Bios Update

leokhaleesi · February 24, 2020

Hey All,

Just a general question, is it good or bad practice to update your bios purely because it's out of date? I'm using a now old system with an ASUS Sabertooth x79 and a bios from 2012. On their website I see I'm several versions behind, with lots of "stability improvements" throughout the updates. Part of me feels like I should because mine is so out of date and I may see better performance, but it does also seems like a kind of extreme procedure when my machine is working just fine.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

Slayerking92 · February 24, 2020

It may also fix a security issue.

SansVarnic · February 24, 2020

3 minutes ago, leokhaleesi said:

Hey All,

Just a general question, is it good or bad practice to update your bios purely because it's out of date? I'm using a now old system with an ASUS Sabertooth x79 and a bios from 2012. On their website I see I'm several versions behind, with lots of "stability improvements" throughout the updates. Part of me feels like I should because mine is so out of date and I may see better performance, but it does also seems like a kind of extreme procedure when my machine is working just fine.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

If you are having no stability issues, I would say leave it be. If it aint broke . . .

Updating a BIOS is a riskier thing to do than performing software updates. I normally don't suggest doing a BIOS update unless you are having issues or the update is recommended due to a known security issue. Today BIOS updates are not as risky as they used to be and are pretty straight forward.

If you decide to go through with the update then I strongly suggest you visit the support page of the manufacturer and follow the instructions exactly.

Sorry if I am not giving you a straight answer, but this all depends on your use case, and your level of experience. I personally have only performed a handful of BIOS updates myself and only because it needed to be done.

Roswell · February 24, 2020

43 minutes ago, Slayerking92 said:

It may also fix a security issue.

Most x79 boards don't support secure boot to begin with, most were designed before W8 was released.

leokhaleesi · February 24, 2020

1 hour ago, SansVarnic said:

If you are having no stability issues, I would say leave it be. If it aint broke . . .

Updating a BIOS is a riskier thing to do than performing software updates. I normally don't suggest doing a BIOS update unless you are having issues or the update is recommended due to a known security issue. Today BIOS updates are not as risky as they used to be and are pretty straight forward.

If you decide to go through with the update then I strongly suggest you visit the support page of the manufacturer and follow the instructions exactly.

Sorry if I am not giving you a straight answer, but this all depends on your use case, and your level of experience. I personally have only performed a handful of BIOS updates myself and only because it needed to be done.

Yeah that's kind of how I'm leaning. The only issues I'm having is my external USB 3.0 drive is having some stability issues when I turn on UASP. Pretty minor and maybe not worth the risk...

SansVarnic · February 24, 2020

32 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

Most x79 boards don't support secure boot to begin with, most were designed before W8 was released.

Yes and they would most likely not be susceptible to the 2019 Intel security issue.

3 minutes ago, leokhaleesi said:

Yeah that's kind of how I'm leaning. The only issues I'm having is my external USB 3.0 drive is having some stability issues when I turn on UASP. Pretty minor and maybe not worth the risk...

Minor inconvenience vs a possible bios corruption/bad flash. If I remember correctly x79 bios were tricky to flash (I could be remembering the wrong series) but I think that was when bios flashing was making a change to how it was being done and had not been perfected yet or was it the generation prior . . . I dont recall. /shrug