Is a BIOS upgrade worth it?

Hey everyone,

I just bought the A0751H-1545 11.6 aspire one and upgraded to 2gb of ram and windows 7 premium from the original XP install. I know that this system is pretty notorious for freezes and loud fans (from what i've been reading). My question is this: The system shipped with BIOS 3204 (according to the box), I havent had any issues with random freezing (fingers crossed) but the fan is pretty loud with constant winding up and down every 30 seconds or so. And to be expected with the slow 1.33 atom, performance is pretty chunky. Would updating the BIOS to the new 3210 posted, be any benefit, or if it *seems* to work ok now, should I just leave it well alone?

Any help/advice is greatly appreciated!

 

If it works, don't fix it. The fan can be controlled with AA1FanControl, and the newer bios is probably not faster.

 

I think that a BIOS upgrade is definately worth it! It will give you more battery life, improve memory usage, and multimedia performance.

Th question is how to upgrade the bios.

 

My only caution would be from all those who have turned their 751s into doorstops via failed bios updating...

If your fan is noisy as it spins up it aint a bios issue, as the fan should be silent till you have your ear to the keyboard. Controlling the fan will only slow it down to make less noise which in turn means less cooling...

If its all OK, I'd put up with the fan noise... Acer will not be responsible for failed bios upgrades...

 

I updated the bios to 3210 last week, and there don't seem to be any problems with it, just follow all the precautions and it should be fine

 

OK I have now upgraded my BIOS a very easy to do experience. What is the result? Better battery life (over 3 hours in Windows Vista...) and a bit faster too! Now runs at 1.35 ghz as designed.

 

guys, anybody knows what is new in the latest bios version?

my laptop is working fine, except one thing.

when i had 1gb ram, i could overclock to 1,48 with no problems at all
when i got my 2gb ram corsair, i can only overclock to 1,38.... kinda lame.

 

I think this only has to do with the quality of your RAM, not the BIOS. The 751h is very picky on RAM.

I am in the near future going to test how far my new Hynix RAM will go as this is one of very few approved by Asus for their OEM 30% overclock.
I just want to see that the system is stable first before I try OC'ing it.

 

YES, I definitely think it is worth it, I just updated bios to v3210, and my windows experience index scores went from 1,3- 4,0- 2,9- 2,5- 5-4 to 1,9- 4,3- 4,5- 3,5- 5,4 and everything including watching youtube videos runs much smoother now.

About the wei, yes I'm sure it was the bios upgrade that caused the changes, updating the wei scores was the last thing I did before flashing bios


I run win 7 rc btw

 

really happy with 3210. was on 3206 before.

UPGRADE!!!

 

I am seeing more comments on "yes you should upgrade" but my quesion is...if it is working for most and I am on 3204 I would think that yes I should upgrade but then I see a response like this one and wonder if I will end up killing my system because it probably isn't as easy to do as people make it sound. Am I correct in the fact that this isn't a simple click the button and follow the prompts? I have never upgraded my BIOS before so I am not sure what to do or expect and even the warning on the Acer website makes me a little nervous. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I just installed Win 7 from the Vista Basic and am having no problems so far.

 

If you are not experiencing lock-ups like many on this forum, it should be a simple and safe task. It does appear that the latest BIOS gives significant performance boost.
The process itself is simple. Download from Acer, close all other applications, run the .exe file and follow the instructions. Then just sit back and wait till it finishes and reboots.

If you are having freezing problems, you should consider it more carefully, as a freeze during the upgrade is likely to brick your computer. A few on this forum has experienced that. Rather than taking that risk, I would advice you to replace your RAM until your system is steady before doing the bios upgrade.

 

After holding my breath, I just "flash" 3210. So far, so good. I don't expect any problems. Now I have to start thinking of Win 7.

 

Dooooo it! I'm still on the release candidate and i really enjoyed the switch to win 7.

The stock acer windows xp was a BIT faster, but windows 7 is just so much more nicer. Windows 7 is much more aesthetically pleasing because of the large screen we have Makes xp look really primitive haha

 

Very happy with 3206, very few if any lockups lately with the stock ram using windows XP pro. RAM usage <500 MB

 

i read about people declaring that after a bios update to 3210, they got higher scores in their windows experience.

i got exactly the same scores, before the update and after the update. i checked my bios version, and it is the 3210.

i used to have 3206.

 

I am not experiencing any lockups at all and have never had any problems at all with anything so far. I may give this a shot. Thanks so much for the feed back.

 

I checked this before my bios update and the number didn't change but my performance seems to be a little bit faster. Much faster initial bootup. Haven't had time to try various programs but I am happy so far.

 

Dumb question (or maybe it's a smart one) but if a BIOS upgrade can render a computer completely useless (and I know that it can) then why do they offer it for download to the general public?

I know that it is typically the more experienced/knowledgeable person who is upgrading the BIOS, but still.....

 

I just checked and am surprised to find that I have 3202, the very first BIOS version.

Should I upgrade? :mrgreen: