Flashing the bios

[Willy Hamra]

2009/10/9 Ric Moore <wayward4now at gmail.com>:
> Does anyone have experience flashing their bios to upgrade it?? Is this
> a dicey proposition using Linux? Inquiring minds want to know. :) Ric
>
>

it doesn't depend on the OS, this is an OS-independent thing. my
experience has been mostly with intel boards. intel provide a nice
executable to run from Windows and flash the BIOS, but not for other
OSes. and in all cases, i never used it. i always find it the easiest
to use the board's recovery feature. i can boot a DOS disk, or a
windows PE disk, and flash the bios, but i don't have to. i simply out
the .bio file alone on a CD, shut down the computer, open the case,
look for the BIOS jumper, it can be set to normal, configuration, or
remove the jumper for recovery mode. i start the computer (CD already
still in it), in recovery mode, the computer does nothing but look for
a removable media with a valid bios file, checks it for compatibility,
and flashes. you have to wait a couple of minutes, and it will say
when it's done.
this way of flashing has the advantage of being able to supply a
custom BIOS. intel have a program for editing .bio files, change
defaults, splash image, lock some settings (very valuable when selling
a computer that i don't want buyers to tamper with its optimized
settings and complain later on)
again, this all depends on board features, foxconn boards can be very
simple to edit using a windows tol that can edit the BIOS live from
windows, or through flashing.



-- 
Willy K. Hamra
Manager of Hamra Information Systems