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I have a Asus N501VW which the logs tell me in big red needs to be updated. And yes indeed there is a BIOS update available on the Asus site so..

I have downloaded N501VWAS307.zip which has within it N501VWAS.307.

I don't know what to do with this file.

I've read that I'm to put in the boot partition and reference it in the entries. (I'm using systemd-boot) but it does not seem to be an img file. Is it?

I've also read that I should convert it to a windows exe.

Yikes. Say it isn't so.

I read that to make it easy as pie I'm to use biodisk but wait -- since I'm EFI then no I'm not.

The documentation is all well-meaning but tries to cover all the possible configurations and their permutations so that it is difficult for me to trace a straight route through.

What am I to do with this file?

Stephen Boston
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    My Asus motherboard directly reads the extracted from zip file as the update file. But it must be in a FAT32 partition as that is all UEFI can read. I typically make my ESP larger just for that purpose. But you can use an older smaller flash drive and make it FAT32 or add another smaller FAT32 partition on your system. – oldfred Jun 16 '21 at 03:33
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    Yes, simplest is to use a FAT32 USB flash. This has a step by step for EZ Flash both UEFI and legacy https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1008859/ – ibuprofen Jun 16 '21 at 04:01

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The safest way to upgrade your BIOS is to use "Easy Flash". Copy the file you downloaded to a USB stick and reboot to BIOS (press F2 repeatedly after power on). In the "Advanced" tab the top entry should be "Start Easy Flash"; in Easy Flash select the BIOS upgrade file from the USB stick using the file browser in the bottom half of the screen (on the left pane select the drive and on the right pane select the file) and follow the instructions on screen. It will check for file integrity and flash your BIOS.

'Hope this helps.

jack herrer
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  • This was certainly easy, thank you. Only problem is that the BIOS update Asus offers is the same buggy one I have installed. I'd like to force the update -- in hope that the installed BIOS is corrupted rather than buggy, but I don't see a way of doing that. – Stephen Boston Jun 16 '21 at 17:57