~ CD AIM. f~:
`• The Hard Disk Database
`•Communications and Networking
`• The Bias Companion
`_______ • Expansion Cards
`
`The book that s ould co
`' with your motherhoardl
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`The BIOS Companion
`
`Phil Croucher
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`Legal Bit
`This book and included software is sold as is without warranty of any kind, either express or implied,
`including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose .
`. either the BIOS manufacturers, the Author, the Publisher nor its dealers or distributors assumes any
`liability for any alleged or actual damages arising from their use.
`
`Translation: Although this information has been gathered from original manufacturer's details or practical
`experience, the nature of the information is always changing, or scarce, so there could be technical
`inaccuracies or typographical errors. As a result, changes will be made to the information in this book and
`included software without reference to anyone, and it is not guarantee that the product suits your purposes.
`
`In addition, no liability can be accepted for loss of data or business or damage to equipment as a result of
`using the information contained herein-backups are your responsibility.
`
`Copyrights, etc
`Some of the software included with this product is copyrighted, in which case all rights are reserved by the
`respective copyright holders. You are licensed to use software copyrighted by the Publisher and its licensors
`on a single computer. You may copy the software as needed to facilitate your use ofit on a single computer.
`You may not copy any written materials accompanying the software.
`You may not rent or lease the book or software, but you may transfer their ownership permanently,
`including the most recent updates and all prior versions, provided you retain no copies.
`Windows, Windows ' 95 and Windows NT are trademarks and Microsoft is a registered trademark of
`Microsoft Corporation. Novell and NetWare are registered trademarks of Novell, Inc. Macintosh is a
`registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. VAX is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation.
`OS/2 is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. UNIX is a registered
`trademark of UNIX System Laboratories. Triton is a trademark of a company in Germany. Any code listings,
`although obtained from sites that are publicly accessed, may be copyrighted by their respective
`manufacturers. All other proprietary trade names, trademarks and names protected by copyright are fully
`acknowledged. All are mentioned for editorial purposes only, with no intention of infringing them.
`
`This book copyright© 1996, 1997 Phil Croucher. ISBN 1 872498 12 4
`
`All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
`transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
`without prior written permission from the author.
`
`Tri-Tam Enterprises, Inc
`7425 Charmant Drive #2807
`San Diego CA 92122 USA
`
`Artwork© 1997 by Robert Witkowski, RT Art
`
`Printed in the USA.
`
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`Sources
`Which are gratefully acknowledged:
`
`0 Experience.
`
`0 Many conversations with PC technicians.
`
`0 Hundreds of motherboard manuals, not all of which were helpful, which is why all this
`started in the first place!
`
`0 AMI BIOS Tech Ref manual.
`
`0 MR BIOS Tech Ref Manual. Thanks to Mike at Microids Research!
`
`0 Mick O'Donnell, Martyn Smith, Chris Crook, Chris Nicholson, Dart Computers, Pat Tan,
`John Dallman, UlfBoehlau, Rick and Tilmann at ProData, Adrian Clint of Samsung,
`Peter Farrow, and Ali Kiafar at ECS.
`
`0 amibios.txt, available from Jean-Paul Rodrigue in the University of Montreal, which
`had useful snippets, especially the explanation of Fast Decode. His BIOS Survival Guide
`is at www.lemig.umontreal.ca.
`
`0 amisetup, a shareware program from Robert Muchsel, available from
`ftp:/1194.163.64.1/pub/sanisoft/amisetup.zip.
`
`About The Author
`Phil Croucher runs his own consultancy, providing technical writing and training services, and his books
`and courses are the result of several years' experience of freelance network management, system building
`and repairs. Other computer-related publications include:
`
`0 Communications and Networks (Sigma Press)
`0 Novell NetWare Companion (Sigma Press)
`0 The DR DOS Book (Sigma Press)
`0 Computing Under Protest (Sigma Press)
`0 The PC Engineer's Reference Book (Sigma Press)
`0 Communications, Networks and Windows (Electrocution)
`0 Supporting Windows (Electrocution)
`0 The Hard Disk Database (Electrocution)
`0 The Computer Buzzword Book (Electrocution)
`0 The PC User's Handbook (Electrocution)
`
`Clients include (or have included): The Ministry of Defence, Barnardo's, Esselte Letraset Ltd, Rank Hovis,
`Royal Mail, Enterprise Oil plc, Line-Up Aviation Personnel, Triton Chemicals, Erith College, South Thames
`College, Kingsway College, Executive Airlines, Martini Airfreight Services and numerous small businesses.
`
`He has been involved with computing since 1986, starting off with a variation of Acorn's BBC computer, the
`Torch, using its own version of CP/M, called CPN. From there he has fond memories of the Sirius and the
`Macintosh, but has mostly been involved with IBM compatibles of all shapes and sizes, specialising in
`Multiuser DOS. He is a regular contributor to Computer Shopper magazine, in the UK.
`
`Phil is also qualified to fly helicopters and aeroplanes, having over 6500 hours on 32 types of aircraft. He has
`at various times been a Chief Pilot and General Manager of several companies, including a third level
`airline. He is the author of The Professional Pilot's Manual (Airlife).
`
`His email address is paco@electrocution.com
`
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`The BIOS
`
`The instructions that make a PC work come in three forms; application programs,
`which are loaded by DOS, and DOS, which is loaded by a bootstrap loader in the BIOS.
`
`BIOS stands for Basic Input I Output System, of which there are several
`in a PC; a good example is the one on the video card that controls the
`interface between it and the computer. However, we are concerned with
`the System BIOS, which is a collection of assembly language routines
`that allow programs and the components of a PC to communicate with
`each other at the hardware level. It therefore works in two directions
`and is active all the time your computer is switched on. The idea is that
`software doesn't have to talk to a device directly; it calls a BIOS routine
`which does the job instead, but these days the BIOS is often bypassed
`by 32-bit software anyway. In fact, there are moves afoot to place the
`BIOS functions into the operating system, starting with Power
`Management (see ACPI).
`
`For the moment, though, the BIOS will work in conjunction with the
`chipset, which is really what manages access to system resources such
`as memory, cache and the data buses, and actually is the subject of this
`book, as all those advanced settings relate to the chipset and not the
`BIOS as such.
`
`On an IBM-compatible, you will find the BIOS embedded into a ROM
`on the motherboard, together with hard disk utilities and a CMOS
`setup program, although this will depend on the manufacturer. The
`ROM will usually occupy a 64K segment of upper memory at F000 if
`you have an ISA system, and a 128K segment starting at E000 with
`EISA. Older machines will have two ROMs, labelled Odd and Even, or
`High and Low (they must be in the right slots), but these days there
`tends to be only one-look for one with a printed label. A Flash ROM
`allows you to change the BIOS code without replacing the chip(s).
`Flash ROM, or programmable read-only nonvolatile RAM, if you want
`
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`Standard CMOS
`
`This deals with the basic information, such as time of day, what disk drives and
`memory you have, etc. It is mostly self-explanatory, and will be found in every AT(cid:173)
`class machine. Memory settings are usually dealt with automatically.
`
`Date and Time
`Speak for themselves, really, except the timekeeping won't be
`wonderful, due to variations in voltages, etc (see The Year 2000
`Problem).
`
`Daylight Saving
`American for automatically adding an hour during Summer, at 0200 on
`the first Sunday in April; the clock chip is hardwired for it and
`activated by this setting. It resets to Standard Time on the first Sunday
`in October. Only relevant for North America, and Windows '95 does
`this by itself anyway.
`
`Hard Disk (C and D).
`Several types of hard disk are catered for (from Not Installed up to as
`many as 125). Choose a drive size equal to or lower than the one you
`propose to fit. User-defined fields are provided for anything strange you
`may want to fit, in which case you need to specify the following for each
`drive (see also the Hard Disk Database ):
`
`0 Cyln-number of cylinders.
`
`0 Head-number of heads on the drive.
`
`0 WPcom-The cylinder when compensation for timing
`between inner and outer edges of the disk is given.
`
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`72 The BIOS Companion
`
`be remapped, which is why the computer needs to know about it. Note
`that the Weitek processor needs to be the same speed as the CPU.
`
`Floppy Drive Seek At Boot
`Allows you to stop the computer looking in drive A: for an operating
`system when it starts, thus saving time on startup and possible wear
`and tear on the floppy drive heads. It's also good for security as it stops
`people booting up with their own disks and giving you viruses.
`
`Boot Up Floppy Seek
`See Floppy Drive Seek At Boot.
`
`This one comes with the Award BIOS, and looks for a 360K drive(cid:173)
`can't think why. Later versions determine whether the drive is 40 or 80
`track. Can be disabled in the interests of speed and security.
`
`System Boot Up Sequence
`Specifies in which order drives are searched for an operating system,
`assuming you haven't disabled the floppy drive search (above), in which
`case this setting will have no effect. The fastest (and least virus
`inducing) method is C:, A:, but if you have the MR BIOS, there may be
`other choices:
`
`Auto Search searches all floppies (you may have more than
`2) before defaulting to drive C:, which is useful
`if you have a 5.25" boot disk and a 3.5" first
`drive!
`
`Network 1st
`
`lets you use a Boot ROM, whether your C: drive
`is bootable or not.
`
`Screen Prompt You can choose from a short meriu.
`
`With Multiboot, from Phoenix, the BIOS will identify all boot devices
`and prioritise them according to your choice (v4.0 of the Phoenix BIOS,
`and later AMI BIOSes will boot from a Zip drive, while Award's
`EliteBIOS supports CD-ROMs, SCSI, LS-120 and Zip drives). Multiboo
`is only relevant to Plug and Play, and devices that the BIOS is aware
`of. Your only adjustment is the boot priority.
`
`Boot Up Sequence
`See System Boot Up Sequence.
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