Hot Of The Press New – UEFI BIOS Updates – Firmware – March 2015

BIOS / UEFI releases for the work week 13 of 2015 / March 23rd 2015.

As any enthusiast knows hardware only takes you so far. When considering what affects your experience with component products whether it be a motherboard, graphics card or a router: the firmware for those components & devices makes a big difference. Firmware affects almost all aspects of a product whether it be performance, compatibility / interoperability, reliability as well as general functionality and even the GUI.  This is an area ASUS has spent considerable time and effort, committing a large number of its internal resources to ensure we have leading firmware that provides a superior user experience. In this new ongoing series we will be covering new updates as they are released. We will be noting what type improvements they enable or implement. Additionally as drivers can also affect performance considerably we  will do our best to give you visibility on important driver releases that can provide or enable new functionality, resolves issues or overall improve the user experience. So if you have been wondering whether a new UEFI ( BIOS ) has been released for your board. look no further.

Below is the list of motherboards have received updates this month. As always you can grab these updates at support.asus.com. For networking we hope to have the list of released firmware available soon and incorporate this into our weekly update.

I have listed updates issues for motherboards since our last post in mid Sept.

I would recommend you use control F ( find ) to search if your motherboard is listed.

For the majority of users if you currently have a system working free of issues then I would advise there is no need for updating your firmware ( UEFI / BIOS ). Conditions I would recommend you update the UEFI are noted below.

1. Building your system – Updating to the latest UEFI will help to ensure you have the best interoperability, compatibility, performance and stability
2. Experiencing stability or compatibility issues – While stability and compatibility issues can be affected by a wide range of factors independent of the UEFI if you have gone through standard troubleshooting steps and have verified the issue at stock operation ( as well after a full clean OS installation ) you should consider updating to a newer UEFI / BIOS.
3. Interested in new features – At times post the launch of initial firmware we may integrate new levels of functionality into the UEFI and applications associated with the UEFI ( such as AiSuite ).

Advisory note – Updating the UEFI can affect RAID configurations due to the option ROM potentially being updated / modified this can render a previously configured RAID unusable. As such it is always advised if you are running a RAID to research prior to the update as well as complete a backup of important data.

It has been a little since we posted our last update include below are updates going back to our last update posted in December.

UEFI releases of note.

RAMPAGE V EXTREME – 1302

X99 DELUXE – 1502

X99 DELUXE USB 3.1 – 1502

X99 PRO – 1401

X99 A – 1401

X99 A USB 3.1 – 0401

SABERTOOTH X99 – 0216

Z97 A – 2205

Z97 A USB 3.1 – 0501

Z97 AR – 2205

Z97 PRO – 2205

Z97 PRO WiFi AC USB 3.1 – 0401

Z97 DELUXE – 2205

Z97 DELUXE USB 3.1 – 0401

SABERTOOHT Z97 MARK 1 – 2303

SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK 2 – 2303

SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK S – 2303

SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK 1 – USB 3.1 – 0401

SABERTOOHT Z97 MARK 2 USB 3.1 – 0203

GRYPHON Z97 – 2205

Z97 PRO GAMER – 2102H97 PRO – 2705

Z97M PLUS – 2701

Z97i PLUS – 2603

MAXIMUS VII RANGER – 2304

MAXIMUS VII HERO – 2401

MAXIMUS VII FORMULA – 2304

MAXIMUS VII GENE – 2401

MAXIMUS VII IMPACT – 2401

H97 PRO GAMER – 2404

H97I PLUS – 2503

F1A75-V PRO – 2507

A85XM-A – 6604

F2A85-V – 6605

H87-PRO – 2104

Complete listing of newly released UEFI / BIOS. * this list contains updates spanned across the 6 weeks. As such there are multiple updates for the same board. Please check the support site for the most current build.