On Thursday, April 26, 2012 10:22 AM Basil Chupin wrote:
Yesterday I picked up from the store all the bits from which to create a new magical computer - which I will be so doing in the next 12 hours or so.
There is an upgrade available to the BIOS on the motherboard - which the installation instructions suggest be done.
However, the darn upgrade file is an *.exe file. I have "unarched" this file and it contains a *bat, an *exe and the actual BIOS upgrade file.
I have never applied a BIOS upgrade while using Linux, and the last time I did apply a BIOS upgrade was some 9 years ago under XP.
The question therefore is: how do I apply this BIOS upgrade when I install openSUSE (12.1)?
Thanks for any hints/comments.
BC
First, you absolutely need to follow the mobo manufacturer's instructions, or you may bork the bios altogether. It varies between manufacturers. Generally speaking, there are 3 methods provided: (1) Using DOS media; this used to be primarily with a floppy but since many machines don't have floppies anymore, an optical disc may be supported. (2) From the OS via an installed mobo utility; invariably only Windows is supported. And (3) directly from within the bios setup utility using either external media or sometimes from the hard disk. There will be instructions in the manual. In the (many) machines I've built, I always used method (3). The other two methods have software dependencies, and while any DOS usually works fine, Windows can always burp so that method IMO should be avoided. Using the BIOS itself to update is the most direct and safest. Re the .exe file: Very often if not most of the time that's just an archive file. When you execute it on windows you'll get the actual bios file. Sometimes, but not always, the DOS utility is in this file, too. The Windows utility is IME always separate on the mobo DVD. There can be a little gotcha here. Wherever the bios file is located, it must be readable by the bios or DOS utilities, and usually that means a FAT file system. Be sure to have a copy of the current bios before you over-write it. Some bios utilities have write capability and can do that for you. High-end boards may have a second bios device which is a backup/failsafe. If there is not a built-in backup, it's important to download a copy of what is installed and have that also on installable media, just in case something goes wrong with the update or the machine won't boot. Good luck. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org