BIOS CONFIGURATION

BIOS Setup is entered during the booting-up of the system. When booting start you press the correct key on the keyboard each manufacturer uses a different key (F1, F2, F8, F9, Alt, Ctrl etc). During boot up, the BIOS entrance page will flash on the screen for a second or two. You may have to boot up once or twice just to have enough time to look around that page and see which key they want you to use to enter BIOS.

 GENERAL RULE:-

There are several approaches to BIOS settings. For the purpose of this configuration, only use default settings  when possible. In default settings automatically without the need to attend to individual settings. You can use your mouse or keyboard for selections, using the Enter, Escape and also arrow keys and if you use Help Alt+H.

STANDARD CMOS SETUP:-

You make sure that:

1. The date and time are correct.
   
2. The Floppy Disk Drive is set to 1.44MB, 3.5 inches.
   
3. Video is set to VGA/EGA.
   
4. In HALT select ON to stop the PC from repeatedly rebooting.
   
5. Set IDE for Auto-Detection. IDE will either be on the setup menu or on its own menu.(Only some BIOS have this.) Perform an IDE Auto-Detection now.
   

ADVANCED BIOS SETTINGS

The following can be enabled or disabled. At least for now, we suggest you do the following:

• The Virus Program - Will scan your hard drive at startup and warn you of trouble. Enable or disable as you wish.
  
• Cache - Enable; and also, if available, enable ECC Error Checking.
  
• Quick POST - Allows BIOS to boot-up faster by skipping some tests. If you leave your computer on most of the time, disable. If you turn your computer off daily, enable.
  
• Boot Sequence - Controls the order in which bootable information is searched. In some versions you may select options. In other versions you have separate settings for "First Boot Device", "Second Boot Device", and so on. If your System Boot is on the O/S Installation CD, then for this initial boot-up set CD-ROM as first, hard drive as second, and A: Drive as third. However, if your System Boot is on floppy disk, then set A: Drive as first, hard drive as second, and CD-ROM as third.
  
• Swap Floppy Drives - This is usually disabled. Only enable if you have two floppy drives and you wish to assign the A and B drive letters interchangeably.
  
• Fast A20 Gate - Leave at default.
  
• Typematic Rate Settings - Disable. This deals with the rate by which holding a keyboard character down produces repeated characters on the screen.
  
• Boot Numlock - Enable.
  
• CPU Serial Number - Privacy buffs disable it. This identifies the CPU serial number in Intel CPUs.
  
• Video BIOS Shadow - Disable or default.
  

ADVANCED CHIPSET SETTINGS:-

You should not need to bother with this section. However, some basic settings are provided for your information. You may enable or disable the following:

• Chipset Special Features - (If available) Disable.
  
• L2 Cache Size - (If available) Set to match size of your external cache.
  
• DRAM Parity Checking - Enable only if using parity memory.
  
• DRAM Parity/ECC Mode - Select which one you are using.
  
• DRAM Clock Control - Set to the speed of the system bus, which should be the default. At a later time, some super-tweaker types may like playing with the settings in this section. Know what you're doing before changing these settings. A wrong setting can cause damage.
  
• DRAM Frequency - Set to the speed of your memory (such as 166).
  
• AGP Mode - Set to "uto." If available. Otherwise, leave at default.
  
• AGP Aperture - Sets the amount of memory space available for graphics. Set to 64 MB, this is normally fine.
  

There will most likely be many more options available to you. It is best to leave these alone at least for the initial boot-up, and maybe best left alone permanently.

INTEGRATED PERIPHERALS:-

Enable the ports you intend to use, disable the ports you intend not to use:

• IDE Ports - Enable if you will use both.
  
  • Device options may be available; if so, set to AUTO when possible.
    
  • Enable IDE pre-fetch only if your IDE interface supports it, which most likely it does.
    
  • Enable IDE HDD Block Mode if your hard drive supports it, most new drives do.
    
• USB - Enable, if used.
  
• Serial & Parallel Ports - Enable, if used.
  
  • Set the parallel port mode to ECP, EPP, or both. If you don't know which to pick, leave at default.
    
• Motherboard Integrated Hardware - If not controlled by jumpers, you may enable or disable video, sound, or network hardware as you wish.
  
• Expansion Card Hardware - If you are using one or more expansion cards and your motherboard also has the same options, you need to disable the motherboard options to allow the use of the expansion cards.