Safely update BIOS ?

[Magnum]

I thought about seeing if there is a newer version of my BIOS.

But I read that you can brick a computer if the process in interrupted.

This is my BIOS info.

Base Board Information (Mother board)
   Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
   Product Name: F2A68HM-H

BIOS Information
        Vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
        Version: FB
        Release Date: 04/22/2015

I found the BIOS updates here.

https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/GA-F2A68HM-H-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios

My current bios is date 4/22/15.

But I only see a Beta one and it is only a couple of months newer.

I do have a UPS with a 30 minute run time.

[Vortex]

Hi Magnum,

The UPS device is very important during the update of BIOS. Probably, it would be better to skip this beta version and wait for the new release.

[Magnum]

Thanks. I will wait for a newer BIOS.

[hutch--]

Andy,

Unless you have a very good reason to update a BIOS, don't take the risk as if you use an incorrect version or have some power failure, you can't restart the board.

[Magnum]

Thanks Hutch.

[TouEnMasm]

If you have a none too much oldversion of windows,The "windows update" will do it itself without error.
Search in it for additionnal update or something like that.

[Magnum]

I am using Ubuntu Mate.

[TouEnMasm]

Perhaps a forum on linux will give a more secured answer ?.
There is further solucse to update the bios and the system in use is given.
The one you choose don't give this information,are you sure it is the good ?.
You need also to know which program will load it ?
Many more questions than with windows.

[Vortex]

Hi Magnum,

Checking the link you posted, I downloaded the beta updated named mb_bios_ga-f2a68hm-h_f2c.zip  The zip archive is offering an application to be executed on Windows, not Linux.

[Magnum]

Hi Magnum,

Checking the link you posted, I downloaded the beta updated named mb_bios_ga-f2a68hm-h_f2c.zip  The zip archive is offering an application to be executed on Windows, not Linux.

Yes it is. As far as I know all bios updates are windows based.

But Linux users can install Freedos on a pen drive, boot up with it and install the bios update.

[TimoVJL]

Some MB can Flash BIOS directly from USB, like my MSI Mortar.
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450M-MORTAR-MAX

[mineiro]

You can create a ms-dos floppy disk, maybe "format /mbr"? Forgot now how to insert a boot sector in a formated disk, it's necessary copy command.com, config.sys and autoexec.bat and update bios software. After a bootable disk (cd-rom,pen-drive, floppy) thats easy, from memory I remember that update bios program give to us an option to save actual firmware bios image to disk as file. Maybe ramdisk.sys can be usefull to create a file system in memory. So, after bootup is necessary format again just to store bios image.

Have other ways, but you need 2 same motherboard (bios chip). You turn on computer with good bios image and save to a file; after this and while computer on, remove very carefully the bios chip with good image inside and insert a bad bios chip; after this you can update bad bios chip image while program is waiting us to press a key to update bios image. I have done this a lot in past when finding bios image was hard. Other option was eprom writer, but thats specific to electronic persons.
Ms-dos and bios image are stored in memory (int 21 by command.com and int16,int10 from bios image).

One problem happened to me while updating a bios image was a energy peak. That create a bad bios image, computer just don't turn on. So, if it's raining, better do this after.

Maybe, not sure, but motherboard cd-rom are bootable.

[Magnum]

I decided to keep my current BIOS.

My computer is running fine.

Don't want to tempt fate. :-)