Will resetting my BIOS harm my PC in any way?

[Fyeren]

Hello, so I am having a problem where my new CPU is being restricted to the frequency of my old one and I am planning on resetting the BIOS to solve this problem. Will this possibly harm the PC in any way? I am using a MSI Z97 PC Mate. Will I have to reinstall any drivers or anything of that sort? Thanks in advanced.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

No it shouldn't harm the PC.

 

[weberdarren97]

This will not hurt anything.

My recommended steps to take:
1) Turn the machine off and unplug it
2) Press and hold the power button for three seconds to drain all remaining power
3) Remove the CMOS battery from the motherboard
4) Do something else... Just sitting there and staring at the machine will make the wait feel much longer
5) After at least five minutes, put the battery back in the motherboard
6) Boot into BIOS setup, set the date/time and restore any necessary settings like SATA/IDE mode, etc.
7) Save changes and boot into Windows
8) Look for an improvement in system behavior

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

5 minutes ? , a minute or two tops is fine.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

Resetting the bios shouldn't have any effect or damage your computer in any way. All it does is reset everything to it's default.

As for your old CPU being frequency locked to what your old one was, it could be settings, or it could also be a CPU which is not (fully) supported by your current bios. Did you verify the new CPU was supported by the BIOS which is currently installed? As in - you have a Z97 motherboard, but there were two Haswell steppings - the original Haswell, then the Haswell-refresh.