Brush up your BIOS

OK, after all the warnings about how a failure to install the BIOS properly, or installing the BIOS for the wrong board revision, could permanently disable the machine, I was a bit nervous about updating the BIOS. However, using the @BIOS utility, I could see the motherboard was at revision F1 and the Gigabyte website said that the current version was F5, so I figured that I needed to make the attempt.

There are a lot of ways to update the BIOS. I'm documenting what looks like the easiest here.

1. From Start menu, navigate to Gigabyte group and right-click @BIOS. From the pop up menu, select Run as Administrator.
   
2. From the @BIOS program, select Update BIOS from GIGABYTE Server.
   
3. Select the server in the US and press OK.
   
4. In the Please select one file to update dialog, verify that the correct module name and motherboard revision is shown. Then select the BIOS to install and press OK.
   
5. There will be a message about the screen freezing for a few seconds while updating the BIOS. Cross your fingers and press OK.
   
6. Restart the system.
   
7. After logging in again, go to the Start menu and open the Gigabyte program group, open DMIView and start DMInfo. Double click on BIOS Information and make sure that the correct BIOS version got installed. If there is a problem downloading the BIOS, @BIOS will silently revert to the latest version that it can download. It may be necessary to go to the Gigabyte site, locate the desired BIOS and download it. However, if @BIOS has a problem downloading the BIOS, then you'll probably has a problem too. You may have to download the file from the Asia site, but don't worry, it will be a English BIOS.
   
8. If you downloaded the BIOS, it will be an EXE. Run that EXE and it will extract itself in the current directory. The extracted files may be placed on a USB drive and used as the boot media. A program will run, FLASHSPI, that will update the BIOS. You can also use the @BIOS program's Update BIOS from File to update the BIOS. Select MA78GUS2.F? as the file.

Sadly, this process did not repair the Away Mode System. It also set the BIOS settings back to their default, so I had to make them again. (It's a good thing that I took notes.)

For once in this entire process, the blog has caught up with the work. So, what's next? I'm hoping for you that you have a dedicated network cable to your new HTPC. However, for me, I need to install a wireless card in the machine and set up a wireless network. So, I'll be back after I finish that.