Windows Update INCLUDES Motherboard Drivers and BIOS Update on M2A-VM?

Hi Guys,

I have a REAL newbie question. I’ve tried reading a bunch of tutorials, but they’re a little over my head. I think my question is pretty basic, but after a couple hours research, hopefully someone here would be kind enough to help.

I have an M2A-VM motherboard and my system keeps freezing up, no input from keyboard or mouse, no ctl-alt-del, nothing. It freezes intermittently, but never goes more than 3 hours without freezing, sometimes freezes in a few seconds, with 5 – 10 minutes being the average time it works before freezing. Seems to freeze more (often immediately) when I’m using the mouse than any other time, but it will freeze on it’s own, just idling, if you give it enough time.

I’ve read a few things including updating bios and downloading the latest motherboard drivers. My problem starts when I go to download the mobo drivers from this page:

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Support-

It lists 41 driver updates there for my motherboard:

41 files found

Qualified Vendor List (1)

BIOS (20) [BIOS History]

BIOS-Utilities (1)

Chipset (1)

AUDIO (1)

LAN (1)

Utilities (2)

Manual (14)

And apparently I’m “missing” these Windows Updates:

Q934062 - Important
Q936960 - Important
Q950130 - Critical
Q951550 - Important
Q951944 - Important
Q973923 - Moderate

Question #1: Do I download all 41?? Surely my machine can’t need 41 updates? How do I know which ones to download and install?

Question #2: Will a windows update select the appropriate motherboard drivers from this list or is that unrelated?

Question #3: Will a windows update automatically select these particular updates for me or do I need to do anything manually to get them?

Question #4: How do I update BIOS? Which to choose (there are 20 listed above)? Is this something a professional should do or is it simple enough for a guy like me?

If anyone takes mercy on me and responds, I’ll be eternally grateful and I’ll promise to help a lost soul in the future as repayment. I’ll take any help I can get.



Here are my specs:

Processor: 2.80 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core
128 kilobyte primary memory cache; 512 kilobyte secondary memory cache; 64-bit ready;
Multi-core (2 total); Not hyper-threaded

Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. M2A-VM 1.XX

BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD ASUS M2A-VM ACPI BIOS Revision 0804 06/15/2007

Chipset: Support AMD Socket AM2 Athlon64 / Athlon64 FX / Athlon64 X2 / Sempron

RAM: 1024 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

OS: Windows 7 Professional (build 7600)




Thanks guys.....

I have the same board on another pc.

You only need to download and install only that which would make your setup current.

You really only need to update the bios if you will be moving up to a newer processor that is not currently supported by the current bios or if the newer bios fixes a known problem.

You need the latest motherboard chipset driver. (I would install this first if you haven't already)

You need the latest LAN driver.

The audio driver you can either download from Asus or from RealTek.

Thank You!

Thanks that will help.

I'm starting with replacing RAM because I think it might be that, but next, I'll download the drivers, starting with the chipset then LAN. Thanks a lot..... I'll let you know how it turns out *crosses fingers*

mudrubble said:

Thanks that will help.

I'm starting with replacing RAM because I think it might be that, but next, I'll download the drivers, starting with the chipset then LAN. Thanks a lot..... I'll let you know how it turns out *crosses fingers*

Click to expand...

Had you done a test of your ram with Memtest86?

Yep, it came out fine on the test. Next I swapped in new ram just to see if anything different would happen. Nothing did. Next I started put my old ram in the 2nd slot and my new ram in the 1st slot and accidentally disconnected some cable from my harddrive or otherwise damaged the board (maybe by forcing the DIMMs into place?) because my computer could no longer detect the hard drive. So I started checking for loose connections, etc. No luck. Next, I noticed a cable unplugged that would fit into a the back of the harddrive and ASSUMED it should go in. No difference, still didn't read the hard drive. Next, I (intelligently, no doubt) noticed the cable could be inserted upside down, which I tried. Turned it on and a puff of smoke. My hard drive is now fried.

Furthermore, I never did figure out what was wrong with the machine, so I'm not going to reuse the motherboard just in case, so all I'll salvage will be the ram and the dvd burner. How do you like that?? For my DIY efforts (foolhardy, to be sure) I'm out one computer. Nice one. So now I'm shopping since I can't live without my computer. Sucks. All things happen for a reason I suppose.

Thanks for the help anyway......