Motherboards run on special firmware that allows your computer to boot up properly. For example, the BIOS scans all the connected hardware and peripherals and it is also responsible for holding basic system information like date/time settings, CPU frequency, and so on. UEFI is an advanced type of firmware, so how do I know if my motherboard supports UEFI?
If you have a new motherboard that has been released in the past year or two, it most likely supports UEFI. While the transition from BIOS to UEFI is still ongoing, pretty much all new motherboards have both an advanced UEFI mode and a legacy BIOS mode. For example, Intel has gone as far as to remove all legacy BIOS files and drivers from their website.
If you are still asking “How do I know if my motherboard supports UEFI?”, do not worry. You can check if your motherboard supports UEFI using a few different methods. You can learn that as well as find out more information about UEFI and why it is so important by reading the text down below.
How Do I Know If My Motherboard Supports UEFI?
The easiest and quickest way to check if your motherboard supports UEFI is to do it through Windows. It only takes a few seconds and here is what you have to do:
- Go to Start and type “System Information”.
- Open System Information.
- Find the “BIOS Mode” tab. If it says “UEFI” it means your motherboard supports UEFI. If it says “Legacy”, it is running BIOS.
Note that even if it says Legacy, it does not necessarily mean that your motherboard does not support UEFI. Sometimes you just have to change it in the BIOS settings from Legacy to UEFI and it will show up as UEFI. But only change the settings inside your BIOS if you know what you are doing or by following a guide specific to your motherboard model.
There is another way to check if your motherboard is using UEFI mode. And you can do that through Command Prompt. Here is how:
- Go to Start and type “cmd”.
- Open Command Prompt as Administrator by right-clicking it and choosing “Run as administrator”.
- Type in “bcdedit”.
- Under “Windows Boot Loader”, find the “path” line.
- If the file extension for the “winload” file is .exe, then your motherboard is using a legacy BIOS. If it says .efi, then it is running in UEFI.
So, if you see that your motherboard is running in BIOS mode, there is another way to check if your motherboard could potentially support UEFI. And to do that, you have to look up your motherboard model name and manufacturer (You can also find that information in System Information) and go through the web page.
To be more specific, you should look at the BIOS updates to check if there is an update that says that support for UEFI mode has been added. If your motherboard does have support for UEFI through an update, which is often the case for motherboards that are more than three years old, then you could install it and enable UEFI in the BIOS.
All new Intel motherboards and AMD Ryzen motherboards support UEFI, but the transition from BIOS to UEFI is still not completed and motherboards that use UEFI typically have support for Legacy BIOS mode as well.
So why makes UEFI so important? BIOS has been inside computers for a very long time and it is outdated firmware. UEFI runs in 32-bit or 64-bit mode, has support for significantly larger storage drives, has more options, is more intuitive to use, and so on.
Conclusion
In the end, how do I know if my motherboard supports UEFI? The easiest way to check it is through System Information, but you can also check it by running a quick command in Command Prompt or by checking the manufacturer’s website.
Pretty much all new motherboards sold today support UEFI on both Intel and AMD. If you have a slightly older motherboard, the best way to check if your motherboard could use UEFI is to go to the manufacturer’s website. Try to find if a BIOS update enables UEFI mode.