bios settings
 

My comp is gettin fairly old and has held up exceptionally well, but I got to reading about improving my performance and started reading about flashing bios settings, and my settings are the same from 2 years ago so I think flashing them could help, but am not sure how to do so. Could someone please explain how?? I have a dell dimension 4300.

Its easy... go to http://www.dell.com click on support, and look for bios updates... instructions and read me's are provided there. A monkey could flash a dell bios.

Flash WARNING
 

When you get the BIOS update for your Dell, make sure you get the FLOPPY version of the BIOS update.

DO NOT take the Hard Drive version.

Make the floppies and let it update with the instructions in DOS. IF you do the Hard Drive update you will have a very good chance of screwing up your BIOS and ending up with a paperweight.

The Ole Sarge

Bios can always be restored to default states by setting jumper pins back to their default configuration for a few seconds. Not sure if dell MB's work that way...