(newbie)- I have hardware issues, DVD rom hangs up,etc. Thinking my bios needs update..'93 version. Award AM37310 oem It says...KM266 motherbd...cant find any free download, anyone know?

Or..is update a good idea? worth 50 bucks they want? (HP Pavillion 774e , but HP provides nothing that I can find.) Thanx for any help u might offer. Rich

Hello Richbig Welcome to PCHF

BIOS updates typically fix very very specific problems and it's usually very small issues relating to motherboard/cpu functionality. It is very very unlikely a BIOS update will help the issues you are having.

For example, a BIOS update may be needed on a current motherboard to add compatibility with quad core CPUs.

What I would suggest is listing the issues you are having in detail and we can try to knock them out one by one

I see..ok, thanx. Website selling bios said mine lacked ACPI-? which they say is probly the prob..heh..heck, they could fool me..

My DVD rom hang-ups must be from some other prob....PC Doctor says its fine, but wont play discs beyond 10-20 mins. or so. Got the latest WDM drivers for the ATI graphics card, but made no diff. sigh...on with the headache..

What discs ?
CD?DVD?
Burned or Bought ?
Games/movies?

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If burned most issues are due to media (blanks used)...

FAQ: The Golden Rules of Burning - Digital Video Forums

I can't say 100% a BIOS update could never help a problem with an optical drive. But I can say 100% that you never have to pay for a BIOS update.

Considering your symptoms, I would feel pretty safe to say this problem is not going to be solved by a BIOS update. Especially that this is a new problem. I am assuming your drive has been working fine, and recently it started having problems. If the BIOS was at fault, you would have experienced the problem since you had the computer.

What happens when your drive stops playing? Does the the entire operating system freeze up? Or just it just stop showing video/audio?

I know it's not a good idea to generalize problems, but in my experience, if an optical drive is working fine for a long time, then without major changes to the operating system, if it starts acting up, it is pretty much just a faulty drive that needs to be replaced. There isn't much to optical drives.

Considering the drive works for 10-20 minutes then stops working, I doubt it is a software problem. And since you haven't mentioned any other problems with the computer, I'm guessing the symptoms are specific to the drive itself. Meaning, the computer itself isn't freezing up, you aren't experiencing symptoms of malware, etc.

Ok...appreciate the info, learning more than I knew already. I Havent been specific enuff tho...heres the info requested above:

HP Pavillion 774e/D7218P mbd/AMD athlon (2 ghz)...DVD rom drive; playing DVD discs with Win Media Player/Win DVD player/Dvvx,etc... ATI RAdeon 9000 graphics card (64 mb on board).

This is a case where I purchased machine planning ahead, and havent used the DVD drive much ,except to play a few Windows demo discs, etc., until now...Had home movies xferred to DVD by Just8mm.com company, recorded on DVD-R media. They claim it will play on wide range of players...I would think mine would fall within the parameters, not being an odd ball...?

And, indeed, the discs play fine in their entirety on my stand alone Toshiba DVD recorder/player, and on a friends new laptop with CD/DVD drive, running Vista. The discs (Maxell DVD-R) are approx. 40 and 50 mins. or more long. This is where my DVD-rom drive stumbles....short demo discs play fine, but long content freezes at random points after 10-20 mins. or so. Only the video screen freezes, rest of puter remains functional...no other probs noticed. I dont have much variety of DVDs to try, but my gut feeling is the discs are fine...?

I updated with the latest ATI drivers, Win Media player 11, downloaded latest Divvx player....nothing helped. Flashed chipset drivers, (I think it worked). ATI knowledge base suggests disabling fastwrite, reducing screen res., reducing AGP speed to 2x, etc...didnt help. They have procedure to boot up in "Clear mode"...havent tried that yet...sounds scary. (heh). Can "memory aperture" be increased in the bios..? Saw that mentioned somewhere...

Oh, also...puter has 512mb on board, 2 gig HD. If any of this helps..Id appreciate suggestions...Thanx...Rich