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Technical Reference Guide
Chapter 8
SYSTEM BIOS
8.
Chapter 8 SYSTEM BIOS
8.1 INTRODUCTION
The Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) of the computer is a collection of machine language
programs stored as firmware in read-only memory (ROM). The ROM includes such functions as
Power-On Self Test (POST), VGA BIOS, PCI device initialization, Plug ‘n Play support, ACPI
power management activities, and the Setup utility. The firmware contained in the BIOS ROM
supports the following operating systems and specifications:
♦ Windows 95, 98SE, 2000, XP Home, XP Professional, and Mandrake Linux 8.2
♦ Windows NT 4.0 (SP6 required for PnP support)
♦ OS/2 ver 2.1 and OS/2 Warp
♦ SCO Unix
♦ DMI 2.1
♦ Intel Wired for Management (WfM) ver. 2.2
♦ Wake-On-LAN (WOL)
♦ ACPI and OnNow
♦ SMBIOS 2.3.1
♦ PC98/99/00 and NetPC
♦ BIOS Boot Specification 1.01
♦ Enhanced Disk Drive Specification 3.0
♦ “El Torito” Bootable CD-ROM Format Specification 1.0
♦ ATAPI Removeable Media Device BIOS Specification 1.0
The BIOS firmware is contained in a flash ROM component. The runtime portion of the BIOS
resides in a 128KB block from E0000h to FFFFFh.
This chapter includes the following topics:
♦ ROM flashing (8.2) page 8-2
♦ Boot functions (8.3) page 8-3
♦ Setup utility (8.4) page 8-5
♦ Client management functions (8.5) page 8-11
♦ Power management functions (8.6) page 8-14
♦ USB legacy support (8.7) page 8-16
Compaq D315 and hp d325 Personal Computers
Featuring the AMD Athlon XP Processor
Second Edition – April 2003
8-1