fett on 6/2/2011 at 05:41
I'm trying to update all my drivers because my machine is about 6 years old and though I need it to last at least another year, I notice it's starting to run slow and I'm having several conflicts between Win XP (sp2) and some of my peripherals and newer software.
So my question is, how important is it to update the BIOS and chipset drivers? I've got a machine from Tiger and all the auto programs can't detect the exact make on either of these. Plus, every instruction I read about doing it warns that if I do it wrong, the PC will eat my children and rape my corpse, so I'm reluctant to mess with it. Is it really all that dangerous, and is it really that big of a deal on a 6 year old machine?
'Splain this to me like I'm five years old, because I don't know ANYTHING about BIOS or chipsets, I just know they are at the root of how well/fast the machine runs.
Renzatic on 6/2/2011 at 06:36
The only time you'll ever want to update the bios is to fix some horrible bug that crashes your computer every 5 minutes, or if you've got some new piece of snazzy state of the art piece of hardware, and you figure out it isn't working quite right with your motherboard. Otherwise, If it worked fine before, it'll work fine now. The bios never slow down over time, or gets gunked up in any way.
So unless you absolutely have to, leave the bios alone.
Chipset drivers. Well, drivers can become corrupted over time (though rarely), and it never hurts to update them occasionally. But really, if you're finding your computer running slower than it should, the best thing to do is..
1. Run CCleaner, BleachBit, get rid of every unecessary piece of software you've got installed via Revo Uninstaller, give antimalware a spin, look at your startup in MSConfig, turn off all unnecessary services, run a heavy duty defrag program that does full path resorting (mydefrag is good for this), whatever. Hell, maybe even fire up a registry cleaner if you're really desperate and/or feeling kinda lucky. In short, give your computer a complete nooks and crannies colonic.
or...
2. Back up all your important stuff, check out what hardware you've got in the device manager, download the latest and greatest drivers for them, then do a complete format and reinstall Windows.
No. 2 is your best option if you haven't been keeping up to date on your computer housecleaning. Updating your drivers won't do you much of anything if you're too gunked up. sometimes starting fresh is your best option.
Brian The Dog on 6/2/2011 at 14:23
The only reason I can think of to upgrade your BIOS is if you're upgrading your CPU and memory and the older BIOS won't recognise the newer kit. The chipset drivers should only be updated if you're having problems with data transfer. I updated my nvidia chipset drivers and it disabled my LAN sockets :(
As Renzatic says, the best thing to do is clear the older drivers off the PC, and re-install them.
fett on 6/2/2011 at 15:27
Whew! Thanks, guys. I've done pretty much everything in B) except run a more thorough defrag program. Does anyone have a reliable link to unnecessary services? I've turned off the ones I know, but I'm sure there's other frivolous stuff in there that I haven't touched for fear of screwing something up. Really glad I don't have to mess with the other stuff right now. :)
Renzatic on 6/2/2011 at 20:16
Quote Posted by Brian The Dog
As Renzatic says, the best thing to do is clear the older drivers off the PC, and re-install them.
Well, I was saying wipe your harddrive completely, and start fresh. If you're not doing any comp housecleaning on a regular basis, that's about the best option you've got.
You can keep Windows running like it's a brand new install for years and years, but you have to babysit it a little bit to keep it doing so. Running Revo Uninstaller is practically a must whenever you want to remove a program. You'd be amazed at all the crap these games and apps leave behind when you uninstall them. And running MyDefrag and it's system disk monthly setting, CCleaner, Bleachbit, or any other handy cache cleaning program about once a month is usually enough to keep things nice and tidy for a good long while.
Lastly, you can find a good list of services you can kill off (
http://www.optimizingpc.com/optimize/windowsservices.html) here. This is for XP. If you're on Vista or 7, I'll dig up another site for you.
lost_soul on 6/2/2011 at 22:33
I upgraded the BIOS on an old motherboard with an Athlon 64 3200+ to try and fix a strange problem with some video cards. It would fail to set an AGP aperture size at boot, and consequently I would have no 3D support. It really is scary when you think about it. All I had to do was download and run a small executable which gave me the option of extracting the current BIOS or installing a new one. I extracted the current one first, so I could reload it just in case. The upgrade worked fine, but the piece of s___ still wouldn't initialize properly.
I'm really surprised that more hackers don't attack machines via the BIOS. I'm the paranoid type, so I set my machine to disallow writes to the BIOS just in case.
Renzatic on 6/2/2011 at 23:11
Quote Posted by lost_soul
I'm really surprised that more hackers don't attack machines via the BIOS. I'm the paranoid type, so I set my machine to disallow writes to the BIOS just in case.
For a couple of reasons. For one, if you think of hackers as malware authors who want your mom's credit card, then they won't bother with the bios simply because your mom has no idea what that is.
For two, there isn't much you can do with a bios except break your machine. There's potential for havoc there, but it'd probably take more work than necessary to get anything out of it. Since there are easier ways to get at your credit card info just by exploiting the OS itself, most of those malware writing hackers won't have much of a reason to bother with it.
lost_soul on 7/2/2011 at 22:41
From the link: funniest comment I've seen in a wile...
"I wish it were easier to find virus makers. That's the one case I could justify the old law of cutting off peoples hands. Of course, then he'll probably buy Dragon Naturally Speaking and keep making them. I guess the tongue would be the 2nd offense, lol."
