there is not a description of what BIOS 1901 is going to actually do to improve my system.

Gervai W.
You do not have to update the BIOS if you do not want to Scott, it is made an option as sometimes we incorporate component parts the build which may require a BIOS update to allow the unit to accept the device.

There is also the ability to downgrade the BIOS if you want to.

Scott Connary
You just justified my point. BIOS may allow the unit to accept a new device. Yet I do now know that. BIOS can also cause you to be unable to boot because for whatever reason it breaks a compatibility with something. To tell me that I dont have to update BIOS is the lamest thing I have heard. I would like to be escalated to a manager because that is an insane answer.

 

[RCFProd]

In my opinion you're making life very hard for no reason, and your behavior I believe is very rude aswell. Motherboard drivers are well tested before release. Usually the staff working in support is for solving basic issues, not ones like this. For that one you'd have to contact the developers of those motherboard and their software.

My opinion? This is not an issue that should given this much attention and frustration by yourself and I believe this is also we something we can't really assist with for help.

 

[mdkieran]

Not really surprised, with big companies they have so many things going on, a single individual like this customer services guy can't know everything about everything. I do agree with you though, Asus should provide some BIOS change log.

 

[weilin]

BIOS updates are is an interesting procedure and sadly the changes are never fully documented. Its true for most software, but for most software the process is usually user reversible if something does go wrong. What makes BIOS scary is the fact that if something does go horribly wrong your system can brick and without special tools you're SOL.

Asus gets reference BIOS from the chipset manufacturer (in this case, Intel). I can assure you that their documentation is no nowhere near complete either. motherboard firmware (BIOS) is very complicated and its development is usually spread amongst many teams. Each team fixes their own issues and as things pass testing get turned in and rolled up into 1 BIOS update. Thus each team send in their patch notes and every team prioritizes what's worth mentioning. So bugfix #267 that fixes a corner case will probably not be listed in the release notes. Neither will a code-refactoring replacing a bunch of legacy code that was impossible to understand and thus highly bug-prone show up. Then there's the firmware developers themselves which may turnin commits with notes like "fixed stuff" or "works now". Good luck figuring out what to document with those hints. When they're compiling the final release notes they also prioritize as well, some implementation specific notes are generalized ("fix dram controller where counter to ensure cas latency accuracy is off by 1" will become "fixed dram timing error"). Some more trivial stuff will simply be dropped.

The release notes probably also won't include what got fixed in the random 3rd party controller firmware that's included (unless this resolves a major bug). The notes will probably say updated to BLAH controller to firmware 3.7.2.4_102015 and that's about it. If you really want to know what got changed, look for the roll-up release notes that BLAH's manufacturer publishes.

What OEMs do is scan the release notes and look for any major bullet points that may be worth mentioning, so that "support for latest i7 processor" BIOS patch probably updates Intel MEI, the boot rom on the Intel NIC, the TPM module etc. You're already trusting them to begin with even when they're giving you "details" on what's in the latest firmware fix.

In this case, fixing stability could mean anything from fixing how DRAM controller handles timing causing a BSOD to some random edge case that causes the machine to hang for a sec just before it goes to sleep because some buffer isn't flushing right. Its probably useful patch to have, but it's clearly not common enough for them to need to elaborate further. It's up to you if you want to take the risk.

It may not be ideal, but that's how the software/firmware industry works (personal experience). The average CSR probably doesn't have any more info than you do, and neither will his manager or even his manager's manager. Customer service is a completely different department than those who implemented the fixes. In really large companies, the people responsible for making fixes are not the ones who packages it up for release. A 3rd team then puts it up for download on the corporate website while a whole new team handles user support. Realistically, unless you can reach the firmware engineering team you're not gonna get much info.

 

[Tradesman1]

A couple of things, generally speaking the bit about NOT updating the BIOS went by the wayside a few years ago, with todays mobos and all the new hardware out there that grows daily, they are constantly updating the BIOS to provide compatibility and functionality. Secondly on most every BIOS update, there are way to many things in it to list, so they henerally just list one or two key items or give a generalization like 'improve system stability', i.e most BIOS updates will have a large multitude of DRAM updates all by themselves not counting other little or big things.