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I have an ECS P4M800PRO-M478 motherboard and I'm just setting up the jumpers right now, of which there are only two sets. One is the CLR_CMOS jumper, which is set to Normal, of course. However, there is another set called BIOS_WP which controls whether BIOS flash writing is protected or unprotected. Which setting should I have it set at and would this affect any BIOS flashes in the future?

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I'd assume that enabling write protection prevents you from flashing the BIOS through a command line utility or any in-BIOS restores from flash drives. You'd have to disable the write protection before doing either of those tasks.

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So, in general, should I have it set to being protected? – Wesley Jun 10 '10 at 0:28
Unless you're worried about ninjas sneaking in and flashing your BIOS to hack your system and steal your images of cute kittens, I wouldn't really worry about it. I suppose the only real protection it would provide would be against a virus trying to flash the BIOS, but I've yet to hear of such a thing. Any other unauthorized flashing would require physical access to do, at which point they could just remove the jumper. TL;DR: If you're going to be flashing your BIOS often, don't bother. If you don't plan to update your BIOS, then the jumper can't hurt. – Darth Android Jun 10 '10 at 1:20
Yeah... I tried adding the jumper and it seems to boot faster even and, otherwise, doesn't affect the operation of the computer. Thanks for your answer! – Wesley Jun 10 '10 at 3:34
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