blackduck30

Hi all,
I have been reading some of the posts about bios updates and I have recently put together a system with a P4P800-E d board and from what the asus udate utility tells me i am running bios version 1002.002.
Now it seems that version 10016 or 17 is the go but updating the bios scares the hell out of me as I have never had to do it on any of the 5 or so computers I have built for myself, so I would like some help.
What do I have to do ?
Does the asus update utility do it all ?
when I use the update utility should I just download bios update ? I have v5.28.01
Do i need a floppy drive as it seems that my old trusty one that I never use has died at some stage.
I am still haveing some graghic card issues , will a bios update help ?
Thanks for any help

P4P800-e-deluxe
2.8 northwood ( running fine at 3.0 )
2x512 ddr400
1x 80g sata
1x 80g ata
400w power
windows xp pro with SP 1 and 2

clintfan

Not for your model. Latest released for yours is the 1002. Some other models have been around longer and so there are a lot of them that are up to number 1016-1017, but yours is more recent than that. We can't use a BIOS for one model, on a different model.


Well for now, nothing... since your model already has the newest BIOS available. And it should scare you, since except for soldering, a BIOS flash is about the lowest-level thing we can do to a PC, and a bad update can kill the box. But in the future, you can study this thread, Asus P4P800/P4C800 Series: How to Update BIOS as a reference to the entire process. Except it does not discuss your next question, AsusUpdate.


I don't know. Many folks do use AsusUpdate, but BIOS is such a low-level entity that I think it's safe to say more folks trust doing this offline instead, from DOS, where the entire enviornment is simpler: less going on in tha background, and more predictable. AFUDOS is the tool to use for that.



That depends. If you're using AsusUpdate, I think any way you can get the BIOS file onto the machine is fine. Disclaimer: I really don't know how AU works or what it does. And I don't know where (or if) you can download AsusUpdate from.


For the offline updates, it's not so easy to make a CD that will boot as DOS, including the update files that you need. In contrast it's very easy to make a bootable system floppy. One major drawback to using a CD --assuming you could-- would be that you would not be able to backup the current BIOS before updating to the new one: one of the features of AFUDOS. AFAIK you need a recordable floppy for that... not sure if it can backup to a hard disk, never tried it.

A floppy is also the only way to install special drivers at system-install time, were you ever to wish to reinstall and set up RAID or something. "Press F6" cannot be used with a CD, for some dumb reason.

Bottom line: a floppy drive is about between $7-$8 U.S. from many mail-order outfits. You can try to get by without one but every once in a while you will be limited in what you can do, and BIOS updates are one of those things. You may not need to actually mount it in the box, but you should at least have one on-hand which you could cable-up if needed.

Hope this helps,

-clintfan

blackduck30

Hello Clintfan,
Thanks heaps for the reply, you pretty well covered it all in my kind of language. I also feel heaps better about updating scaring the hell out of me ( friend not long ago turned his board into a frisbie ) and I will always tread lightly.
thanks once again for taking the time to post a reply and i'm off now to check out that thread you mentioned
Cheers
Blackduck30