Help with updating Asus Bios  

doakh said:

Wishmaster said:

I would highly recommend updating bios from a USB flash, or floppy as opposed to any software from within Windows.

In Windows flashing is very risky. A bad flash will "brick" your MOBO.

USB flash is the safest method. It is very easy. Why get your OS involved??

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Forum- EZ Flash 2 - the safest way to update BIOS

Be sure to reset your BIOS to the default settings prior to flashing and do a CMOS board reset after flashing!!

actually flashing from usb, the file being place directly in the c drive / partition, or through the asus update utility runs the same risk. plus if you are going to flash from c or an usb drive the update utility is in the bios all ready.

doakh said:

Wishmaster said:

I would highly recommend updating bios from a USB flash, or floppy as opposed to any software from within Windows.

In Windows flashing is very risky. A bad flash will "brick" your MOBO.

USB flash is the safest method. It is very easy. Why get your OS involved??

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Forum- EZ Flash 2 - the safest way to update BIOS

Be sure to reset your BIOS to the default settings prior to flashing and do a CMOS board reset after flashing!!

Why do a CMOS reset?

dredge3 said:

Why do a CMOS reset?

Less chance of problems if the bios is reset to default settings before flashing.

ASUS offers AFUDOS, EZFlash, and ASUS update. I've had issues with the OS-based installs (ASUS Update) from ASUS, so I just use EZFlash now. It's built right into the BIOS, so it's easy to access. I honestly don't think you'll trash your board if it screws up. ASUS has some degree of recovery built into the BIOS upgrade programs. I load (and unzip) the BIOS file on a flash drive and make sure the BIOS sees the flash drive in EZFlash first before trying it. You have to know the basic settings in BIOS however, or you'll get yourself into a dilemma. You may need to set memory timings, or set the BIOS up for RAID if you are currently running it, and a handful of other things because when you load the new BIOS it may or may not carry over your current settings. On a side note, I just reflashed yesterday and it preserved all my settings. I'm using a P5P43 TDPro which probably has the same BIOS as yours.

I have owned a number of ASUS mobos and have flashed their bios many times without any problems. The best way I found is to install the ASUSUpdate applet.
Once installed, you can download the bios file from the internet using the update program, or from ASUS. Getting the update to download the file can be erratic and take a long time with busy servers, but you'll get the correct file.
If you want to download the file directly from ASUS, you have to make sure that you select the proper file for your mobo dash numbers or version. You really don't want to install the wrong bios. I also get the latest ASUSUpdate from there instead of using the one on the disk. ASUSUpdate is simple to use and so far, bulletproof.
I also flashed my laptop before I installed Win 7 and everything went just fine.

aem said:

Usually the there is instructions from the site you download the BIOS firmware upate from. A Readme.txt perhaps?

it should either be in the zip file for the rom itself or the zip file for the flash utility.