Now that you know the basics, it is time to check whether your motherboard has an embedded BIOS programmer or not. If it does you should use it, as it is the easiest and quickest way to upgrade your system BIOS.

During POST (i.e., memory counting right after you turn on your PC), press the Pause key. See if there is a message telling you to press a key to enter the BIOS programmer. The problem here is that the BIOS programmer name varies a lot, depending on the motherboard manufacturer. AWFLASH, QBIOS, QFLASH, EZFLASH and FLASH UTILITY are some of the names you may find.

As you can see in Figure 5, this motherboard has this feature, and you can load the BIOS programmer by pressing ALT F2 (a very common keystroke for this feature).

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Figure 5: Motherboard with an embedded BIOS programmer

The motherboard in Figure 6 also has this feature; however, it is called inside setup.

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Figure 6: Motherboard with an embedded BIOS programmer

You may also look for this feature inside setup, which you can enter by pressing Del during memory counting. In Figure 7, you see the same motherboard from Figure 6 and, as you can see, the BIOS programmer is called by pressing F8 inside setup. On high-end motherboards from ASUS, the embedded BIOS programmer (called ASUS EZ Flash) can be found under the Tools menu, as you can see in Figure 8.

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Figure 7: BIOS programmer inside setup

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Figure 8: BIOS programmer inside setup

If your motherboard has this feature, you need to copy the BIOS contents file (the .bin or .rom file that you downloaded from the motherboard manufacturer website and decompressed) to a blank floppy disk. The procedure is quite simple. Enter the BIOS programmer, backup your old BIOS, upgrade the BIOS, and reset your computer. We will show in detail how this can be done in the next page.