, before upgrading to newer hardware or an Operating System? 

Your motherboard, the most important part of your computer, is the largest phonelic or fiberglass board inside your computer on which the majority of Electronic Components are mounted. Also may sockets are mounted on it to accept  different CPU's , RAM, Video Cards, Sound Cards, Modems,  Etc.

BIOS ( basic in out, Operating System ) is the most important software in your computer. It resides on your motherboard in a Flash ROM chip and is upgradeable by some careful steps. This software allows all the individual integrated circuits to communicate with each other poorly or well. As your large Operating System ( residing on hard disk drive ) communicates directly with BIOS  on your motherboard ), before upgrading to a newer Operating System you should first know if you have the latest new BIOS on your motherboard. Your Programs ( applications ) run and communicate with your operating system.

Next we will show you how to determine if you have the newest BIOS from your Motherboard manufacturer and if not, how to up Date it. Locate the Pause key on keyboard. Now turn computer on and quickly start tapping the pause key as soon as you see information on monitor screen. If the start screen stopped now try the Print Screen key and see if you can print the information on screen. If not get some paper and write every thing down. When finished tap the spacebar. You are trying to figure out who made your motherboard and motherboard BIOS and the date BIOS was written. Sometimes you might see something like this;

System: Dell Dimension XPS Dxxx 
Version: A07 
Release Date: 1/16/98 

 In this case we would go on the internet to http://www.dell.com/  and click on support , North America, home and business, Dimension XPS D, Downloads for Your System by Library, flash bios updates and upon finding a newer bios version, follow instructions, updating our motherboard bios to the latest version before updating to a newer operating system. For other manufacturers here is a good link. 

If you can't find the Motherboard manufacturer try Motherboards Org  or    Whim's BIOS page for newer BIOS. If this is the case know your motherboard manufacturer before you buy your next computer. As the motherboard is so important you should spend easily 40 % or more for the highest quality board. Typically this means $140 instead of $100. I believe the best quality vs. price are in companies like  Gigabyte.  Here are my favorite reviewers of motherboards.   <<<here>>> ,   <<<here>>>      and      <<<here>>> . If two out of  three of these reviewers agree about the stability of a motherboard, I would go with it.

09/18/2004 07:52 -0500