is it safe to flash bios?

[pike8]

is it safe to flash bios (the MB is GIGABYTE ga-p35-s3g)? could i screw it up beyond repair?

 

[Nick]

Flashing is easy, especially on todays boards. I'm pretty sure the chances of screwing your board are next to zero. Why do you want to flash it anyways?

 

[Kharn]

Make sure if you do flash the board you have the right firmware as if it's not the right one you can seriously screw over your system, but unless you have a need to flash the BIOS like adding support for a new processor or to fix a problem I wouldn't do it.

 

[Nick]

Make sure if you do flash the board you have the right firmware as if it's not the right one you can seriously screw over your system

I flasheded or attempted to flash my motherboard with the wrong firmware but it stopped the process with an error message.

 

[saltynay]

Its generally best to use a floppy disk or flash thumbdrive if you update your firmware as automatic updaters can be dodgy and brick boards cof asus cof

 

[CrazeD]

I've used Windows BIOS flash utilities on two different boards with no problems.

That's not to say it's recommended, however, but the software is tested to work. A lot of the newer boards come with some type of backup BIOS or emergency reflash utility or some dealio so if your flash does mess up, you can still save it.