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Chapter 4
BIOS Configuration
Quick Power On Self Test
Select Enabled to reduce the amount of time required to run the power-on self-
test (POST). A quick POST skips certain steps. We recommend that you
normally disable quick POST. Better to find a problem during POST than lose
data during your work.
Boot Sequence
The original IBM PCs loaded the operating system from drive A (floppy disk),
so IBM PC-compatible systems are designed to search for an operating system
first on drive A, and then on drive C (hard disk). However, modern computers
usually load the operating system from the hard drive, and may even load it
from a CD-ROM drive. The BIOS now offers a large number of boot devices
and boot sequence options.
Swap Floppy Drive
This field is effective only in systems with two floppy drives. Selecting
Enabled assigns physical drive B to logical drive A, and physical drive A to
logical drive B.
Boot Up Floppy Seek
When Enabled, the BIOS tests (seeks) floppy drives to determine whether they
have 40 or 80 tracks. Only 360-KB floppy drives have 40 tracks; drives with 720
KB, 1.2 MB, and 1.44 MB capacity all have 80 tracks. Because very few modern
PCs have 40-track floppy drives, we recommend that you set this field to
Disabled to save time.
Boot Up NumLock Status
Toggle between On or Off to control the state of the NumLock key when the
system boots. When toggled On, the numeric keypad generates numbers
instead of controlling cursor operations.
Gate A20 Option
Gate A20 refers to the way the system addresses memory above 1 MB (ex-
tended memory). When set to Fast, the system chipset controls Gate A20.
When set to Normal, a pin in the keyboard controller controls Gate A20.
Setting Gate A20 to Fast improves system speed, particularly with OS/2 and
Windows.
Typematic Rate Setting
When Disabled, the following two items (Typematic Rate and Typematic
Delay) are irrelevant. Keystrokes repeat at a rate determined by the keyboard
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