4550 BIOS - Should I or shouldn't I?

 

OK, have always been under the impression that BIOS/firmware upgrades should not be taken lightly, and I am rather uncomfortable dealing with them.

I have never updated my Dell 4550 BIOS (maybe once waaaay back under direction of Dell support when I was having issues with my CDRW) - I am still on version A03. The latest update is A08. If i am not experiencing any issues, is there any reason why I should?

After browsing the Dell forums, some folks say that you should update the 4550 BIOS to A08 before updating to SP2 or else you will get the BSOD. Well, I am on A03 and have been running SP2 since it first came out, and have never had an issue thus far (that I am aware of anyway).

Now I am confused. Should I or shouldn't I? I just read that the A07 and A08 updates have problems with firewire cards. The next upgrades I plan to make are a firewire card for a digital video camera and a graphics card upgrade (probably the now lower end Geforce FX 5500 OC AGP).

 

Should I go to the A06 revision, or just leave my system as it is?  Will I need to update to handle the firewire card?

PK

 

 

Dell Dimension 4550
System Service Tag: 1N99921

 

Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (build 2600)

 

PROCESSOR
2.40 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
8 kilobyte primary memory cache
512 kilobyte secondary memory cache

 

MAIN BOARD
Board: Dell Computer Corp.
Bus Clock: 533 megahertz
BIOS: Dell Computer Corporation A03 11/12/2002

MEMORY
512 Megabytes Installed Memory
Slot 'DIMM_A' has 256 MB
Slot 'DIMM_B' has 256 MB

 

DRIVES
HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8400B [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

Seagate ST380013A [Hard drive] (80.03 GB) -- drive 0, s/n 5JVL9H6R, rev 8.01, SMART Status: Healthy
80.02 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
51.00 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

CONTROLLERS
Standard floppy disk controller
Intel(R) 82801DB Ultra ATA Storage Controller - 24CB
Primary IDE Channel [Controller]
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller

 

BUS ADAPTERS
Intel(r) 82801DB/DBM USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller - 24CD
Intel(r) 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller - 24C2
Intel(r) 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller - 24C4
Intel(r) 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller - 24C7

 

DISPLAY
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420 [Display adapter]
DELL M780 [Monitor] (15.7"vis, s/n 5322DA6SCZA9, October 1999)

 

MULTIMEDIA
Creative SB Live! Series (WDM)
Game Port for SB Live! Series

 

COMMUNICATIONS
BCM V.92 56K Modem
Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
RAS Async Adapter

 

ANTIVIRUS
avast! antivirus 4.6.763 [VPS 0609-0] Version 4.6.763
Realtime File Scanning On