Safest way to update bios?

[Cosmic4Testing]

I've been looking to update my asus motherboard H170-PRO and it has a few options on how to do it, which one would you guys recommend. Thanks

I accidentally put this in the graphics Cards category instead of the motherboards one sorry

 

[little_me]

I have always used winflash/@BIOS and/or equivalent "flash from windows" option purely for the ease of use reasons.
barring that, there are options of "make bootable DOS media, boot to that, run flash utility"
and "flash from within bios, for some bios versions.

 

[zifn4b]

First and foremost, have your computer hooked up to a UPS. I've flashed BIOS off of both boot disk/CD/memory stick and in Windows and never had a problem. Most motherboards have a backup BIOS flash rom so if it doesn't post after updating it auto-reloads the previous BIOS. Also, most BIOS utilities do some type of validation to ensure that the BIOS matches the device. I've never had a single problem with flashing BIOS many times on motherboards and all kinds of peripherals.

 

[geofelt]

First of all, why do you need to update the Bios?
Most updates are for minor issues that will not impact you at all.
Update only if there is a fix to something that is impacting you.
A failed bios update can cause you problems, particularly if you do not know how to recover.
In the past, a failed bios update could brick your motherboard. With newer motherboards, that is less likely.

I always use a USB stick to update the bios stand alone. The ASUS method is easy.
Download the update, it needs to be a fat32 formatted stick.
IN addition, I like to also have a copy of the current working bios in case I need to recover.

If you use windows, you can always run into some windows related issue that complicates things.

When flashing, be very patient.
You will not always get an indicator that things are ok.
It may look like the flash has failed because you see nothing.
If you abort a flash, you will have problems.

If you have a UPS as suggested, you will insulate yourself from another potential source of interruption.