At the beginning of the month, EVGA introduced a plethora of BIOS updates for its X58 series high-end motherboards. Some of the highlighted features included the addition of a High Precision Event Timer (HPET) and a way to disable PS/2 keyboard support if no such device was present.

Today, the BIOS engineers over at company headquarters in Brea, California have introduced a few anticipated BIOS updates to its midrange high-performance P55 series motherboards. In particular, the part numbers of the boards include the P55 Classified 200 (with nForce 200), the P55 FTW 200 (with nForce 200), the award-winning P55 FTW, the standard P55, the P55 LE and the P55 Micro (mATX). Basically, the only board left out of the mix is the barebones, low-end P55-V, which the company felt disinclined to give a BIOS update.

The A51 BIOS feature set is a rather short list, but the improvements may be critical for some users. First and foremost are improved USB device compatibility and improved memory compatibility which should address some hiccups during the Windows restart process and in the explorer shell. The update also adds new CPU support, most likely for Intel’s upcoming 32nm Clarkdale-based Core i5 and Core i3 processors with integrated graphics. The update also improved memory compatibility for those users with DIMM modules not running at rated speeds.

The last feature, and certainly our favorite, is EVGA’s inclusion of a ClockGen Switch Mode Disable option. This will prevent the P55 board from powering up twice after a restart – once very shortly for a few seconds and then again for a full POST run-through. This isn’t necessarily an issue, but it can become quite irritating for those enthusiasts who frequently restart their systems. It is a very common process for EVGA X58 board owners, and fortunately there is a quick solution. Today on his Twitter account, EVGA Product Manager Jacob Freeman wrote that the double-power up scenario can be resolved by disabling Virtualization mode in the BIOS. While this may not be a solution for some, it certainly does seem to help as we have tested it on our X58 Classified E759 nForce 200 board.

EVGA’s “A51” BIOS updates for its P55 motherboards can be downloaded here.