Cosmos II bios update, configuration, disable intel graphics?

[Robbli]

Hi

I've bought a Cosmos II second hand but in excellent condition. Anyway, I've been struggling to find more information about any bios updates, it's currently at version 1.03.05, is that the last update?

The bios seems rather limited in terms of configuration!

Also, would it be beneficial in terms of overall performance to disable the Intel onboard graphics as just use the Geforce 850M?

Thanks, Rob.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Hi

I've bought a Cosmos II second hand but in excellent condition. Anyway, I've been struggling to find more information about any bios updates, it's currently at version 1.03.05, is that the last update?

The bios seems rather limited in terms of configuration!

Also, would it be beneficial in terms of overall performance to disable the Intel onboard graphics as just use the Geforce 850M?

Thanks, Rob.

You'd need to contact PCS, by phone rather than email, explain you bought a second hand cosmos and that you'd like an account setup, then they should be able to create a login to their main PCS website where you can access all the latest drivers per os, plus any bios updates. It would be worth mentioning that you want to update the bios and why, their train of thought is if it aint broke, don't fix it.

Regarding running on the 850m at all times, it'll hammer the battery and won't offer any performance increases outside of gaming really, on board graphics has ample power for most desktop and movie uses. I wouldn't recommend it.

If you did want to, you'd need to set the nvidia configuration to just always use the dgpu. it's pretty simple. if you need help with it, post back.

 

[Robbli]

OK cheers, will contact them next week, hopefully it will not be an issue that I have a second hand PCS laptop.

It's a bit of an OCD thing of mine, to have all of the latest drivers and BIOS updates, placebo effect works wonders...

 

[ubuysa]

I understand the OCD thing, I generally like a clean house too. The thing is, as SpyderTracks has said, "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is an excellent maxim to live by where computers are concerned. Some reasoning behind that:

An old BIOS, or an old driver, (or old application software for that matter) still execute their code as fast and reliably as they ever did, software doesn't wear out no matter how many times you execute the code.

An old BIOS, or an old driver, contains code that has been executed by millions of users worldwide billions of times since it was written, it's thus been very thoroughly tested and can be considered bug-free. It's the perfect piece of code, effective and clean. A new BIOS, or a new driver, has probably only been executed by a few thousand users a few hundred thousand times since it was written. It has thus been much less thoroughly tested and may still contain bugs that will catch you if you happen to come across them. It can be considered to be untested code. So you're a lot safer sticking with the old BIOS or driver because it's not going to bite you.

Reliability is important for all of us, so the only reason I would ever advise updating a BIOS or drivers is if you either need the additional functionality provided by the new BIOS or driver, or because you are currently experiencing problems and you want to check whether they are fixed in the latest BIOS or driver. If the new BIOS or driver contains nothing that you need then you're better off leaving the old ones installed.

None of the above applies to your OS of course, where security updates must be applied even though the new code might be more buggy than the old. But even here there are good reasons for sticking with back-level versions. Windows 7, for example, has been run on tens of millions of computers trillions of times and is about as well tested as an OS can be. Windows 10 on the other hand is still a work in progress and bugs and conflicts are being identified quite regularly. So as with BIOS and drivers, if you don't need the new functionality in Windows 10 you'll have a more reliable experience staying with Windows 7.

In computing, new doesn't always mean better.