Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Prior to the development and ubiquitous adoption of the Plug and Play BIOS standard, an add-on device such as a hard disk controller or a network adapter card (NIC) was generally required to include an option ROM in order to be bootable, as the motherboard BIOS did not include any support for the device and so could not incorporate it into the BIOS's boot protocol.
There are default settings that are configured in the system BIOS and recognized by the operating system. These default settings can be altered by advanced users. Modern plug and play technology has not only reduced the need for concern for these settings, but has also virtually eliminated manual configuration.
On Windows Vista and Windows 7, this can be fixed by configuring the msahci device driver to start at boot time (rather than on-demand). Setting non-AHCI mode (i.e. IDE or Combined mode) in the BIOS will allow the user to boot into Windows, and thereby the required registry change can be performed.
BIOS interrupt calls perform hardware control or I/O functions requested by a program, return system information to the program, or do both. A key element of the purpose of BIOS calls is abstraction - the BIOS calls perform generally defined functions, and the specific details of how those functions are executed on the particular hardware of the system are encapsulated in the BIOS and hidden ...
Ralf Brown's Interrupt List (aka RBIL, x86 Interrupt List, MS-DOS Interrupt List or INTER) is a comprehensive list of interrupts, calls, hooks, interfaces, data structures, CMOS settings, memory and port addresses, as well as processor opcodes for x86 machines from the 1981 IBM PC up to 2000 (including many clones), [1] [2] [nb 1] most of it still applying to IBM PC compatibles today.
Award BIOS setup utility on a standard PC. A modern BIOS setup utility has a text user interface (TUI) or graphical user interface (GUI) accessed by pressing a certain key on the keyboard when the PC starts. Usually, the key is advertised for short time during the early startup, for example "Press DEL to enter Setup".
Nonvolatile BIOS memory refers to a small memory on PC motherboards that is used to store BIOS settings. It is traditionally called CMOS RAM because it uses a volatile, low-power complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) SRAM (such as the Motorola MC146818 [1] or similar) powered by a small battery when system and standby power is off. [2]
NDIS Miniport drivers can also use Windows Driver Model interfaces to control network hardware. [19] Another driver type is NDIS Intermediate Driver. Intermediate drivers sit in-between the MAC and IP layers and can control all traffic being accepted by the NIC. In practice, intermediate drivers implement both miniport and protocol interfaces.