BIOS update and/or Fantasy Grounds/video card question

GentleGiant · Feb 13, 2005

I'm trying to help out a friend who has run into some problems. Sorry if the title doesn't make much sense

After upgrading to Win XP Home, from Win98, he has been experiencing some problems (most performance wise problems are probably tied to the fact that he could use some more RAM).
Especially after installing SP2 he has had trouble with certain games and programs.
Lots of errors pop up, so now he has uninstalled SP2 again and so far so good.
However, when running Fantasy Grounds there are problems with the newest driver for his graphics card installed, but he has to have that installed to run games like e.g. Morrowwind.
So, new driver installed = Morrowwind good, FG bad - and vice versa.

He did a troubleshooting Q&A and Windows suggested maybe upgrading his BIOS.
None of us have done so before, so we're uncertain how to proceed if that's the route to go.
As far as I've been able to dig up, this might be a good idea no matter what when updating from Win98 to XP.

Some more specs (if more are needed I'll wring them out of him):
384 Mb ram (1 x 256 Mb + 1 x 128 Mb)
Geforce 3 TI200 (128 Mb ram)
Asus A7V motherboard

I've asked this here instead of on Fantasy Grounds' forum, since it's probably not a problem confined to their program.

rom90125 · Feb 14, 2005

Using the 'Start' button, navigate to 'Programs' 'Accessories' 'System Tools' 'System Information'. In the right pane will be a detailed list of the System Summary. You should see a line that reads 'BIOS Version/Date'. This info will tell you which BIOS you are running and at which revision. Using this info, you can google the Manufacturer's site and find their 'download' link. From there you are pretty much on your own, as different vendors provide different services for downloading BIOS updates. What I can tell you is that there are generally two types of BIOS update...floppy and flash. I prefer the flash version as this allows you to download the update to your harddrive and update the BIOS from there. The 'floppy' option is legacy (to older days) but just as reliable (but more time consuming). This choice involves downloading the self-extracting zip file to your harddrive and then uncompressing the files to a floppy. Once the floppy is prepared, you will reboot the machine with the floppy in the drive and the update will continue automagically from there. If given the choice, I'd go with the flash update...

GentleGiant · Feb 15, 2005

Thanks for the BIOS update info.
Do you now whether anything would happen by updating the BIOS even if that's not the problem behind the other problems?

rom90125 · Feb 15, 2005

In so long as you ensure you have the correct update for your BIOS vendor, there shouldn't be any issues with the update. I've updated the BIOS on many machines in my day, and I've never had a problem (crosses fingers).

GentleGiant · Feb 16, 2005

rom90125 said:
In so long as you ensure you have the correct update for your BIOS vendor, there shouldn't be any issues with the update. I've updated the BIOS on many machines in my day, and I've never had a problem (crosses fingers).

Thanks, I'll pass the info on to my friend.