Hi owor, welcome to AO.

how do i keep it alive?
The simple answer to that is by not killing it

Why do you want to update the BIOS in the first place? What are you expecting that to do for you?

I would generally not recommend the updating of BIOS on an old machine unless it is absolutely essential..................the risk of failure is too great.

The most likely thing that you will get is the ability to recognise a larger hard drive, and you can go to most decent HDD manufacturers' sites and get an installation tool that will take care of that (loads EZDrive or the like).

Any update is likely to be several years old anyway?

I cannot be too precise, as you have not given enough information............Compaq made lots of "presario" and "deskpro" models................It sounds like a PII or early PIII, and it cannot be 295MHz....................it sounds as if it is overclocked or underclocked. Go into <start> <control panel> <system> that should tell you what it really is?

If you screw up flashing the BIOS on a machine that old, you will have to replace the chip on the MoBo, and that would cost more than the machine is worth.

Without further information, my advice is don't do it.

Cheers