Old PC BIOS flashing

[BILL S]

I'm not sure I'd want to attempt a flash and fail, but out of all my BIOS systems, the Compaq DeskPro one is fairly limited and seems it could stand an update. My book PC uses Award's BIOS version 4 IIRC and dates to 2000, and not sure I need to change it, as it's worked fine for most things I used the computer for...but DVD playback is still spotty even after changing the Front side Bus and the DMA settings of all drives

My eMachine's original BIOS is also from Award, if I can recall again, from memory. I don't think to use the installed ME base on that I need to update. I also am still reluctant to use XP with only 256MB RAM though I'm told it should work OK

The Desk Pro mobo resembles the eMachine which is why I am wanting to update the 370 CPU chip to a much higher speed, hopefully the fastest available Pentium3 I imagine. Not sure at all how to set that via the BIOS though...the options are only about four or five in the taskbar

BILL

[alc6379]

You probably need to update the BIOS on the machine that is getting the processor upgrade. That machine probably needs to know what bus speeds, etc, that it's going to use for the new chip.

As for the other one-- if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Unless you can specifically cite a reason for updating your BIOS (like a CPU speed increase), I don't recommend flashing your BIOS willy-nilly.

[BILL S]

You probably need to update the BIOS on the machine that is getting the processor upgrade. That machine probably needs to know what bus speeds, etc, that it's going to use for the new chip.

As for the other one-- if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

I'd say, considering the eMachine came with ME and works fine, changing the BIOS might affect that adversely. For the Compaq, I've already loaded my HDD, Windows XP and a used Hitachi/Apple (originally) 5 year old DVD ROM drive... it's running pretty nicely right now, but I think I was already informed that a BIOS update shouldn't upset my hardware or HDD saved content, right?

BILL