Please help me understand.
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Some devices can have BIOS update utilities which can install updates without powering down. You would still need to restart the computer in order to have those updates applied since you’re still using it.
Are you asking why you may need to use the provided BIOS utility tools (either in the OS or right after POST)? That would be because the BIOS isn’t located in your regular storage like Windows or Linux. You need a specialized program to update the chip that stores it.
BIOS is what initiates the start up of all other programs. You can’t update something while other things are using it to run.
Shutting down closes everything. BIOS initializes first so it can then update without any of the other higher level programs running
Usually because you get into your BIOS utility before a complete setup. There are other ways to do it, but that’s the most common way.
Because in order to access the BIOS settings screen you can’t have an operating system running. There are several cases where you can change the firmware/BIOS while booted, because it is just a small reprogrammable memory chip that is loaded upon boot. Usually consumer motherboards don’t allow the OS to access that chip because it could be abused by malware. One notable case is if you have a Chromebook and want to install Linux or Windows you have to replace the stock “only chrome” BIOS/firmware with a custom one, which is done in Chrome OS itself. It takes effect after you restart.
When you boot up a computer, the BIOS is the first thing to run — it POSTS the system (Power-On Self-Test; basically making sure the motherboard, RAM and firmware are all functional), and then hands off the rest of the startup to the OS kernel to finish the process.
What that means is that, after it does its job, the BIOS goes dormant. It only runs once, on startup, and won’t run again until the system is restarted. Any updates made to the BIOS prior to a restart won’t ‘take’ until then.
That’s also why you’re advised not to restart your computer during a BIOS update: the process requires that a chip on the motherboard be completely re-written with new firmware (‘flashed’ is the technical term), which is an all-or-nothing procedure that will erase the existing BIOS.
Interrupt that process, and you end up with no BIOS at all and a system that won’t POST.
What? It’s not powering down before a BIOS update that is important, its not powering off while doing one.
As for semantics, often you have to use your. Motherboard’s flashing utility, but there’s no reason an OS can’t flash the bios. As a matter of fact that’s how we do it in the cloud.
The BIOS is in the RAM. You select the changes that you want for the BIOS boot. You press F10 then enter. The computer flashes the changes to the BIOS memory. And then it shuts down—clearing the RAM. The BIOS memory then boots BIOS in RAM. Since the BIOS memory has been flashed, it follows the new instructions when it boots.
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