Your New Motherboard

[bblue]

Regardless of which motherboard you choose to use or evaluate, be sure to update its BIOS to the most recent available on the manufacturer's web site.  Even brand new boards will often have BIOS's that are several revisions behind -- and buggy to various degrees. 

 

My last two MSI P45 Neo2 boards had BIOS's that were three revisions old, and misbehaved badly under some scenarios.  My last two Gigabyte EP43 series boards were four revisions behind.  Updating them cured several inconsistencies.  Likewise with Asus P5's and P6's.  I'm not singling out these brands -- they all are like this apparently due to time spent in stock at the manufacturer or in distribution.

 

If you don't know how to load (flash) a new BIOS, learn how!  It's easy and likely to save you lots of frustration in the future.

 

--Bill

 

[Rajahal]

I'm of the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' mentality.  Certainly if you are having problem, updating BIOS may be a good place to start.  However, if you aren't having problems, I don't really see any point in bothering to update BIOS.  In fact, the newest release of a BIOS update could introduce bugs or other problems that you didn't have before...

 

Just my opinion, but I rarely update anything unless I'm having a problem.  Especially with an application like unRAID where we generally don't care if our motherboard's features are under-utilized (as they often are).

[cj0r]

This is very true in all aspects of BIOS upgrading.  Unless there's a specific reason why the update might pertain to you and or your system isn't running fine... do not update.  Most firmware updates say this don't they?

[bblue]

It used to be the case (several years ago) that you'd get a pretty decent working BIOS in most boards.

 

With newer chipsets, features, overclocking capabilities and onboard devices, and the frantic rush to ship product, we're far more prone to receive an older, immature BIOS than ever before.  If you don't notice problems, good for you.  But that doesn't mean they don't exist or that they aren't affecting you in some way.

 

MSI, for example, encourages you to be sure and install the latest BIOS as one of the first things you do upon installing a new motherboard.  And, as it turns out, they seem to be among the worst with old buggy BIOS's shipped on a brand new product.  Gigabyte prints the usual warning/caution about BIOS updating as a formality, but elsewhere they provide details of fixes and encourage the update.  ASUS is pretty much the same with the warning.  But they ALL are several BIOS revisions behind on new boards, with a variety of different issues.

 

I always perform an initial BIOS update, and after that, check periodically for newer updates that might have effect on some issue I've noticed (when fixes are disclosed).  I generally don't update further unless there's been a significant list of fixes, or improved handling of on-board devices.

 

By far the easiest way to do this for BIOS updates (motherboard or cards) is to make up a DOS bootable USB stick.  Put each update, driver set, or what-have-you in its own directory ready to run with a supplied program.  Then all you have to do is either boot the stick and go to the correct directory to run the appropriate program, or boot normally into the BIOS and flash the new image from there.  It's quick and painless.

 

--Bill

[Chris Pollard]

This is very true in all aspects of BIOS upgrading.  Unless there's a specific reason why the update might pertain to you and or your system isn't running fine... do not update.  Most firmware updates say this don't they?

 

I have to agree with this.

[Bizarroterl]

True, they do say this.  Regardless, I always upgrade the BIOS on new MBs.  They're almost always at least one version behind.  The risk is minimal when new.  No OS/data to lose and if it does get munged up you can just send it back (assuming the vendor has a resonable return policy).

 

 

Once the system is built I won't upgrade the bios unless there's something I'm looking for in the release notes.  Even then, A full backup is done beforehand.