Should I Update My BIOS?

[Beezer]

I've got an ABIT BE6 motherboard operating with the initial BIOS release (June 1999, I think). My system has never felt as stable as it should be -- an occasional "blue screen of death" on boot up, failure to shutdown, occasional system freezes during mundane computing sessions, and hesitations during disk drive activity.

I tried many things over the past 9 months, and have yet to find the "smoking gun". I'm thinking it's time to update the BIOS, but I'm getting mixed recommendations from people I've asked so far. Some say, it's pretty straight forward to flash the BIOS, others say I'm asking for trouble.

If you don't think this will help, I don't want to take the chance. What do you all recommend. I'm also using the initial release of the G400 BIOS (1.3-20) with PD 5.41. I don't think my problems are video board related (but could be wrong).

PIII 450
256 MB RAM (intel certified)
13 GB Quantum drive (UDMA66)
20 GB Quantum drive (UDMA66)
G400 32MB DH
SB Live
Kenwood 52X TrueX CDROM
Window 98 SE

[cjolley]

I always wait about two weeks after a new bios comes out befor I flash it. Just to make sure there are no big errors in it.
That would put you about 50 weeks behind right now.
chuck


------------------
ABit BF6, P3-650@923, 256mb@142cas3, 10gb IBM@7200, SB Live Value@3.0, Pioneer 104s DVD, Mitsumi CDRW@2x2x8, Acatel 1000 ADSL@1.5mb/sec, Linksys EtherFast NIC, LG 995e, USB mouse,Matrox G400 MAX!!!!

[Brian R.]

I have your setup, pretty much, and have no problem with the most recent BIOSs (MB and G400). I have always followed the BIOS instructions exactly and have never had a problem with either the BE6 or the G400. I vote for updating the BIOSs.

Make sure you create a BIOS recovery disk for the G400 before you update its BIOS. Might save you a lot of trouble.

[This message has been edited by Brian R. (edited 18 June 2000).]

[fds]

Sure, upgrade the BE6 BIOS.
It's no wonder you are having crashes, especially if you are using the onboard Highpoint ATA66.

Start a safe mode command prompt and follow abit's instructions.

As for the G400 BIOS, upgrading it didn't make the slightest difference for me.
On the other hand you can now even flash the G400 BIOS from Windows, so why not. It takes only a minute.

[cjolley]

Use Boot Menu to start in "safemode command prompt only".
Turn off caching of your bios. If you know how, it prob doesn't matter nowadays.
chuck

[Beezer]

Great! Thanks for the advice. It sounds like this might indeed improve my system stability. I think I'll start with the Abit BIOS first.