[SOLVED] Should I do a BIOS firmare upgrade?

[JudMc]

I have an HP 8200 elite. The BIOS firmware is dated 2011. It has Windows 10 now. HP has upgrades for the firmare, for various operating systems, but the latest one is for Windows 8. Is it OK to run the Windows 8 firmware update on a Windows 10 system?

 

[johnbl]

updating the bios should work. generally the update program should work but I think future updates to windows might start blocking the programs from running. You should give it a try but look below for more info:

generally, you would only do a update when you wanted to fix a particular problem.
for example 2011 machines do not have the proper USB bios updates to run usb 2.x correctly and some usb devices might hang.
the USB specifications were changed in 2012 so you want a bios dated after about april of 2012 for usb 2.x to work correctly.
(sometime in 2013 for usb 3.x to work correctly but you would not likely have usb 3 chips in your machine)

if you do update the bios be sure you look in the current bios for the current setting for the SATA controller. Most SATA controllers should be set to AHCI mode but it could be in IDE mode or RAID mode. When you update the bios all of the settings will go back to defaults and you will need to set the updated bios to the correct defaults. Back in 2011 IDE mode was a common default and it would work but would be much slower than AHCI mode.

 

[JudMc]

updating the bios should work. generally the update program should work but I think future updates to windows might start blocking the programs from running. You should give it a try but look below for more info:

generally, you would only do a update when you wanted to fix a particular problem.
for example 2011 machines do not have the proper USB bios updates to run usb 2.x correctly and some usb devices might hang.
the USB specifications were changed in 2012 so you want a bios dated after about april of 2012 for usb 2.x to work correctly.
(sometime in 2013 for usb 3.x to work correctly but you would not likely have usb 3 chips in your machine)

if you do update the bios be sure you look in the current bios for the current setting for the SATA controller. Most SATA controllers should be set to AHCI mode but it could be in IDE mode or RAID mode. When you update the bios all of the settings will go back to defaults and you will need to set the updated bios to the correct defaults. Back in 2011 IDE mode was a common default and it would work but would be much slower than AHCI mode.

This computer only has USB 2 connectors, but I don't know what version. I don't know of any specific problem. I just replaced the HD with a SSD and it is working well. I'm sure it wouldn't be RAID but I don't know about AHCI or IDE.

Maybe "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"?

 

[CountMike]

This computer only has USB 2 connectors, but I don't know what version. I don't know of any specific problem. I just replaced the HD with a SSD and it is working well. I'm sure it wouldn't be RAID but I don't know about AHCI or IDE.

Maybe "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"?

Any notes and description on that new BIOS?.

 

[JudMc]

Any notes and description on that new BIOS?.

Here is the page: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-compaq-8200-elite-small-form-factor-pc/5037931

 

[johnbl]

Here is the page: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-compaq-8200-elite-small-form-factor-pc/5037931

bios does have a fix for USB where a flash drive would run slowly. The bios update is dated in 2014
i would not install it unless I was having a problem with usb mass storage devices. Most likely your bios supports usb 2.0
rather than the last version of usb 2.1. I would not update the bios for this fix unless something was really broken.

your bios does support sata controller mode of ide and ahci mode. you might go into bios and check the mode you are currently running in.
IDE mode is a subset of the faster AHCI mode. you can select it as the default and try to reboot windows and see if it works.
it should work unless HP disabled the AHCI drivers inside of windows. if it does not work, then the windows will not boot but you would just go back into bios and set the sata controler mode back to what you started with, then save the configuration and reboot back into windows.
AHCI is much faster and is recommended for solid state drives so the operating system can tell the solid state drive to run clean up functions.
(you can run utilities but no one actually does it when they need to)

there is a good chance your controller is already in AHCI mode but in 2012 IDE might have been the default so it is good to check.

 

[JudMc]

Well, I tried the Windows 8 BIOS update. After I agreed to the terms, it just would not run on Windows 10. So that is probably all she wrote.