[SUNDAY KICKASS] Basics Of Computing – BIOS

A BIOS is a combination of both HARDWARE and SOFTWARE. It is a firmware (Mixture of Hardware and Software), a ROM device fixed in the Motherboard of a Computer and the program written on to it is the software which controls the PC.

The BIOS software is built into the PC, and is the first code run by a PC when powered on ('boot firmware'). The primary function of the BIOS is to set up the hardware and load and start an operating system. When the PC starts up, the first job for the BIOS is to initialize and identify system devices such as the video display card, keyboard and mouse, hard disk drive, optical disc drive and other hardware. The BIOS then locates software held on a peripheral device (designated as a 'boot device'), such as a hard disk or a CD/DVD, and loads and executes that software, giving it control of the PC. This process is known as booting, or booting up, which is short for bootstrapping.


A BIOS will also have a user interface (or UI for short). Typically this is a menu system accessed by pressing a certain key on the keyboard when the PC starts. In the BIOS UI, a user can:

• configure hardware
  
• set the system clock
  
• enable or disable system components
  
• select which devices are eligible to be a potential boot device
  
• set various password prompts, such as a password for securing access to the BIOS UI functions itself and preventing malicious users from booting the system from unauthorized peripheral devices.
  

Standard CMOS Features

Here you can setup the basic BIOS features such as date, time, type of floppy etc. Use the arrow keys to move around and press enter to select the required option. You can specify what IDE devices you have such as Hard drive, CD-ROM, ZIP drive etc. The easiest way to setup the IDE devices is by leaving it set to auto. This allows the BIOS to detect the devices automatically so you don't have to do it manually. At the bottom, it also displays the total memory in your system.

Advanced BIOS Features

There are numerous advance settings which you can select if required. For most cases leaving the default setting will be adequate. When you set the first boot device as Floppy, then this ensures that the floppy disk is read first when the system boots, and therefore can boot from windows boot disk. But now no Floppies are used and CD-ROM drive is generally recommended to be the first boot device. The second boot device is the Hard disk and third or more can be set upon your interest.

Advanced Chipset Features

Here you can setup the contents of the chipset buffers. It is closely related to the hardware and is therefore recommended that you leave the default setting unless you know what you are doing. Having an incorrect setting can make your system unstable. If you know that your SDRAM can handle CAS 2, then making changes can speed up the memory timing. If you have 128MB SDRAM then the maximum amount of memory the AGP card can use is 128MB.

Inegrated Peripherals

This menu allows you to change the various I/O devices such as IDE controllers, serial ports, parallel port, keyboard etc. You can make changes as necessary.

Power Management Setup

The power management allows you to setup various power saving features, when the PC is in standby or suspend mode.

PnP/PCI Configurations

This menu allows you to configure your PCI slots. You can assign IRQ's for various PCI slots. It is recommended that you leave the default settings as it can get a bit complicated messing around with IRQ's.

PC Health Status

This menu displays the current CPU temperature, the fan speeds, voltages etc. You can set the warning temperature which will trigger an alarm if the CPU exceeds the specified temperature.

Load Fail-Safe Defaults

If you made changes to the BIOS and your system becomes unstable as a result, you can change it back to default. However if you made many changes and don't know which one is causing the problem, your best bet is to choose the option "Load Fail Safe Mode Defaults" from the BIOS menu. This uses a minimal performance setting, but the system would run in a stable way. From the dialog box Choose "Y" followed by enter to load Fail-Safe Defaults.

Load Optimized Defaults

Like the Fail-Safe mode above, this option loads the BIOS default settings, but runs the system at optimal performance. From the dialog box Choose "Y" followed by enter to load Optimized Defaults.

Set Password

To password protect your BIOS you can specify a password. Make sure you don't forget the password or you can not access the BIOS. The only way you can access the BIOS is by resetting it using the reset jumper on the motherboard.

Save and Exit Setup

To save any changes you made to the BIOS you must choose this option. From the dialog box choose "Y".

Exit without Saving

If you don't want to save changes made to the BIOS, choose "N" from the dialog box.



Hope now you are bit familiar with BIOS elements are their functions. And never mess with BIOS with out prior knowledge or else you will be the reason for the destruction of it.

GOOD POST !!