About American Megatrends
Founded in 1985, American Megatrends, Inc. (AMI for short) is an American hardware and software company whose products are mainly PC hardware and firmware. The company started as a motherboard manufacturer. With the rise of motherboard manufacturers in Taiwan, AMI began to develop BIOS firmware for motherboard manufacturers.
Currently, the most popular motherboard BIOS versions on the market are mainly from Award, AMI, and Phoenix. These BIOS versions are applied in motherboards from many manufacturers. Therefore, it’s very possible that the PC tells you that the BIOS is from American Megatrends, Inc. while is the motherboard is manufactured by other brands.
Press Windows key + R key, type “msinfo32“, and press Enter. This will open System Information window, which will tell you these information.
How to Update American Megatrends BIOS
Sometimes, you may need to update BIOS. Updating BIOS will fix some bugs, improve PC compatibility, and optimize PC performance and stability. If you find your PC is using AMI BIOS, there are two cases for you.
- The motherboard is not from American Megatrends.
- The motherboard is an AMI motherboard.
You can check which case you are in by using System Information. But if you think the BIOS and motherboard information offered by this tool is not very clear. You can then CPU-Z, a free program for checking most PC hardware information. You just need to:
- Download CPU-Z and run it.
- Skip to Mainboard tab and check motherboard manufacturer and BIOS brand
If you are in Case 1, to update BIOS, you should download the latest BIOS file from the motherboard manufacturer’s website and use the BIOS utility from the motherboard manufacturer.
Only when you are in Case 2, you can perform the American Megatrends BIOS update. To complete American Megatrends BIOS update, please refer to the following guide:
- Check the motherboard model and serial number. And then download the corresponding BIOS file from AMI website.
- Extract the BIOS file and then place it into a USB drive. Please note that the BIOS file shouldn’t be placed in a folder, otherwise it can’t be recognized.
- Insert the USB drive to PC and restart the PC.
- During POST, press F12 to enter BIOS POST Flash.
- Select the USB drive containing BIOS file.
- Choose the BIOS file for updating. Please make sure the model information is correct.
- Click Yes to confirm that you want to flash BIOS.
- Click Yes to confirm that you are sure to erase DMI date.
- Wait until the American Megatrends BIOS update process is completed. Then, restart the PC.
How to Update BIOS Windows 10 | How to Check BIOS Version
There is another way to perform American Megatrends BIOS update. That is, using AMI Firmware Update Utility.
This tool is a scriptable command-line utility for DOS, Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and the UEFI shell. It supports x86, x64 and ARM architectures. With this tool, you can update the entire Flash part or only a portion. It programs the main BIOS image, boot block or OEM configurable ROM regions.
To perform American Megatrends BIOS update using APU, please refer to the following steps:
- Download the BIOS file and unzip it.
- Download the AMI Firmware Utility Tool and unzip it.
- Go to the AFUWIN folder.
- Choose 32 bit or 64 bit.
- Run the AFUWIN.EXE.
- Click the Open Button to search for and select the BIOS file you downloaded from your motherboard manufacturers website.
- Click the Flash button. The Process tab will be displayed to show you the update BIOS process in action.
- When the process is complete, exit the Flash Utility and restart your computer.
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Linda has been working as an editor at MiniTool for 5 years. She is always curious about computer knowledge and learns it crazily. Her articles are simple and easy to understand. Even people who do not understand computer can gain something. By the way, her special focuses are disk management, data recovery and PDF editing.