Hi, all I recently bought a 1GB Kingston DDR/400 RAM Memory chip, but when I tried installing it, the memory test would fail and the computer wouldn't even start the BIOS. Later I checked the motherboard's user manual, and indeed it showed that my mobo only supported Kingston DDR/400 chips up to 512MB. I've read that updating the BIOS and chipset might allow my computer to support more hardware. Does it apply to RAM chips as well? And if so, where can I see the updated list of supported chips? My motherboard is an A8N-SLI Deluxe, and oddly enough, searching for that model in ASUSTek's homepage won't show any results anymore, when I'm pretty sure I've consulted that website for this motherboard model before. Also, when updating the BIOS, is it recommendable to use the ASUS-Update utility? I've read a lot of diverging opinions on this, so I'm not 100% sure if it's a good idea, but I wouldn't know another way to update it. When I checked the available BIOS updates using ASUS-Update, it would tell me I need to update my chipset driver before updating the BIOS over a certain version. Will all these updates force me to re-install OS, or lose my SATA RAID drivers, or anything like that? And lastly, does the computer's booting speed really slow down with updated BIOS versions?
wow, you have a lot of questions! Ok, I dont think that updating the BIOS will allow you to run a higher capacity of ram. Regarding the update question, I used ASUS update for my mobo, and it worked fine. I think that's the only program you can use to install a new BIOS version, so you can download the version from the web, and use ASUS update to install it. I dont believe you will lose any data on your HDDs, since it's just a update for the chipset. So, you shouldnt have to reinstall your OS, but if worse comes to worse, you can always use system restore. No, BIOS updates will not slow down your computers boot time, but if you made changes to the old BIOS, make sure you redo those changes to the new BIOS as all settings will be lost in the update.
