BIOS

Hello to everyone

 

If there is anyone who are reading my posts, lol, you may have noticed, that I have been inactive. The reason is, I had alot of work to do in past month. I thought that I will be inactive for one week but it turned out for longer time, lots of plans, works changed so I really didn't had time for blogging. But now I am back, and in this post I will writte about BIOS.

BIOS

BIOS - Basic Input/Output System is a lowest operating system in computer. It is a firmware program that turns on the computer. Firmware is a data that is stored on computer, or other hardware device's read-only memory. It provides instruction on how that device should operate.

BIOS controlls the computer from the start up untill the operating system takes over, also, BIOS is an interface and it can be used to change the computer's settings.

Most people dont even need to know about BIOS, but it can be helpful to know what BIOS is.

 

  MORE ABOUT BIOS

 

The BIOS has a number of different roles, but it's main role is to turn on the computer.

Processor is using BIOS to get computer started up after you turn it on, the processor accesses the BIOS even before the operating system is loaded.

When you turn on your computer, the BIOS is checking hardware such as video cards, hard drive, keyboard, mouse and printer to make sure that everything is working. The hardware check is called Power On Self Test (POST), then it loads the operating system into your random acces memory - RAM.

BIOS is very useful tool to determine what kind of hardware you have installed on your computer.
When you turn on your computer, the first thing you will see is that the BIOS displays text describing things like, the amount of memory installed in your computer, the type of hard disk, processor and so on. It's shown on the first display screen you will see when you turn on your computer. Something like pictures bellow.

 

 

CONFIGURATIONS

You can use BIOS to configure your computer's settings, such as system date and time, boot sequence, configurations for hard drives, cd rom, power management, security etc. It can be dangerous to configure BIOS settings if you dont know what you are doing, you can completely demolish your computer. For example, the components of computer have limitations and setting the wrong values can cause a fail, somethimes even burn down your computer. For example, asking the processor to work at very high frequency can make it overheat. If you dont know what you are doing, stay away from BIOS interface.

When you turn on the computer, you will see first screen offering for you to pres some buttons to enter BIOS settup. Most computers will ask you to press f1, f2, DEL, ESC, Ctrl-Esc, or Ctrl-Alt-Esc to enter BIOS settings. 

Some computers are turning on really fast, so fast that you wont have time to find out wich button to press for entering BIOS. It may be funny, but when I deal with fast booting computers, I just run my palm across the keyboard when I see the first screen when computer is booting. It may not work at first time, but do it untill you will see something like pictures bellow lol. 

 

That's the BIOS interface where you can configure your computers settings.

In this interface you will see;

Security - you can set up a password for your computer,

Drive Configuration - Configure hard drives, CD-ROM drives,

Mouse/Keyboard - settings for mouse and keyboard, also auto detect mouse,

Plug and Play - auto detecting  connected devices, always should be on "YES",

Power management - settings for power,

system time and date - sets the system time and date,

Boot sequence - configure what BIOS is starting up, for example, windows normally loads up the operating system, you can choose to not load the operating system, you can load the CD, or flash drive instead.

Settings for processor and more.

The BIOS itself can't be just a program installed on your hard drive because it starts up the hard drive. since BIOS is available before the computer boots up, it can't live in the RAM because memory from the RAM is lost when the computer is turned off. So it has it's own memory where to keep all your computer's basic settings independently if the computer is turned on or off.

Computer's configuration is stored in a special memory called configuration memory. This memory is different than RAM memory.

The BIOS memory is a chip that can be located on the motherboard. It's a chip with pins on it's sides, I've got some picture examples bellow.

 

 

This memory needs to be stored even when the computer is turned off. To keep your settings, for this purpose the BIOS memory is powered by a small battery. you will find the battery near BIOS chip.

 

Also, because of this battery you will always see the correct date and time when you turn on the computer.

The CMOS settings is always saved if your computer is turned on or off, because of this battery.
 

The term CMOS stands for Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor, representing the technological process used to make this memory chip. 

If the battery is dead, some computers will use standart built-in settings instead of yours.
somethimes, you will see error messages like CMOS battery fail, CMOS Read Error or CMOS Checksum Error when you turn on the computer. You may also see more cryptic error messages, like New CPU Installed, the motherboard can’t remember that the CPU was installed previously, so it thinks it’s new every time you boot your computer.

If you will pull out the battery from it's socket, all the BIOS settings will be set back to it's defaults.
It can be usefull to pull out the battery and plug it back in for troubleshooting when you cant start up your computer.

Also if the BIOS has a password and you cant get in BIOS, unplugging the battery and then pluging it back will remove the BIOS password.

Also you can resset the BIOS settings in BIOS settings (CMOS settings) in section Clear CMOS” or “Reset to Defaults.”

UPDATING THE BIOS

Updating BIOS or more correctly flashing the BIOS. 

You dont have to update BIOS, it is in really rare cases nowadays it's not that much important it reffers more to old computers, some older BIOS chips may not accommodate new hardware devices.

BIOS updates are released for supporting new hardware like a new CPU or graphics card. If you need this new hardware on old computer then it’s probably worth taking the risk to install it. If not, then you should simply stick with your current BIOS because the new BIOS won’t make any difference and could actually cause more problems.

Anyways, if you know that you have to update your bios, you must know your current BIOS version. The easiest way to find your BIOS version is to open the System Information app in Windows, just type msinfo32 into the search bar, and click System Summary.

Then check your PC/motherboard manufacturer's Website for BIOS updates and search for your BIOS update, you must find the correct update for your BIOS. If You will try to install the wrong one, you will demolish your computer.

Now you know your BIOS version, you have downloaded the BIOS and you are ready to update it.

It's easy to update most newer computer's, simply, open the exe file, quit all open programs and wait for update to finish, then restart the computer. If your computer will shut down in the middle of update, then your computer wont start up, so make sure that you have full laptop battery or if you are using a desktop that you have UPS, Check my post about the power supplys and UPS if you dont know what UPS is.

Older computers will require the bootable disc to update the BIOS. You may still be able to download an app that configures a USB thumb drive, blank CD/DVD, or even a floppy disk so that you can boot off of it to update the BIOS, or an ISO image file that can be used in your disc-burning app of choice.

PROBLEMS

The symptoms of a BIOS crash will usually show up during POST. You may see strange error messages or hardware may not be recognized properly. If the computer turns on but doesn't boot any further, you may have a BIOS problem.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I was so busy in this month that I didn't have time to make this post, alot of plans changed, but now I will make new posts more often, because I have time for blogging now. There will be atleast one post per week, that's a minimum, I have alot of things to writte about. So if you are reading my blogs, I promise that there will be alot more upcoming stuff.