At the heart of every PC lies the system's BIOS, or Basic Input/Output System, the lowest-level piece of software that operates by allowing your hardware and your operating system to work together. For users whose BIOS was built by American Megatrends, you can expect regular updates to the software embedded within your BIOS itself, allowing your computer to function more efficiently. However, these updates come from your motherboard's manufacturer, which is not necessarily American Megatrends. Fortunately, navigating to their website and running their Motherboard Identification Utility can give you all the information you need to proceed.

  • At the heart of every PC lies the system's BIOS, or Basic Input/Output System, the lowest-level piece of software that operates by allowing your hardware and your operating system to work together.
  • For users whose BIOS was built by American Megatrends, you can expect regular updates to the software embedded within your BIOS itself, allowing your computer to function more efficiently.

Navigate to the American Megatrends website (see Resources.) Click "Support" at the top of the page, and then select "AMIBIOS Support." Click on the link titled "AMI Motherboard Identification Utility." Choose to "Download AMIMBID." If you agree with the presented terms of the license agreement, select "I Agree." The software will begin downloading automatically to your default download location. The file size is only 128 KB and should download in less than one minute for most connections.

Double-click on the downloaded file, and extract its contents to a folder of your choice. After a few seconds, the 10 files will be unzipped to the file you chose. Run the "MBID.exe" file. Choose "Next" and follow the on-screen prompts as the program determines if your motherboard was created specifically by American Megatrends or by a different manufacturer. The results will be logged to a file named "Results.txt" within this directory.

  • Double-click on the downloaded file, and extract its contents to a folder of your choice.
  • Choose "Next" and follow the on-screen prompts as the program determines if your motherboard was created specifically by American Megatrends or by a different manufacturer.

Navigate back to the "AMIBIOS Support" page as you did in Step 1 if it shows that your motherboard was created by American Megatrends. Scroll down the page until you see "3. Select your AMI motherboard from the following list." Select your motherboard as determined by the results of the Motherboard Identification Utility. On the next screen, look underneath "Bios Updates." If the current revision is more recent than your version 2.61, then click on the red highlighted version number, and then click "I agree" if you agree with the terms of the download. Save the file to a location of your choice, and double-click it to start the process of flashing your BIOS to the newest version.

Navigate to the home page of the motherboard manufacturer listed in the Motherboard Identification Utility if it was shown to come from a different manufacturer than American Megatrends (see Resources.) Though each website's layout will be unique, use the model number from the motherboard information that you have now obtained to navigate to the support section of the website until you find the most recent update to your BIOS. Download the file and follow the install instructions to flash your BIOS to the newest version.

TIP

In the event that you need to contact customer support with questions, be sure that you direct them towards the correct manufacturer of your motherboard rather than American Megatrends by default.

WARNING

Never remove a computer from its power source while flashing its system's BIOS.