Unsure whether I should update UEFI

hryelle wrote: My rig: Asrock Z87 Extreme4, i5 4690k, GTX 1080 On Saturday I had a weird problem relating to upgrading my GPU. After much frustration , a mate suggested and assisted with entering my board's back up UEFI and restoring the main UEFI  with the backup, then reloading the restored UEFI. This solved my problem. However, the restored UEFI is now the backup version which I believe is the factory default (p2.6). I was using version p3.0 previously. The Asrock website implies that p2.6 does not support my CPU, yet I am able to post, boot to windows 10, game and do everything normally. The p2.6 UEFI lists i5 4690k as the CPU along with the expected clocks (3.5 GHz stock, 3.9 GHZ turbo), and stress tests confirm this. So, I'm unsure as to whether I should update the UEFI (if so to what version), and if continuing to use p2.6 could cause problems or maybe is not optimal for my current system? I then thought maybe I couldn't instant flash to p3.0 or later because the current version doesn't technically support my CPU. Is this correct? Any advice would be really appreciated!

First of all, the UEFI version number from the factory is on a sticker of the UEFI chips, which are just above the board's battery, in the lower right corner of the board.

Also, the backup UEFI version cannot be changed, so if it was 2.60 from the factory, that is what you now have. The Main screen of the UEFI shows the installed UEFI version.

I don't know why you think UEFI 2.60 does not support your processor. It actually does, and I think I might know why you are confused.

An i5-4690K is a Haswell Refresh processor model. If we check the description of UEFI 2.60 we find:

Support New 4th Generation Intel Core Processors. That's your type of processor, New 4th Gen are Haswell Refresh.

Why the CPU support list shows P2.70, I don't know, the description is one fix to a C-State register, might be a typo.

Now check closely the description for UEFI 3.00:

Support i7-4790K, i5-4690K and Intel Pentium G3258 EZ OC.

UEFI 3.00 adds support for the processor listed to the EZ OC feature. It does NOT add basic support for those processors, which was done in UEFI 2.60. This seems to be what you are confused about.

If the UEFI in your board did not support your CPU, the board would appear almost dead when you tried to start it. Nothing will show on the monitor. You'll get a dead CPU code in the Dr Debug display. Your PC functions normally, right?

It looks like the latest UEFI, 3.40, adds compatibility for PCIe (video) cards. Why going back to an earlier version of the UEFI fixed the issue with your video card, is strange.