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19 May 04 - 05:01 PM (#1188787) Subject: Tech: To Flash or Not to Flash... From: Cluin There are new versions of the BIOS on my Dell PC available on their support website. The current version I have is A04 and they are up to A09 now. Question: Should I flash my BIOS to one of these later versions? I am having no problems with my computer and flashing the BIOS can be a touchy business. Also, do I have to step through the versions or can I Flash to the latest version? Any suggestions? Or is this a good candidate for Little Hawk's "Shortest Thread" competition? |
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19 May 04 - 05:08 PM (#1188797) Subject: RE: Tech: To Flash or Not to Flash... From: GUEST I think that your "I am having no problems with my computer and flashing the BIOS can be a touchy business" pretty much answers your question. If it ain't broke... I would also like to know more about this from those with expertise, though. Good question, Cluin |
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19 May 04 - 05:12 PM (#1188800) Subject: RE: Tech: To Flash or Not to Flash... From: Richard Bridge Flashed a modem to V 90 once. Went fine no probs. Still the second best modem I got. |
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19 May 04 - 05:12 PM (#1188802) Subject: RE: Tech: To Flash or Not to Flash... From: JohnInKansas Your first place to look for whether this is something you want to do should probably be the Dell description of why they produced this new BIOS, and what it's supposed to fix. There usually is a "technical data" link somewhere to describe a change of this kind. Do they give you any information? Without knowing what it's for, you're asking "should I eat a hard boiled egg or a crab cake today." It's a personal choice. John |
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19 May 04 - 08:16 PM (#1189045) Subject: RE: Tech: To Flash or Not to Flash... From: Cluin They describe the changes made to the BIOS for each version, but don't go into detail about why the changes were made... mostly for the processor to recognize new hardware, I gather. Witness. I used to Flash my BIOS on my old IBM Aptiva whenever a new version came out and never experienced a problem. Of course Big Blue used to notify me by email about the new upgrades. Dell never has. I've heard problems can arise if the power goes out on you or you halt the Flash process before it's finished. Things like frying your chip or motherboard. I'm not much concerned with that, but I'm wondering whether it will interfere with some versions of software I'm running now (some of which were written for WIN95). Also, some driver upgrades available on the Dell Support site seem as though they refer to later versions of the BIOS. I should probably just go ahead and Flash the BIOS. I can always Flash back to the present version; they have that one available too. But Guest above is right with his old axiom too. DEcisions, decisions... |
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19 May 04 - 08:44 PM (#1189077) Subject: RE: Tech: To Flash or Not to Flash... From: JohnInKansas It's difficult to tell all of what you may get without going through all of the intervening updates, but the couple of main fixes in the A09 BIOS have been referenced in Microsoft Knowledge Base articles. 1. If you're running WinXP or Win2K and have a LAN and a multiple USB port setup, or some other "multiple network" configuration, network setup will create a "bridge" to prevent "looping" between the two or more "networks." Some systems don't handle this very well. Relatively few people have setups that contain more than one "net," but it's not always obvious when it does happen so some may have looping nets and not know it. 2. Some PCs, especially portables, have had a lot of problems with "sleep mode" in their power management systems, especially when a USB mouse is used and/or when USB devices share a port. Microsoft warns that "moving the (USB) mouse" while the machine is "entering sleep mode or other reduced power mode" may cause the machine to fail to recognize the mouse, or some other USB device(s), when you "wake up" the machine. The conventional fix is just to turn off the "power saving options." I'd say it's still pretty much a personal choice unless you've had one of these problems. You may want to review the fixes in earlier updates, assuming the descriptions are still available, since Dell apparently assumes you've read them all. (i.e. they only tell you the incremental changes, so you have to read them all in order to get the full picture.) John |
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20 May 04 - 12:06 AM (#1189229) Subject: RE: Tech: To Flash or Not to Flash... From: Cluin Thanks, John. I pretty much figured it was a personal choice, as you say. But I thought maybe someone else might have done it themselves and had some ideas about it. It's probably more the the thought of it, the knowing a BIOS update is out there and should I avail myself of it. I guess I'll e-mail Dell tech support about it and see what they suggest. I won't hold my breath waiting for an answer though, at least not a comprehensible one. ;) |
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20 May 04 - 07:04 AM (#1189456) Subject: RE: Tech: To Flash or Not to Flash... From: Dave Bryant Each BIOS should be a complete version, so you should only have to flash the latest one. |
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20 May 04 - 07:13 AM (#1189465) Subject: RE: Tech: To Flash or Not to Flash... From: Avril Betts It all depends on what you've got to flash and who you're going to flash it at. The last time a dirty old man flashed at me, it wasn't worthwhile looking at by the time I'd found my glasses. Anyway, although he must have been nearly 80, he still managed to run faster than I could, when I chased after him. I have been accused of flashing my boobs on occasions, but that's all due to the shoddiness of modern foundation garments as Janet Jackson proved. |
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20 May 04 - 02:09 PM (#1189951) Subject: RE: Tech: To Flash or Not to Flash... From: Amos Avril: Pretending it is the fault of garments won't cut it, duck. A |