Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In computing, BIOS (/ ˈ b aɪ ɒ s,-oʊ s /, BY-oss, -ohss; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the booting process (power-on startup). [1]
Intel i945GC northbridge with Pentium Dual-Core microprocessor. This article provides a list of motherboard chipsets made by Intel, divided into three main categories: those that use the PCI bus for interconnection (the 4xx series), those that connect using specialized "hub links" (the 8xx series), and those that connect using PCI Express (the 9xx series).
Most motherboards have connectors for additional computer fans and integrated temperature sensors to detect motherboard and CPU temperatures and controllable fan connectors which the BIOS or operating system can use to regulate fan speed. [5] Alternatively computers can use a water cooling system instead of many fans.
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.
On older personal computer motherboards, the southbridge is one of the two chips in the core logic chipset, handling many of a computer's input/output functions. The other component of the chipset is the northbridge , which generally handles high speed onboard communications.
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 ...
Elitegroup Computer Systems Co., Ltd. (ECS; Chinese: 精英電腦股份有限公司) is a Taiwan-based electronics firm. It is the fifth largest [ citation needed ] PC motherboard manufacturer in the world (after Asus , Gigabyte Technology , ASRock , and MSI ), with production reaching 24 million units in 2002.
To communicate with the main computer system, several forms of communication can be used, including ACPI, SMBus, or shared memory. The embedded controller has its own RAM, independent of that used by the main computer system, and often its own flash ROM on which the controller's software is stored. Many BIOS updates also include upgrades for ...