It shouldn't matter. The board is going to load the Default Settings after the flash anyway.
It shouldn't, though let's consider that some people O/C which could be a wildcard, but if I ever update the BIOS again, and that seems increasingly unlikely with the reports around here, it's going to be one of the things I do in addition to unplugging everything possible and removing the video card (if I had one). Anything to decrease the chances that you'll brick it, since Intel's "recovery" options are iffy at best.
A couple of years ago I updated the software for a gps/sidescan sonar , they also said the unit would save your settings and update the new version with those settings. Nothing was mentioned about the need to use default settings before installing the update. Many folks including myself had updated new previous versions without reverting to default settings , never a problem. Then along comes a new update that completely freezes any unit that was not running default settings, no going back to the previou version, only solution was to send the unit back to the manufacturer. Turned out quite a few folks allways reverted to default before updating even though nothing in the manual or update notes mentioned it. They just knew it was good practice and were the lucky ones. Got me thinking about BIOS updates , seems like it could be a good practice even though I could find no mention of it in any of the Intel documents.
