How long for a BIOS update?

[TJ10]

Hey all, 

 

I'm gonna a build a PC real soon for the first time and I was researching about the motherboards and the like. 

 

I got to a point where I was getting educated on BIOS updates and it eventually led me to some posts of people have their bios updates get stuck at the update install screen. 

 

What is the likelihood of getting in such a situation and how long does it take to update bios on a modern machine?

[mariushm]

It should take around a minute, maybe 2 minutes. I'd say if it takes more than 5 minutes I'd be worried but I wouldn't mess with the computer until I go over the 10 minute mark.

BIOS sizes are these days 16-32 MB and the write speeds are usually 100 KB/s+ so it should take about 10s per MB or less.

[aisle9]

10 minutes ago, MagnumOpus said:

Hey all, 

 

I'm gonna a build a PC real soon for the first time and I was researching about the motherboards and the like. 

 

I got to a point where I was getting educated on BIOS updates and it eventually led me to some posts of people have their bios updates get stuck at the update install screen. 

 

What is the likelihood of getting in such a situation and how long does it take to update bios on a modern machine?

On a modern machine, BIOS updates are very safe unless you turn off the system, it loses power, etc. Even then, lots of modern motherboards come with a dual BIOS that you can switch to if your main BIOS corrupts. Back in the days of LGA 775, AM2+, even LGA 1156 and 1155, BIOS updates were a little scary. On LGA 775 boards in particular, it was just a good idea not to ever update your BIOS unless you needed to for CPU compatibility, RAM compatibility, stability problems, etc., because so much as looking at the board funny while it was updating could brick it.

 

I still use a USB to flash updates on desktops, but the Windows utilities from ASUS, Gigabyte, AsRock and MSI in particular are all solid and specifically designed not to brick your motherboard. On laptops, I just use the manufacturer's utility to handle the job. A modern BIOS update on LGA 1151 or AM4 shouldn't take more than 5-7 minutes to complete.

[Srijan Verma]

Honestly i am one of those guys who have got into a sticky situation with pc crash due unstable overclock(not necessarily the reason but that is what i think it was ) during BIOS update. When you update your bios in os it has to reboot, my pc got stuck in windows restarting screen forever. And i did the thing any smart(dumb) person would do in such a situation hard shut down the pc. After which it wont boot, no video output, only the lights on cpu cooler and  on the motherboard bright on, when i thought i had bricked my motherboard. Upon some going through the mobo manual and forums, i found that most Motherboards these days have a solution for cases like these. So 2 solutions:
1) Remove the CMOS battery for a few seconds after powering off/

2) Short the jumper (use a screw driver to touch the 2 pins (method might vary from board to boards))

   Another method on some boards is the change the bios or switch the cover on jumper


Hope this helps if you fail

[TJ10]

15 hours ago, mariushm said:

It should take around a minute, maybe 2 minutes. I'd say if it takes more than 5 minutes I'd be worried but I wouldn't mess with the computer until I go over the 10 minute mark.

BIOS sizes are these days 16-32 MB and the write speeds are usually 100 KB/s+ so it should take about 10s per MB or less.

Thanks. Some updates are like 6 MB or so that should take even less time.

15 hours ago, aisle9 said:

On a modern machine, BIOS updates are very safe unless you turn off the system, it loses power, etc. Even then, lots of modern motherboards come with a dual BIOS that you can switch to if your main BIOS corrupts. Back in the days of LGA 775, AM2+, even LGA 1156 and 1155, BIOS updates were a little scary. On LGA 775 boards in particular, it was just a good idea not to ever update your BIOS unless you needed to for CPU compatibility, RAM compatibility, stability problems, etc., because so much as looking at the board funny while it was updating could brick it.

 

I still use a USB to flash updates on desktops, but the Windows utilities from ASUS, Gigabyte, AsRock and MSI in particular are all solid and specifically designed not to brick your motherboard. On laptops, I just use the manufacturer's utility to handle the job. A modern BIOS update on LGA 1151 or AM4 shouldn't take more than 5-7 minutes to complete.

I'd just go with plugging the USB directly to the Mobos usb port to be safe

14 hours ago, Srijan Verma said:

Honestly i am one of those guys who have got into a sticky situation with pc crash due unstable overclock(not necessarily the reason but that is what i think it was ) during BIOS update. When you update your bios in os it has to reboot, my pc got stuck in windows restarting screen forever. And i did the thing any smart(dumb) person would do in such a situation hard shut down the pc. After which it wont boot, no video output, only the lights on cpu cooler and  on the motherboard bright on, when i thought i had bricked my motherboard. Upon some going through the mobo manual and forums, i found that most Motherboards these days have a solution for cases like these. So 2 solutions:
1) Remove the CMOS battery for a few seconds after powering off/

2) Short the jumper (use a screw driver to touch the 2 pins (method might vary from board to boards))

   Another method on some boards is the change the bios or switch the cover on jumper


Hope this helps if you fail

That's informative. Thanks!

[0x1e]

Updates don't take long.
Do them within the bios and never within Windows.
Only buy motherboards with dual bios chips. You most likely will never need the second bios, but when you do you'll be more than happy.

My method of updating a bios is simple and so far has never failed in 20ish years *touch wood*

Go into bios,
Factory reset,
save and restart,

plug usb with bios on,
flash bios,
let it auto restart,
reset bios by pulling the battery,
Go back into bios and do what you want from there on.

and NEVER use a saved bios profile from an older bios.

[mariushm]

52 minutes ago, 0x1e said:

Only buy motherboards with dual bios chips. You most likely will never need the second bios, but when you do you'll be more than happy.

I disagree with this.

 

Dual BIOS is a nice feature that should be implemented in more motherboards but it's not a must. Statistically, the chances of a failed bios update are extremely small, probably under 0.1%

Yeah, you get a 2nd bios in case the bios update fails, or you configure something so badly (too high overclock for example) that motherboard has no choice but to fall back to 2nd bios, saving you from manually resetting the bios) but on the other hand you get a more expensive motherboard and various quirks.

 

Modern software that allows you to update bios from Windows is fairly safe and reliable, but I agree that it's safer and simpler to just put the bios on a usb stick and update bios directly from usb stick. Some bioses even allow you to download the bios directly from the Internet, from the bios.

 

 

 

[Srijan Verma]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

Modern software that allows you to update bios from Windows is fairly safe and reliable, but I agree that it's safer and simpler to just put the bios on a usb stick and update bios directly from usb stick. Some bioses even allow you to download the bios directly from the Internet, from the bios.

I disagree with this, many windows cannot be trusted 100%, i updated from the official app and you can see above what happend

[Kilrah]

And reset any overclock etc before updating. 

 

Also my mobo has dual BIOS but the 2nd actually was empty out of the box, have to use the "copy bios A to bios B" function before there's anything in it. Good to know before screwing up.

[mariushm]

48 minutes ago, Srijan Verma said:

I disagree with this, many windows cannot be trusted 100%, i updated from the official app and you can see above what happend

It's not about trusting the application, it's about trusting the environment.

When you update from BIOS, you're basically working in a single application environment, where there's no other applications running and most devices are either not enabled, or working in a basic mode (ex. video card works in a basic vga/super vga mode, no drivers required, no acceleration, sound card may be disabled etc)

There's nothing else there to interfere with the update process, to screw things up. The only process that exists is the one which reads chunks of data from usb stick or from network card, checks the integrity of the chunk and writes it to memory chip.

 

In Windows, the application is just another process, which shares resources with other applications.

Other applications may use resources at just the wrong moment causing the programming software to stutter or freeze.

Or for example, during the programming of the bios, the bios may pause or reset some devices which could cause hangs in windows (a fictional example: you forget a movie player running which uses the video card for hardware decoding the video, but during programming the bios, a section causes the video card to reset, which may make the movie player freeze or use 100% cpu because it tries to talk to the video card but the video card is reset or restarting)

Last but not least, let's not forget stuff like stupid Windows 10 deciding to restart the pc to apply Windows Updates randomly, if you forget to disable that ... it's really unlikely but Murphy's law... always expect the unexpected.

 

The applications TELL you to close all other applications, but people forget or ignore the warnings.

 

I would also like to comment something else.

You should not rush into applying updates, just because an update exists.

 

You should check what that bios update brings to the table.

In recent times, there were cases where some BIOSes got so big that when new processors were released, they had to remove support of older processors to make room to support new processors.

Or, they had to change the graphical interface of the BIOS from something nice with lots of colors and icons to something more text like or with grayscale icons and graphics in order to make room inside the bios chip for support of newer processors. 

 

In such cases, if your processor is older and the release notes for new bios don't mention any improvements for older processors maybe it's not worth updating the bios.

 

Some bios updates contain microcode updates for CPUs... you update the bios, and then at some reboot the bios updates the microcode (like a tiny bios inside the cpu) of the cpu correcting small bugs inside the cpu.

In most cases it's beneficial (example AMD Agesa updates for Ryzen processors) so it's worth updating.

 

In other cases, it's debatable.. for example Intel had lots of flaws and vulnerabilities the last year or so, and some OS updates and bios updates were required to patch those flaws, but the downside was a few % of performance may be lost due to those fixes. Sometimes you can live with those flaws... for example you may have a PC that's not connected to internet or on which you don't install applications randomly (like a NAS or an internal development server) so you could live with leaving the server unpatched but faster, because the chances of some application taking advantage of those flaws are ridiculously small. 

 

Update it when you have issues with memory sticks (can't reach high frequencies for example) and notes say improved compatibility with memory, or if there's good stuff like AGESA microcode updates, or if they say there's fixes with onboard devices, better compatibility with something you care about etc..

 

For example, in the socket A days (had a Duron 1100 Mhz) , I had a motherboard that had a bios update that was there only to fix a bug that causes some devices to not work right with IrDA (infrared), something I never used, so I didn't apply that update.