[Wylug-help] [Off-Topic] BIOS questions

[John Hodrien]

On Mon, 13 Mar 2006, Emon wrote:

> 1)
> I once heard (from an unreliable source) that Intel & others are
> working on a open source alternative for BIOS, is it true?, if
> so, then how far have they progressed?

EFI is the major push from Intel for a BIOS replacement, but I didn't know
there was anything open source about it.

> 3)
> I read (somewhere) that AGP cards also have a BIOS. Is there any
> way to upgrade this BIOS like the motherboard BIOS?

Yes, but you rarely want to.  Graphics card manufacturers appear able to make
competent firmware, so it's not common for worthwhile updates to appear with
BIOS revisions.  That said, because of a flawed ALI chipset motherboard years
ago, I fried two cards (warranty replaced by the company that provided the
machine) with BIOS updates.

jh

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