A computer's basic input/output system—or BIOS—lives in a small chip on the motherboard, and manages the most basic instructions that operate your computer. It allows your PC to power on, boot into an operating system, and manage attached devices like storage, keyboards, and other peripherals.
In general, you shouldn't need to touch this software that often, if ever. From time to time, your PC's manufacturer may offer updates to the BIOS with certain improvements, though these updates don't usually introduce new features or huge speed boosts.
You may also need to enable the TPM security chip from the BIOS if you want to upgrade to Windows 11, though this option may be enable by default. The only other reason to access your BIOS is if you built your own computer or plan to overclock your CPU or GPU.
Unless the latest BIOS comes with security patches, support for new hardware you plan to use, fixes a bug that's been plaguing your daily usage, or you otherwise know what you're doing in there, it's best to leave the BIOS menu alone. If you fall into one of these categories and need to update your BIOS, here's how to do it.
A Warning Before Getting Started
Note that navigating this interface can vary a bit from computer to computer, especially if you have a newer machine running a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, or UEFI (which, despite being more capable than its older sibling, is still often referred to as BIOS). So while we can't tell you exactly what to click on, the following instructions should get you in the right ballpark nonetheless.
Installing (or "flashing") a new BIOS is more dangerous than updating a simple Windows program, and if something goes wrong during the process, you could end up bricking your computer. I don't mean to be all doom-and-gloom about it; I've never had a problem updating my BIOS—and I've done it plenty of times—but it's important to be careful.
Update BIOS from a Flash Drive
Update BIOS from Windows
Some manufacturers will allow you to update the BIOS through Windows, which means you don't have to access the boot menu. This makes the process much easier and less stressful in general.
Search for "Device Manager" from the taskbar, then open the Control Panel app and open the Firmware entry. Right-click on System Firmware and choose Update driver. You can have the computer either search the web for an update or locate a file you may have already downloaded.
HP, for instance, has its own software update utility, while Acer has you download and run an EXE file from the manufacturer's site. Instead of rebooting your machine, you can just double-click the update program, and it will run through the reboot-and-update process for you.
Either way, you still may want to enter the BIOS setup before running the update to make note of any settings you want to keep, though. Once the process completes successfully and you've made any settings tweaks, you can continue using your computer as normal, with whatever improvements or fixes that BIOS update offered.