Just learned something about BIOS updates that saved me 3 hours of troubleshooting

Spent last Tuesday fighting with a Dell Optiplex that kept freezing during POST. I was about to swap the motherboard when a guy from an IT forum told me to check the BIOS date. Turns out Dell had a known bug with older firmware and certain RAM sticks. He said "always check the revision history before you swap hardware." I flashed the latest BIOS and it booted perfectly. Now I check the manufacturer's support page first thing on any weird machine. Anyone else ever waste time on hardware swaps that a firmware update could fix?

3 comments

3 Comments

paul_taylor213d ago

I have to disagree with this approach quite a bit. Flashing a BIOS on a machine that's already acting up is a good way to brick it permanently. I've seen it happen twice now, where a power flicker mid-update turned a working PC into a paperweight. I'd rather spend my Saturday swapping a known good hardware part than risk a dead motherboard for the sake of saving a few hours.

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henryp402d ago

Yeah, a buddy of mine tried that once and his motherboard never booted again.

markh8520h ago

Ugh, yeah that's rough. I'd probably just give up and buy a new board at that point.