The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
How hard is upgrading the BIOS usually?
Since I have also have an innate fear of messing with my bios, what are the chances that this will render my system useless?
There is always a degree of risk when flashing the BIOS (which I can't really quantify for you), but the operation in itself is very easy. You open an installer and it does all of the work. If you've every installed a program before, you're "qualified" to flash your BIOS. The more difficult part is understanding what you're doing and being aware of the risks before you flash it. You'd be surprised by how many people flash the BIOS without know anything about it. The next difficult part is knowing what to do in the event that something goes wrong.
Make sure that you're plugged in before you do it.
Most bios upgrade failures occur because:
1. An incorrect file is flashed which shouldnt be the case if you got the right file for your model from the manufacturer support site.
2. Forced flash of a hacked or otherwise modified file.
3. Downgrading, which MAY cause problems if changes were made to the hardware during manufacturing cycle but otherwise should be ok.
4. Changes in hardware configuration or running applications during the flash process.
5. Power failure.
the If you have a pc which is stable and doesn't show unusual unexplained behaviors, there shouldn't be any series flashing problems. Just follow the basic precautions.
I always make sure the laptop is hooked up to external power and flash the bios right after a restart of the pc so its sure no extra or invisible app/process is running in the background.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
