When I built my rig (for the first time ever) back in October, I updated all of my drivers but never thought to update my motherboard's BIOS. Is that something that is necessary and is it as easy as downloading it from the manufacturer's site and just running the installer? Is there any prep work I need to do or any precautions I should follow? I've heard that it's something that shouldn't be messed with unless I'm running into problems.

The reason why I'm asking is that I'm playing Just Cause 2 from Steam and it's constantly freezing and CTD (a very common problem among JC2's players) and updating the BIOS is on the "checklist" of things to do for stability in the game.

I'm a bit leery of this process because it's something I've never done as a PC owner. Anyone got any pointers?

When I first build a PC, installing the latest BIOS is one of the first things I do in addition to all the other latest greatest drivers for everything else.

I've actually never had a BIOS update fail on me, even though they warn you to back up your data and clearly state not to bother unless you are having issues.

I think that's just a disclaimer to avoid getting people enraged if their update doesn't go so well.

If you are able to create a backup of your system I'd say go ahead and do that first.

Most BIOS updates come a in a couple different flavors, either update in Windows or in the BIOS itself.

I've only done the update through Windows and like a said before without any issue.

But if it screws up don't blame me! (That is my disclaimer.)

: )

I used to check for BIOS updates every time I build a new PC, but I stopped a few years ago because it never seemed to make a difference and was a pain in the butt.

If you used new parts when you build last October, I really doubt your issues have anything to do with BIOS not handling a game released years earlier.

@Kidavenger said:

I used to check for BIOS updates every time I build a new PC, but I stopped a few years ago because it never seemed to make a difference and was a pain in the butt.

If you used new parts when you build last October, I really doubt your issues have anything to do with BIOS not handling a game released years earlier.

Yeah, you gotta be right. I bought everything new and all the info I'm finding regarding what's going on with the game dates back to 2010 and early 2011. I found a few things to try regarding the game but it's a joke that I'm experiencning these 2 year old problems on a new machine.

It tends to be pretty easy on modern hardware, just a program you run from within Windows. Just close down any programs you've got running and hope you're not unlucky enough for the power to go out on you. It'll probably autodetect whether you have to correct BIOS for you motherboard, though you might want to doublecheck that yourself.

Someone will always put mb bios on a checklist but if you have not added anything to the system I would be amazed if that is causing the problem.

After doing some extensive research on the game, I upped the voltage on my card, didn't OC the settings besides that, and turned off an advanced setting in Just Cause 2's options. The game stopped freezing, my nvidia driver stopped crashing, and now I'm having fun with it. It turns out the game doesn't like OC'd cards and in fact, some people have been underclocking their cards to get the game to work. Crazy, considering the advanced graphical settings on that game.

It turned out there's a setting that doesn't play nice with motion blurring and v-sync and that's what's been causing the crash. I don't get how my GTX 570 can't run this game with everything on and maxed out. It's a powerful card and JC2's intro screens are slathered in nVidia marketing.

It reminds me of my experience with Batman Arkham City, a game I got free with my gtx card via a nVidia promotion that hyped it's optimization with nVidia cards but ran like shit under DX11 settings until Rocksteady finally released a patch six months after it's release.

Heh, just cause the intro logo is there doesn't assure the game runs problem free with the advertised hardware. Funny that. Then again, if I was a current gen dev and Matrox paid me a bag of cash to put a Parhelia intro logo, I'd probably do it.

i recommend updating motherboard bios. Always helped me to solve earlier issues