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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]
An initial HPA could then be set (by some jumpers on the hard disk) to limit the number of cylinders to 4095 or 4096 so that the older BIOS would start. It was then the job of the bootloader to reset the HPA so that the operating system would see the full hard-disk storage space.
The BIOS uses the boot devices set in Nonvolatile BIOS memory , or, in the earliest PCs, DIP switches. The BIOS checks each device in order to see if it is bootable by attempting to load the first sector (boot sector). If the sector cannot be read, the BIOS proceeds to the next device.
In computing, the reset vector is the default location a central processing unit will go to find the first instruction it will execute after a reset. The reset vector is a pointer or address , where the CPU should always begin as soon as it is able to execute instructions.
The BIOS begins its POST when the CPU is reset. The first memory location the CPU tries to execute is known as the reset vector . In the case of a hard reboot , the northbridge will direct a code fetch request to the BIOS located on the system flash memory .
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 ...
Recent research shows that diet, exercise, and social life are three main factors that could help us improve longevity. Design by MNT; photography by Diane Durongpisitkul/Stocksy, Ani Dimi/Stocksy ...
An option ROM for the PC platform (i.e. the IBM PC and derived successor computer systems) is a piece of firmware that resides in ROM on an expansion card (or stored along with the main system BIOS), which gets executed to initialize the device and (optionally) add support for the device to the BIOS.