[SOLVED] Should I update the BIOS on my Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero ?

[Eonuzex]

I was wondering if there is any merit to updating the bios on this board.. I don't really have many performance issues, sometimes but hard to tell if its windows or some other program causing it.
I'm pretty behind, my last update on anything with the motherboard was back in 2020. Along with AMD chipset drivers. My main concern is regarding the most recent BIOS and mitigating AMD security vulnerabilities.
Thanks for any help!

Edit: I restarted my machine and decided to go into bios for the first time, and by god it was so laggy, also stuck on AA Q-Code which could mean nothing or something.

Specs:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
Motherboard: Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero BIOS Version 1302
Ram: 2x G.Skill Trident Z Neo Series [F4-3600C16D-32GTZNC]
SSD/HDD: Sabrent Rocket 4.0 1TB [SB-ROCKET-NVMe4-HTSK-1TB] & Seagate Barracuda Compute 2TB [ST2000DM008-2FR102 ] (Some reason Speccy says its a SSD)
GPU: Asus ROG Strix Geforce RTX 2080 Super Advanced Overclock 8G [ROG-STRIX-RTX-2080S-A8G]
PSU: Corsair RMX Series, RM750x
Chassis: Phanteks Enthoo Pro Full Tower [PH-ES614P_BK]
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit
Monitor: MSI Optix MAG271CQR and 2x generic monitors

 

[drea.drechsler]

I was wondering if there is any merit to updating the bios on this board.. I don't really have many performance issues, sometimes but hard to tell if its windows or some other program causing it.
I'm pretty behind, my last update on anything with the motherboard was back in 2020. Along with AMD chipset drivers. My main concern is regarding the most recent BIOS and mitigating AMD security vulnerabilities.
Thanks for any help!

Edit: I restarted my machine and decided to go into bios for the first time, and by god it was so laggy, also stuck on AA Q-Code which could mean nothing or something.

Specs:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
Motherboard: Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero BIOS Version 1302
Ram: 2x G.Skill Trident Z Neo Series [F4-3600C16D-32GTZNC]
SSD/HDD: Sabrent Rocket 4.0 1TB [SB-ROCKET-NVMe4-HTSK-1TB] & Seagate Barracuda Compute 2TB [ST2000DM008-2FR102 ] (Some reason Speccy says its a SSD)
GPU: Asus ROG Strix Geforce RTX 2080 Super Advanced Overclock 8G [ROG-STRIX-RTX-2080S-A8G]
PSU: Corsair RMX Series, RM750x
Chassis: Phanteks Enthoo Pro Full Tower [PH-ES614P_BK]
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit
Monitor: MSI Optix MAG271CQR and 2x generic monitors

I would especially if it has ComboV2PI 1208 or later. Mainly on principal but then AMD has fixed some AGESA issues and plugged security vulnerabilities with BIOS updates. Also improving Windows 11 compatibility although that's mainly by defaulting certain settings.

If you do, be sure to reset CMOS after the update. It might do it during the update but it can't hurt doing it yourself to be sure.

 

[geofelt]

If you are not experiencing problems, the usual advice is to not update.
The reason is that a failed flash might brick your motherboard or at least send you down a recovery path that you are unprepared for.
Interrupting the process will cause a problem.
That is why it is advised to use a usb flash process and not the internet which can fail.
During a flash,nothing will appear to be happening. For perhaps 15 minutes.
Do not get antsy and stop the process to start over.
If you are having a problem and there is a bios update that looks like it might fix it, then by all means flash.
Ryzen is tightly tied to ram and ram compatibility issues are regularly updated.

When a new bios is in place, it will be the default bios so make any changes you need to.

On a new build, I will flash immediately to currency.
If anything fails, there is little impact.

 

[Eonuzex]

Thanks for your replies! I've done the BIOS flashing before with a usb stick (still have it) through the BIOS.
With the laggy bios it ain't going to be very fun. Might be why when I first built this it was a frustrating experience for stability.

 

[drea.drechsler]

Thanks for your replies! I've done the BIOS flashing before with a usb stick (still have it) through the BIOS.
With the laggy bios it ain't going to be very fun. Might be why when I first built this it was a frustrating experience for stability.

By laggy do you mean the mouse pointer?

I just use keyboard to navigate around...arrows up/down/left/right work perfectly and usually pretty speedy...with my Asus B550 board.

You might also reset CMOS before going into the in-BIOS update utility. It might help with everything in full defaults. And lastly simply try different USB ports.

 

[Eonuzex]

By laggy do you mean the mouse pointer?

I just use keyboard to navigate around...arrows up/down/left/right work perfectly and usually pretty speedy...with my Asus B550 board.

You might also reset CMOS before going into the in-BIOS update utility. It might help with everything in full defaults. And lastly simply try different USB ports.

Yah the mouse pointer was laggy but buttons were unresponsive as well (I use a razor chroma). I was thinking that too. I'm currently using a Level 3 overclock profile on it to I plan to use the CMOS reset button before doing bios update using the Flashback feature. Just need to get some more flash drives for backups.
Hopefully everything goes well. Will update once I've done it.
Thanks!

 

[Eonuzex]

So wanted to update a little bit, I've got my drives all ready (Backup Win 10, backup bios, and new bios) Going to use the flashback utility.

Now I will admit, when I built this PC and hooked it all up, the way it was situated made it difficult to see the back. Not a huge problem if you've worked with a lot of computer before.
Except I completely glossed over the flashback utility feature AND the fact it has a dedicated USB for it.

Long story short, my USB sound card has been plugged into that USB slot for years till I just now noticed. 🤦‍♂️
I'm not sure if this messed anything up regarding that port and functionality, but it would explain why my sound card would act strange every now and again.

Should I be worried about using flashback with this in mind?

 

[Eonuzex]

Update for the record I guess.

UEFI Bios being laggy was apparently due to overclock settings. I cleared the CMOS before doing a bios update, and it started to run smoothly again.

Updated bios successfully although flashback didn't seem to work(I'm assuming having my USB Sound card plugged into the usb slot for flashback for years might have messed it up somehow, stupid me). Ended up updating the bios via EZ update utility within bios. Although.....​

It did some weird stuff when updating the BIOS that I don't remember it doing.

For starters, about halfway through the update process computer just turned itself off without restarting. And man did I sweat bullets.​

After that I turned it back on, went straight to bios update utility saying Repairing Bios

Then several posts after bootup that simply said something along the lines of Setting up bios or Bios setup or new bios, couldn't remember really at the top of the screen.​

Seems to be normal behavior I guess because, ffter that was able to get into bios, update was applied and everything seemed to work. Had to redo my overclock settings which I forgot (D.O.C.P doesn't work for me) so took me awhile.

Actually pretty painless process. But man sometimes I hate the Q-Codes. During bios update it kept showing d6 or A2 for whatever reason, never had any issues with my video card, but seemed to go away. The AA code seemed to stay for a bit then switched to OC which makes sense. Still need to run Prime95 to test RAM mainly just to make sure.