best way to flash Motherboard Bios

[Abhik262]

Hi, i have an ASUS P5Q (iP45) and was curious as to what would be the best way to flash the BIOS on it?

I have downloaded a file from a trusted source which came as a .Zip file, inside of which is a .ROM file and a .txt file consisting of the Md5.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[arthurleung]

Ultimate Boot CD on a DVD-R, then the Asus BIOS and AFUDOS on a CD-RW or DVD-RW.
Boot into DOS with the UBCD and swap the disc.
Get it to dir a few tiems and it will pick up the other disc.
Then just follow the AFUDOS instruction.

I tried usign the BIOS updater in the Asus BIOS and it wouldn't support any large flash drives (the smallest I have is 1GB and it wouldn't detect)

[Bugbait]

For Asus boards, EZ-Flash via the BIOS or boot screen is my recommendation. Even simpler than the DOS boot disc method.

[0iD]

Never ever ever, ever ever ever, ever ever update the BIOS from within windows.

[arthurleung]

Never ever ever, ever ever ever, ever ever update the BIOS from within windows.

Asus even gone as far as telling people NOT to use their own tools despite keep providing updated version of the Windows flasher.

I'd have to say if the EZFlash works for you then its great, but I've never ever got it working and I find the UBCD the easiest way after trying numerous ways of booting into DOS. It is not the flashing part which is hard, its booting into DOS part

[0iD]

I still use a usb floppy drive & a win98 boot disk

[arthurleung]

I still use a usb floppy drive & a win98 boot disk

I don't even have a DVDROM in my desktops (all my desktops share a Samsung USB DVDRW)
Everything run through either GbE or USB flash drives.

Windows 98 boot disks, used to use that a lot when I was like 7 yrs old, reinstalling Windows every month whenever there is a hiccup (only takes 30 min from no boot to reinstalled)

[shaithis]

Look for the HP bootable flash drive maker.

Once I made myself a bootable USB stick, I could never use any other method for flashing.

[arthurleung]

Look for the HP bootable flash drive maker.

Once I made myself a bootable USB stick, I could never use any other method for flashing.

Tried to use that but back then but I remember it didn't work with Vista nor XP x64 (or whatever reason that I couldn't remember).

Seriously a DVD-R only cost like 10p nowadays so I doubt there is a cheaper way of doing BIOS flash

P.S. It took Asus 5 months to produce a BIOS that works with my CPU :S

[shaithis]

The HP tool works fine for me on Vista x64....been using it for quite some time as well.

DVD-Rs are cheap but take a while to update with new BIOS files and to boot from. USB stick is the slickest method out there IMO.

[strike-down]

agreed, flash drives are by a long shot the best method. simple and quick. especially using asus ezflash bios (ive got an old unbranded 32mb memory stick tht works, dont know why ezflash wouldnt work with larger ones ) although i dont have an asus mobo anymore . . sold my striker extreme a while back. Wish I hadnt

[Abhik262]

Can anyone point me in the direction of a guide which would tell me how to flash using the DVD method? From your experiences, i gathered it seemed to work best, but isnt as user friendly as the USB Stick Method. I would have used the USb method but the smallest usb stick i have is 4GB (which i never thought would turn out to be a bad thing ).

[Blitzen]

Never ever ever, ever ever ever, ever ever update the BIOS from within windows.

ABIT are the same (useless swines).
My brother flashed his ABIT AB9 using the windoes tool and it corrupted. ABIT had the cheek to tell him he had done it incorrectly. Fact is, it was the shower of poo flash tool that killed it.

Anyway, he had to buy a new bios chip and get it flashed himself.

(Im glad ABIT have disappeared off the motherboard radar as this was rubbish CS as a direct result of rubbish software they provide).

[Clunk]

Several ways to flash the BIOS on Asus motherboards.

[Englander]

I've used ASUS Ezflash a couple of times (with a 2GB USB stick) and it works fine.

[shomei]

I've used ASUS Ezflash a couple of times (with a 2GB USB stick) and it works fine.

I've also used ASUS EZFlash (with a 4GB USB stick) and it works just fine. It should even work with USB hard disks as long as they are formated in FAT/FAT32 and the bios file is put on the root of the disk.