Updating BIOS, speed up your PC?

[phenest]

The hardware must comply to a defined function, absolutely, but what can we say if a hardware is listed to support USB1.0 and after an update the hardware responded to USB2.0?
I had this happening in a machine (my very first computer) where the motherboard was listed as USB1.0 only capable and after an update it became 2.0 compliant. The hardware was there, definitely, but the BIOS software upgrade putting down the orders in it set it free. Could we consider this an added feature? An average user would because hardware issues tend to slip unnoticed. Comes down to the recurring joke of downloading more RAM....

Did you get USB 2.0 speeds? Something being compliant is different to something actually giving USB 2.0 speeds. What you're suggesting isn't possible. Unless it was USB 2.0 in the first place.

The BIOS can switch features on and off, that is true, and the kernel can do nothing about it. But providing a feature is enabled, the kernel can communicate with it directly. Imagine that your motherboard has no further BIOS updates available. If the BIOS has bugs, then the OS can be potentially unstable. The kernel communicates directly where it can to help prevent instabilities. I have SSD's connected to an old tower that the BIOS cannot detect and so they don't appear in the BIOS. But Debian can see them just fine and use them without any problem.

When something like that happens, I prefer to say its the system overcoming BIOS handicaps.

That would not be possible to implement workarounds for buggy BIOSes. There are too many for kernel developers to take in to account, let alone the ones they don't know about. And how would you know if it's buggy? That would require extensive, time consuming testing. It is easier to simply circumvent it altogether and communicate with the hardware directly. It removes an unnecessary layer.

[qyron]

I got. The hardware was just "muffled" by the software lack.

The motherboard was an ASUS that I later read some reviews stating it had been one of those models that came to the market too soon, to meet the demands of the new arriving CPU's (I was running a P4 Prescott series then) and was loaded with bugs at BIOS level.

Even BUS speed (marketed ate 800MHz) was originally much lower and the machine "choked" very often; I got my fair share of BSOD and cold reboots with that machine. Every single upgrade to the BIOS was a nightmare to do (it was so buggy that even the flash BIOS function was prone to crashes) and it received so many it became almost a chore checking for it.

After a great number of updates, it reached a maturity state where the systems was actually functional.