Updating BIOS on Motherboard

Real quick one for me! Future me that is!! I had to update the BIOS on my motherboard, now a lot of manufacturers will recommend their software which is usually hot garbage! Every time I try it I’m prompted to install virus protection and other sketchy apps. No thanks! I’ll do it myself!

So, I need to know what my motherboard model is so I can go find if there’s been any BIOS updates. How do I do that? How To Geek have my back with this post How to Check Your Motherboard Model Number on Your Windows PC.

Get the motherboard model

There’s loads of ways to do it in that post, essentially I want to copy the model and paste it into a search engine. I went with the wmic command:

wmic baseboard get product,Manufacturer,version,serialnumber

This prints out the manufacturer, model, version and serial number all I wanted is the model (or product) number. I then copied that and pasted it into a search engine and found the BIOS update page for my motherboard.

Last update I did was for 2020 I think so I got the latest version then had to do the dance of getting the BIOS extracted from the .zip into my computer.

Flash the BIOS

There’s loads of videos detailing this, essentially extract the files add it to a USB which you stick into a specific UBS hole in the back of your motherboard.

I didn’t have much luck with that as the only drive I could find was my dedicated storage SSD that’s connected to my motherboard. So, boot up the machine again and add the files to the storage SSD.

Then I was offered the option to backup the current BIOS, I went through the steps for that but on checking the drive there doesn’t seem to be a backup there!

So, a YOLO update as I flashed the BIOS with the new version before checking the old one was backed up correctly!

Enable virtualization

Last thing for me was to enable virtualization in the BIOS. I’m running WSL2 and I need virtualization enabled for that to work.

So, back in the BIOS I went and enabled virtualization. Options for me on the board I’m using are:

• Advanced CPU settings
  • SVM mode
    • Enabled

Done

That’s it, future Scott! I hope you find this useful!