BIOS
BIOS U
PDATE
U
TILITY
2-18
MSR
Model Specific Register.
NIC
Network Interface Card.
NM
Node Manager – now “Intel® Intelligent Power Node Manager”.
NMI
Non-Maskable Interrupt.
OEM
Original Equipment Manufacturer.
OS
Operating System.
PCH
Platform Controller Hub.
PCI
Peripheral Component Interconnect, or PCI Local Bus Standard – also called “Conven-
tional PCI”.
PCIe
PCI Express* -- an updated form of PCI offering better throughput and better error man-
agement.
PCR
Platform Configuration Register.
PECI
Platform Environmental Control Interface.
PEI
Pre EFI Initialization. Component of Intel® Platform Innovation Framework for EFI archi-
tecture.
PERR
Parity Error.
PIC
Programmable Interrupt Controller.
PMI
Platform Management Interrupt.
PnP
Plug and Play. Used as “PnP BIOS” and “PnP ISA”.
POST
Power On Self Test – BIOS activity from the time on Power On until Operating System
boot begins.
PXE
Pre-execution Environment.
QPI
Intel® QuickPath Interconnect.
RAID
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks – provides data security by spreading data over
multiple disk drives. RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, and RAID 5 are different patterns of data on
varying numbers of disks to provide varying degrees of security and performance.
RAS
Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability.
RDIMM
Registered DIMM (also called buffered) memory modules have an address buffer register
between the SDRAM modules and the system's memory controller.
ROM
Read-Only Memory.
RTC
Real Time Clock.
SAS
Serial Attached SCSI, a high speed serial data version of SCSI.
SATA
Serial ATA, a high speed serial data version of the disk ATA interface.
SCI
System Control Interrupt.
SCSI
Small Computer System Interface, a connection usually used for disks of various types.
SDR
Sensor Data Record.
SEL
System Event Log.
SERR
System Error.
Table 10: Terminology (Continued)
Term
Description
