Chapter 4 Award BIOS Setup
Page: 4-2
PCI-531LF USER
′
S MANUAL
4-1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter will show you the function of the BIOS in managing the features
of your system. The PCI-531LF Intel®
Core Duo Half Size CPU Board is
equipped with the BIOS for system chipset from Phoenix -Award Software
Inc. This page briefly explains the function of the BIOS in managing the
special features of your system. The following pages describe how to use the
BIOS for system chipset Setup menu.
Your application programs (such as word processing, spreadsheets, and
games) rely on an operating system such as DOS or OS/2 to manage such
things as keyboard, monitor, disk drives, and memory.
The operating system relies on the BIOS (Basic Input and Output system), a
program stored on a ROM (Read-only Memory) chip, to initialize and
configure your computer's hardware. As the interface between the hardware
and the operating system, the BIOS enables you to make basic changes to
your system's hardware without having to write a new operating system.
The following diagram illustrates the interlocking relationships between the
system hardware, BIOS, operating system, and application program: