Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2000/07/04/intel_bios_update_close_but/

Intel BIOS update – close but no cigar

Who needs audio anyway?

By Andrew Thomas

Posted in On-Prem, 4th July 2000 11:35 GMT

Updated You see what happens? You write a positive story about Intel and fate vomits in your face.

When we reported yesterday on how pleased we were with Chipzilla's latest mobo utility Intel BIOS update - it works!, we spoke a tad too soon.

Although our VC820 mobo updated to the latest version 12 BIOS without a hitch, as soon as our back was turned, the system went to sleep as normal, on awakening, the onboard SoundBlaster 128 audio had stopped working.

A quick check on the motherboard forum at Intel's support site revealed that we were not alone - several users had lost all audio functionality after upgrading to BIOS 12. Others had lost the hard disk LED.

As yet Intel has not posted a workaround, although some forum members report that reverting to BIOS 11 restored sound.

Not on our dual-boot VC820, it didn't, despite lengthy fiddling about, nary a peep came out of the speakers in either Win98SE or Win2K Professional, although - saints be praised - the hard disk LED works just fine.

So we now had a system with no audio, running on an old version of the BIOS and without the fast boot mechanism we rated so highly yesterday.

However, after reverting to an even older version of the BIOS (10) and then returning to BIOS 11, the audio mysteriously reappeared. Weird.

But next time we're tempted to say how clever Intel is, we'll think twice before rushing into print. ®