BIOS Question, Haswell Refresh and Chipsets

[ion529]

*WARNING: Massive noob asking stupid questions ahead*

 

So today, while on PCPartPicker I was making my favourite types of PCs - Potato PCs, and I found that if I combine a H81 chipset motherboard with a Haswell Refresh CPU it tells me that "some H81 Chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update before working with Haswell Refresh CPUs"

 

Question 1: I thought the BIOS was stored in the ROM (Read-Only Memory) which I thought could not be written to/changed so how would you update it?

 

Question 2: Do you think If I buy this PC will I have to update the BIOS, if so how?

 

Question 3: What is Haswell Refresh?

 

Question 4: What is a chipset, how does it work and how does it affect me?

 

Thanks in advance for putting up with my noobishness

[DominicNikon]

haswell refresh is when intel put new heatspreaders on the 4770k and 4670k to the 4790k and 4690k

[Dabombinable]

2 minutes ago, DominicNikon said:

haswell refresh is when intel put new heatspreaders on the 4770k and 4670k to the 4790k and 4690k

And added more capacitors so that they'd overclock better.

[ion529]

2 minutes ago, DominicNikon said:

haswell refresh is when intel put new heatspreaders on the 4770k and 4670k to the 4790k and 4690k

but how would changing a heat spreader require a BIOS update?

[Marinatall_Ironside]

2 minutes ago, ion529 said:

*WARNING: Massive noob asking stupid questions ahead*

 

So today, while on PCPartPicker I was making my favourite types of PCs - Potato PCs, and I found that if I combine a H81 chipset motherboard with a Haswell Refresh CPU it tells me that "some H81 Chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update before working with Haswell Refresh CPUs"

 

Question 1: I thought the BIOS was stored in the ROM (Read-Only Memory) which I thought could not be written to/changed so how would you update it?

 

Question 2: Do you think If I buy this PC will I have to update the BIOS, if so how?

 

Question 3: What is Haswell Refresh?

 

Question 4: What is a chipset, how does it work and how does it affect me?

 

Thanks in advance for putting up with my noobishness

Answers 1 and 2: You have to put the latest H81 BIOS onto a USB device and flash your BIOS to get it to work with Haswell Refresh CPUs.

 

Answer 3: Haswell Refresh = Devil's Canyon (Better TIM, 4.0 GHz for i7-4790K and 3.5 GHz for the i5-4690K, and Intel HD Graphics 4600)

 

Answer 4: A chipset (or PCH) is a chip on the motherboard that manages the storage medium, peripherals, and data flow between the CPU and memory.

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, ion529 said:

but how would changing a heat spreader require a BIOS update?

They also made some small changes to the CPU themselves which warrant a bios update due to the changed behaviour when overclocking.

[Toxicknight79]

well the Bios can be Flashed ,,,  basically deleting the Bios or UEFI from the *Rom* (which technically is NOT read only , but I know what you meant) * and replacing it with an updated  bios version.

 

chipset is basically The motherboards Function firmware. controlling the video output, PCI-Express lanes, Basically it  is the highway intersection

 

to save me being confusing about explaining the chip set I took this from PCmag.

Quote

PC chipset

A set of chips that provides the interfaces between all of the PC's subsystems. It provides the buses and electronics to allow the CPU, memory and input/output devices to interact. PC chipsets, which are housed on one to four chips, include built-in controllers for almost all common peripherals. The primary components on a PC motherboard are the PC chipset, CPU, memory, clock, buses and BIOS. See

 

[ion529]

4 minutes ago, Toxicknight79 said:

well the Bios can be Flashed ,,,  basically deleting the Bios or UEFI from the *Rom* (which technically is NOT read only , but I know what you meant) *

 

4 minutes ago, JurunceNK said:

Answers 1 and 2: You have to put the latest H81 BIOS onto a USB device and flash your BIOS to get it to work with Haswell Refresh CPUs.

 

Answer 3: Haswell Refresh = Devil's Canyon (Better TIM, 4.0 GHz for i7-4790K and 3.5 GHz for the i5-4690K, and Intel HD Graphics 4600)

 

Answer 4: A chipset (or PCH) is a chip on the motherboard that manages the storage medium, peripherals, and data flow between the CPU and memory.

sweet that got 3 and 4 cleared up but back to question 1 and 2: what do you mean by "flashing a bios" and can you read to rom?

[Marinatall_Ironside]

Just now, ion529 said:

what do you mean by "flashing a bios" and can you read to rom?

Flashing the BIOS means that you are clearing the previous version and flashing the new one onto the ROM. This is easily done usually on the last tab in the BIOS in the "Advanced" mode. When you initiate the flashing process, it is 100% automated, provided that you have the storage medium with the new version readily available for the motherboard to grab. Shorthand: It means to update with a new version.

[Toxicknight79]

1 minute ago, ion529 said:

 

sweet that got 3 and 4 cleared up but back to question 1 and 2: what do you mean by "flashing a bios" and can you read to rom?

The Rom  is not really a Rom its NOW a flash  memory like a solid state drive chip, IBM  had ROMS on the early Computers but Rom is no longer used. I didnt want to complicate  the explanation and confuse you further.

 

 it can be written over and flashing is the process of writing over. 

[ion529]

4 minutes ago, Toxicknight79 said:

The Rom  is not really a Rom its NOW a flash  memory like a solid state drive chip, IBM  had ROMS on the early Computers but Rom is no longer used. I didnt want to complicate  the explanation and confuse you further.

 

 it can be written over and flashing is the process of writing over. 

alright I get it now  cheers