Why did ASUS delete the 2002 BIOS for the Maximus XII Hero?

[Snacko]

I upgrade my MB 2 weeks ago and installed the latest BIOS from the website. It was BIOs v2002 from 12/30/2020. I still have it on my system...

A few days ago I noticed that this BIOS has been removed from the ASUS Downloads page!? I have never seen that before unless something was wrong with a BIOS and they didn't want anyone to use it??

I contacted ASUS support to see what the reason was that the 2002 bios was removed. They finally got back my support ticket and said:

for some reasons, our website remove the 2002 BIOS, Customers can safely update the latest BIOS 2004

Does anybody know anything about this?
Is anyone else using v2002?

Just curious as this seems very strange...

[Saltgrass]

There must have been something different about the latest updates. Possibly related to new options but I think things have settled down. I am running the 2004 version.

[Braegnok]

I loaded 2004 beta when it was first released and was unstable with all my saved profiles, most likely would have needed to readjust, bump-up all voltages. But I just rolled back to 2002.

I'm still running 2002 BIOS, everything is 100% stable. Most likely I will skip 2004 beta, wait till Nvidia patch is released in March, see what shakes out with Resizable BAR support for Nvidia 30-series cards.

[Snacko]

Thanks for replying guys. I am having no problems with 2002 yet as well. It's a new build. I find it very strange that ASUS removed a BIOs, unless there is something wrong with it? I've checked their site several times in the past week to see if it has appeared in the list.

[Saltgrass]

Wasn't 2002 a beta Bios also? Is there something in that version that you prefer? I was thinking they are adding the ReSizable BAR and 11th generation processors with PCIe4 support so when Nvidia releases a compatible driver, they will be ready.

It looks like some folks have purchased the Z590 boards but might be waiting for the new Desktop processors before they set them up. I am going the path of the new processor first to test with the Z490 for PCIe4 performance then, maybe later a new Z590 board to compare.

[Snacko]

No, it didn't say Beta when I downloaded it. And I had just bought my Maximus XII Hero WF. I think It had bios 707 on it, so I wanted to just start with the latest bios. And that was 2002 a few weeks ago. There is nothing special that I prefer about it..

[geneo]

Haven't had any issue going from 2002 to 2004. But I have a modded BIOS though: on 2002 I used microcode CA and on 2004 I am using microcode E0. Both 2002 and 2004 from Asus use E2, for which I had to bump up my voltage a bit, not with CA or E0 though.

[geneo]

Spoke too soon on microcode E0. At same settings as CA, it wasn't stable with prime95 1344/1344 in-place AVX. Back to CA on 2004, which is still stable.

Was hoping E0 fared better than E2 - E0 is the current microcode Microsoft provides.

[BenchAndGames]

Same happens with Z490 TUF Gaming WIFI BIOS version 2207 ( and was official, not beta)

They just removed it few days ago after they released, and now the lastest one is 2210 beta version

Me to I think something wrong was with those bioses, since they dont remove any other old version, they are still there.