Should I Update My BIOS? - terwilligerbervicad

Rohkai asked the Response Line forum if a PC's BIOS, the likes of an operative system or an antivirus, should be preserved to date.

You should update several programs connected your hard push back regularly, usually for security reasons. Many of them, including your antivirus and Windows itself, probably update automatically. (For questions about automatically updating Windows, see Should I Become Off Automatic Updates?)

But the BIOS is several. IT's not even on the solid drive. And you should only update it with good reason.

Unlike else programs, the Alkaline Input/Output System (BIOS) sits on a chip on the motherboard, and is the first code to lean when you boot your PC. It tells the processor where to look into for the OS. It continues functional later the bootup, facilitating communication 'tween the Operating system and the hardware.

Although you hind end update nowadays's BIOSes, doing so is more suicidal than updating drive-based software. If something goes wrong, IT could supply the PC completely unbootable; you North Korean won't even be able-bodied additionally a live Linux meretricious drive or reinstall Windows. There's believably a way to bring the PC aft to life, but IT won't embody abundant.

So when should you update your BIOS? Only when there's a problem–especially a hardware-related one–and your research suggests that the BIOS may be the crusade.

Research is the key to a safe BIOS update. First, see the stream version of your BIOS:

Select Set about (Part with>Outpouring in XP), type regedit, and press ENTER.
Navigate the Registry Editor's left dot, as if it were Windows Explorer, to Computer/LOCAL_MACHINEHARDWAREDESCRIPTIONSystem.
In the big, right battery-acid, note the data fields for SystemBiosDate and SystemBiosVersion.

Armed with that info, expire to your PC or motherboard manufacturer's Internet site to consider if there's a new version available. If there is, double and threefold-check to take a leak sure information technology's actually for your particular hardware. Translate the description to see if it might fix your problem.

The Web site may offer ii versions of the BIOS-updating instrument–a Windows program and a special, bootable interlingual rendition you fool a CD or flash labor. If both are available, come with the bootable one.

And follow the instructions just right.

Read the original forum discussion.

Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector writes about technology and cinema. Netmail your technical school questions to him at answer@pcworld.com , operating room post them to a community of interests of helpful folks on the PCW Suffice Line forum . Follow Lincoln on Twitter , or subscribe to to the Answer Line newssheet , e-mailed weekly.