Motherboard firmware update

[Alberto1]

Hello,
I could update my Soyo motherboard firmware (model SY-6BA+IV, Chipset: Intel 440BX, Award BIOS) but looking at the related Soyo documentation I noticed this note: You may need to reset the CMOS with JP5 jumper on your motherboard in order to complete the BIOS Flash Process.
I have updated my motherboard firmware once, already, obtaining, that time, the .bin file by Award and then, in the documentation related, it wasn't mentioned any need about resetting the CMOS and the update was performed successfully.
As I am not too much confident in putting my hands into hardware, my question is: Is it possible to get round this CMOS reset ?
Best Regards

[cybertron]

Is there any reason you need to update your BIOS? If not you should probably just leave well enough alone. Flashing your BIOS is an inherently dangerous procedure because if something goes wrong in the middle of it (power outage for example) it can leave your motherboard unusable. In other words, if it's not broken don't fix it.:)

However, if you do need to, then personally if they tell you to reset the CMOS I would do it. The BIOS has very direct access to your hardware and if anything goes wrong it can trash something expensive. As an alternative you could try just resetting to factory defaults in the BIOS itself which most likely does the same thing, but I would still just reset it like they recommend. Switching a jumper from one set of pins to the other is not really that difficult and as long as you ground yourself to some part of the case (by just touching it) and use a little care it should be safe.

[DSwain]

I don't know if you've ever cleared the BIOS, but it's not a major problem generally. It takes only a few moments to reset the data. As long as you know the settings you like and/or need (multiplier, voltages, perpherial settings, etc.) then it should be not much more than a few moments to reset those things real quick. It's probably worth if it too if they advise it. As said about, it could be a big hardware cost; Resetting that info shouldn't be as costly.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

clearing the CMOS jumper is a really trivial thing. Mainly when you do that, you just need to reset your clock's time and date, and your drive boot order. If you have any specific settings, like overclocking or RAM timings, those will need to be reset, too.

Usually, the defaults after the CMOS jumper being pulled are reasonable. That is, with the exception of the time and date-- those are kind of important!