Newbie fraidy-cat vs. updating the BIOS ;)

[sparrowhawk]

I am thinking that updating the BIOS may be the next step for fixing my mysterious intermittent PCMCIA problem. (see my previous thread)

The fraidy-cat in me says: "WHAT? Ya wanna update an otherwise perfectly-working computer?!!"

Might as well ask: just how risky is updating the BIOS? What is there to worry about?

For the record... I consider myself qualified as at least a half-geek, just with a few blind spots in my computer-fixing knowledge.

[Nolonemo]

Since you have a real problem, I'd go for it. Two things to bear in mind:

1) Do it with fully charged battery, and plugged into AC. If you lose power during the update, your bios is fried. You then would need to replace the BIOS eprom with a functioning one.

2) Make sure you flash a T23 bios - flashing the wrong bios will fry the bios, and you would need to replace the BIOS eprom (or have it reflashed on a flashing rig).

Having said that, I've never had a problem flashing a bios, so, unless your system is showing signs of real instablility, I'd do it in your case.

[jdhurst]

I'm not sure why a BIOS update would fix a PCMCIA problem as I do not recall any such info on BIOS updates for my (now gone) T23 and T30. That said, I have a FDD-USB diskette drive, I download exactly the correct BIOS for my specific model from the specific support page, I make the diskette carefully, and I have *never* had a BIOS update problem. So work carefully and neither should you. ... JD Hurst

[LtTPfan]

Intermittant PCMCIA problems are sometimes the indication of a faulty system board. Hopefully that is not your problem.