Gateway ALR 9250R, User Manual

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Chapter 4: BIOS Setup 79
Using BIOS Setup
This section describes the BIOS Setup options. Use BIOS Setup to change
the system configuration defaults. You can run BIOS Setup with or without
an operating system present. BIOS Setup stores most of the configuration
values in battery-backed CMOS. The rest of the values are stored in flash
memory.
The values take effect when you boot the system. POST uses these values to
configure the hardware. If the values and the actual hardware do not agree,
POST generates an error message. You must then run BIOS Setup to
specify the correct configuration.
The different configuration utilities have different purposes. In some
instances, features can be configured in more than one utility. The primary
utilities are BIOS Setup and the SSU
Run BIOS Setup to modify standard system board features, such as:
•
Select the diskette drive
•
Select the parallel port
•
Select a serial port
•
Set the time or date (to be stored in the real-time clock (RTC))
•
Configure an IDE hard drive
•
Specify the boot device sequence
•
Enable the SCSI BIOS
Run the SSU, not BIOS Setup, to do the following:
•
Enter or change information about an expansion card
•
Alter system resources (for example, interrupts, memory
addresses, I/O assignments) to your choices instead of those
selected by the BIOS resource manager
It is a good idea to maintain a current record of the BIOS Setup and SSU
settings for each system. If the default values ever need to be restored (after
a CMOS clear, for example), you must run BIOS Setup again. Referring to
your notes will make the task easier.
9250R.book Page 79 Friday, April 9, 1999 9:44 AM