Asus P5qpl Am Bios Update Download

Rohkai asked the Answer Line forum if a PC's BIOS, like an operating system or an antivirus, should exist kept up to appointment.

Y'all should update several programs on your hard drive regularly, unremarkably for security reasons. Many of them, including your antivirus and Windows itself, probably update automatically. (For questions about automatically updating Windows, see Should I Turn Off Automatic Updates?)

But the BIOS is different. It's not fifty-fifty on the difficult drive. And you should but update it with good reason.

Different other programs, the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) sits on a scrap on the motherboard, and is the outset lawmaking to run when y'all kicking your PC. Information technology tells the processor where to look for the operating system. Information technology continues working after the bootup, facilitating communication between the Bone and the hardware.

Although you can update today'due south BIOSes, doing and so is more dangerous than updating bulldoze-based software. If something goes incorrect, information technology could render the PC completely unbootable; you won't even be able to boot a live Linux flash drive or reinstall Windows. At that place's probably a way to bring the PC back to life, but information technology won't be easy.

So when should you update your BIOS? But if there'south a problem–peculiarly a hardware-related one–and your inquiry suggests that the BIOS may be the crusade.

Inquiry is the key to a rubber BIOS update. Outset, find the electric current version of your BIOS:

Select Start (Start>Run in XP), type regedit, and printing ENTER.
Navigate the Registry Editor's left pane, as if it were Windows Explorer, to Estimator/LOCAL_MACHINEHARDWAREDESCRIPTIONSystem.
In the larger, right pane, note the data fields for SystemBiosDate and SystemBiosVersion.

Armed with that data, go to your PC or motherboard manufacturer's Spider web site to see if at that place'south a new version bachelor. If in that location is, double and triple-check to make sure information technology's actually for your particular hardware. Read the description to meet if it might set up your problem.

The Web site may offer ii versions of the BIOS-updating tool–a Windows programme and a special, bootable version you put on a CD or wink bulldoze. If both are bachelor, go with the bootable i.

And follow the instructions to the letter.

Read the original forum word.

Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector writes about technology and cinema. Email your tech questions to him at answer@pcworld.com , or post them to a community of helpful folks on the PCW Respond Line forum . Follow Lincoln on Twitter , or subscribe to the Answer Line newsletter , e-mailed weekly.