Vista - Award winning BIOS opinion

Sometimes when I install drivers I get the message that my BIOS is out of date (including updates from AMD) if I go to the Phoenix site it says go to the motherboard manufacturer or run Biosagent if you use this you pay for the update but you do get this info so is it worth e-mail gateway support, using the boisagent or just leave well alone.


Info from biosagent
BIOS Type: Phoenix-Award
BIOS Date: August 18th 2006
BIOS ID: 08/18/2006-C51PVGM-GB-6A61HE1BC-00-None
BIOS OEM: C51PVGM-GB V1.0 081806 - 6.00 PG
Chipset: Athlon 1100 rev 0
SuperIO: Unknown
Manufacturer: Gateway
Motherboard: GM5046B
System onfo
OS Name Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium
Version 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 Build 6001
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name PAULGEORGEBA-PC
System Manufacturer Gateway
System Model GM5046B
System Type X86-based PC
Processor AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+, 2200 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG, 18/08/2006
SMBIOS Version 2.2
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United Kingdom
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.0.6001.18000"
User Name PaulGeorgeBa-PC\George
Time Zone GMT Standard Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 3.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 3.00 GB
Available Physical Memory 1.89 GB
Total Virtual Memory 6.20 GB
Available Virtual Memory 5.13 GB
Page File Space 3.29 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

I checked out the BIOS Agent update, and researched it, and there are alot of complaints that the "update BIOS" is usually the same one that is available for free from the OEM, or in some cases, has bricked a system.

I suggest you not spend the money on a BIOS Agent subscription, and instead go to your OEM, and see if there is a BIOS update for your system.

I have e-mailed Gateway to see if there is a update and this is the reply
Hello, Thank you for contacting Gateway

Regarding your enquiry,

We cannot advise you on updating the bios, update will be available from
the gateway website but we do not support bios update as part of the
warranty. If you have never done this before I would advise having an
professional do this for you as it may cause problems if not correctly
preformed

Regards

Mandeep
Gateway Technical Support Team

Gateway - 02073650970
eMachines - 08714670006

But as I pointed out to them Phoenix say that the bios is not set by them and there is no update on there support site so were do I go next and if I try to install a new video card or hard drive is it likely to need new bios fore that?

Here's the drivers & updates from Gateway.

Gateway Support Drivers & Downloads

Thank I have tried there before but as mine is a UK system it is not listed but I did notice that on the US site you scan for drivers but will not work on systems outside the US and the UK site has less on and is base in the US???
PS On my PC it had a thing called Bigfix which was suppose to find problems before they happen and never did anything did it only work in the US?

Well I'm from the UK. Only been in the states for just over a year. I use flashmenu from Abit. This is dedicated to Abit m/boards though. If you have a look on the MajorGeeks.com - Download Freeware and Shareware Computer Utilities. website, you may find a bios updater.