Supermicro 440FX, Reference Manual

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1-1
Chapter 1: AMI BIOS
Chapter 1
AMI BIOS
1-1 Introduction
This chapter describes the AMIBIOS for the Intel 440FX chipset
which is designed for Intel Pentium
®
Pro 150/166/180/200 MHz and
Pentium II 233/266/300 MHz processors. The AMI ROM BIOS is
stored in the Flash EEPROM and is easily upgraded using a floppy
disk-based program.
System BIOS
The BIOS is the basic input output system used in all IBM
®
PC,
XT™, AT
®
, and PS/2
®
compatible computers. The WinBIOS is a
high-quality example of a system BIOS.
Configuration Data
AT-compatible systems, also called ISA (Industry Standard Architec-
ture) must have a place to store system information when the
computer is turned off. The original IBM AT had 64 bytes of non-
volatile memory storage in CMOS RAM. All AT-compatible systems
have at least 64 bytes of CMOS RAM, which is usually part of the
Real Time Clock. Many systems have 128 bytes of CMOS RAM.
How Data Is Configured
AMIBIOS provides a Setup utility in ROM that is accessed by
pressing <Del> at the appropriate time during system boot. Setup
configures data in CMOS RAM.