Do you set BIOS to defaults when updating to newer version?

Great comments. Thanks. Maybe I'll do a poll this weekend.

Great points that there is a difference between self builders working with motherboards - and remember that these high end motherboards allow for a LOT of customization - and the folks buying pre-built systems from major OEMs.
And Laptops! The ones I've been inside of I think you could change the time - and that's about it! (A little sarc)

I'm old school, and remember the good old days when flashing a BIOS was a hold-your-breath experience. I believe that all the advice to only update your BIOS if you only need to comes from those days.
Back then we were working with true BIOS, not EFI systems of today. We keep calling it "the BIOS" out of habit but it really is "the EFI".
EFI systems work a lot like an OS when it comes to updating. Nothing ever goes wrong! (laugh here). Its really is one of the best improvement in PCs there was.

The original BIOS was on a ROM chip. THey set it in the factory and that was it - it never changed.
Then we got EPROMs and could actually flash a BIOS. But the early days were "exciting". Any hiccup could brick the system, with very few options for recovery. That's when I learned to reset defaults. Probably an old habit now.

TVeblen said:

I'm old school, and remember the good old days when flashing a BIOS was a hold-your-breath experience. I believe that all the advice to only update your BIOS if you only need to comes from those days.

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Agreed. And I live by the mantra or don't break what isn't broken.

I like things to stay simple at home. I work in IT and I work 40+ hours a week troubleshooting and fixing computers/systems/servers/firewalls/loadbalancers/etc. Honestly I don't tinker nearly at all on my home computers anymore. Also, since Covid I have been working almost exclusively from home. So, I sit at the computer at home all day, and when my day at work ends, I prefer to either go out, watch tv, play my guitar, etc. Last thing I want to do, is install a new BIOS on my computer and hope that stability isn't impacted.

pparks1 said:

don't break what isn't broken.

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Although security concerns suggest that if you don't update, it will be broken sooner or later...

Senecio said:

Although security concerns suggest that if you don't update, it will be broken sooner or later...

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My thoughts are sooner rather than later. The board manufacturers seem to have a flurry of updates early on which then eases off. This suggests to me that they are fixing the bugs in the early releases that the customers find for them.

I currently have a build myself desktop with an MSI mainboard which is less than a year old and it already has about 4 or 5 BIOS/UEFI updates. MSI seem to always put the settings to optimum after an update. I'm waiting on the next update. MSI have put a bug in their newer BIOS that ignores Secure Boot settings and allows anything.

TVeblen said:

One Reason: I will have to re-enter all my custom BIOS settings after the update anyway. By resetting to defaults, when I go to save and exit > there is a list of all the changes I will need to remember to re-do.
It's easy to forget a change that you didn't write down sometimes.

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I thought you wanted Defaults to begin with. Then yeah, might help to take a photo with your phone or write down the changes (like tested stable OC & voltages - sure can take awhile to to start doing that from scratch). Since this days i'm using only the laptop - didn't have to bother with OC. Other than that - i already know which settings i have to tweak. ^^

safron said:

This has not been my experience. The last 8 or so BIOS updates we've applied (coming fast and furious now) have retained the modifications we've made to settings - e.g., CapsuleFirmwareUpdate = Disabled

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Last time i checked - that wasn't possible with BIOS (all OC settings changed default - both frequencies and voltages). Only aware of UEFI saving settings. Then again - UEFI is quite different in many ways compared to a legacy BIOS. This days - most systems i had to deal with used UEFI - while most updates were meant for supporting a newer CPU. For clients i had to set anything from scratch anyway (i don't bother with OC tho).

glasskuter said:

IMO Not as much so as it used to be. As computer hardware has gotten more sophisticated, so have the manufacturers and OEMs methods and self-checks. Thru their safe-guards, they also have ways of reflashing old bios versions. That's not to say you can't be bricked...you can. Just not as likely as in years past. I'm old school in a lot of things, but flashing bios is not one of them. When a new update is released, I give it about a month before I apply it. I figure if it's going to cause a problem, in that time it's either already been fixed or it's been pulled from my OEM's database.

And for anyone who allows windows update to update your bios, I feel you should not. Get it from your OEM.

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I entirely agree @glasskuter. To prevent Windows Update from updating the BIOS, we've disabled CapsuleFirmwareUpdate in the BIOS - one of a handful of mods we've implemented.

safron said:

To prevent Windows Update from updating the BIOS

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For me I would add all drivers to that. That's one of the beauties of having Pro...being able to use group policy to disable driver updating. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I believe bios updates come down the pike from MS as a driver update. Most people who buy Pro knows to use GPO. Speaking for myself, when I disabled driver updates in GPO, it also stopped bios updates. As for Home users, many don't know enough about drivers and the why/how to keep them updated, let alone the fact they can disable driver updates in the registry. I think this is why MS took driver updating out of the hands of the average Home user because they were running drivers that came out of the ark.. Most times, device drivers from WU will suffice, but not always. As a whole WU manages them fairly well.

I wouldn't trust WU with my bios updates though...excuse me...UEFI updates, nor my graphics drivers. I'm old school, too.

My basic rule, that has been hard learned over the last 40+ years, is to never change two or more major parameters of a working, [and most of the time a non working], system at the same time.

Major system changes can cause issues occasionally, and when this happens you need to be sure which change has caused the issue

Where the recommended methodology requires that you change more than one parameter at the same time [eg. a new BIOS that will not work with the current OS installation but only with a new OS], I ensure that I have a backup image of the working system [ to be honest I also do this before any major or most minor system change. ]

neves said:

But, why?!

While Updating the BIOS - the update process will erase the previous version, copy the new version - run a basic check - then reboot. The settings from your older version are irrelevant (they won't get ported to the new version - cause again - it deletes & copies the new bios without taking past changes into account). So, basically - after Updating the BIOS the settings - will be the Default settings.

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safron said:

This has not been my experience. The last 8 or so BIOS updates we've applied (coming fast and furious now) have retained the modifications we've made to settings - e.g., CapsuleFirmwareUpdate = Disabled

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I think many are confused here. With prebuilt systems and laptops, the settings are already set to where they need so when a BIOS update gets done on those systems, nothing is changed or needs to be reconfigured.... unless you made changes from the norm.

On custom built systems where, one buys their own boards as I do (Gigabyte), you'll often have to configure the BIOS to suit your own needs and system configuration, especially is overclocking the CPU. For these systems (custom built) when you update a BIOS it WILL default to the base settings and wipe your custom settings. That's been my experience with every single BIOS update I've done on my custom builds, whether Intel boards, or now Gigabyte boards. It's been that way forever.

With laptops, not so much. In fact, I've never bothered to visit my laptop's BIOS after any BIOS update because I've never done any changes there to begin with. Also, that the BIOS and its updates are already configured properly for the laptop. The only time I'd worry is if I made a change from the norm.

BTW, you can also create your own custom BIOS profiles to be loaded upon say a CMOS reset or battery change. Simply load the BIOS profile you saved after changing a battery, and your old setting will be restored. Unfortunately, a BIOS update will also wipe your saved profiles, so...

With regards to the question.... I don't reset anything prior to a BIOS update. I simple do the update and reconfigure my BIOS as it was before. I don't even bother with Load Optimized Defaults. I simply reconfigure the BIOS after the update.

That's me.

Dru2 said:

I think many are confused here. With prebuilt systems and laptops, the settings are already set to where they need so when a BIOS update gets done on those systems, nothing is changed or needs to be reconfigured.... unless you made changes from the norm.

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You are absolutely correct. I definitely screwed up the title of this thread (and poll). I should have confined it to custom built, configurable systems.

Good to know you have flashed without resetting and lived to tell the tale!
Actually, I've done it both ways without incident. But I do like getting that list of changes to reset that you get when you reset defaults then save and exit!