Ultimate BIOS Guide: Every Setting Decrypted and Explained!
Posted 06/15/09 at 12:35:52 PM by Paul Lilly
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Power Management
With the recent push towards reducing carbon footprints and going green, power management schemes have started garnering a lot of attention. Some basic power saving features have been included on most motherboards for some time now, and this is where you'll find them.
ACPI Suspend Type: Short for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface, this setting dictates what power saving state your system goes into. ACPI replaces the older Advanced Power Management (APM) scheme and requires a compatible OS, such as Windows 98 and up, along with several Linux distributions.
S1(POS): In an S1 state, the CPU stops processing cycles but it, along with the RAM, are still fed power.
S3(STR): Also referred to as Suspend to RAM, this options saves the data to RAM before putting the PC in a sleep state. In most cases, fans and all other devices will be powered down, so it appears as though the PC is actually turned off.
Soft-Off by PWR-BTTN: This lets you adjust how long you need to press the power button before your system turns off. Choosing Instant Off will power off the system instantly, whereas Delay 4 Sec configures it so you need to hold the power button for 4 seconds before powering down. With the latter option enabled, pressing the power button (as opposed to holding it) puts the PC in a suspend state, feeding a small amount of power to the system.
PME Event Wake Up: Short for Power Management Event, this redundantly-named entry is usually the culprit when you find that your PC has turned on during the middle the night even though you remember turning it off before going to bed. Also referred to as Wake on LAN (WoL), network activity or a stray electrical signal tells your PC to fire up if you have this setting enabled.
Power on by Ring: You might also see this entry labeled as Wake/Power Up on Ext. Modem. Enabling this setting tells the PC to turn itself on when a call comes in through a phone line connected to the modem.
Resume by Alarm: Used to specify a time and date of the month (or everyday) for the PC to turn on automatically. Some ITs find this handy for ensuring PCs are up and running on Microsoft's Patch Tuesday, and businesses find it useful for making sure PCs are up and running when employees start rolling in early morning. You might also see this entry labeled Resume by RTC (Real Time Clock) Alarm.
HPET Support: Short for High Precision Event Timer, Microsoft describes this as a "new system timer that is needed in chipsets to replace legacy timers and to meet the needs of time-sensitive applications." By enabling this feature, the company claims system performance is improved.
HPET Mode: You can set this to either 32-bit or 64-bit, depending on your operating system. If you're rolling with a 64-bit OS, choose the latter to take full advantage of HPET's 64-bit registers.
Power on by Mouse: Enables turning on the system with a double-click.
Power on by Keyboard: Enables turning on the system by pressing your keyboard's Power key. Additionally, some BIOSes allow you to setup a short password instead of pressing the Power button. If setting up a password, you'll need to mash the Enter key afterwards.
AC Back Function: Also referred to as AC Power Loss Restart, this setting dictates how your PC responds to an unexpected power loss once the power is restored.
Soft-Off: Leaves the PC turned off, even if it was turned on prior to losing power.
Full-On: Turns the PC back on following a power loss.
Memory: If the PC was turned on prior to losing power, it will boot back up once power is restored. But if the PC was off to begin with, it will remain turned off.
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Submitted by Mikeytron on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 10:44am
I second another poster. This needs to be in .pdf form. You did a whole lot of work but the value to us is limited because we really cannot easily "take it with us". Yeah we can bookmark it but that's really not good enough. To be honest what needs to be done is to create a smaller pocket sized book that we can keep in our desks or briefcases. This is an item that has value unlike the CD'S that come with the issues. In fact how about when we subscribe we get a pocket sized how to book on the above piece? The CD is good for people not online, but really we ALL are by now big time. Simple links in the mag every month could do away with the CD and you would be going green!!! Give us hard copies of stuff we want to KEEP, again like the above piece. The CD usefullness is DEAD.
Try this
Submitted by One4yu2c on Sun, 07/05/2009 - 9:37am
It's not PDF, but maybe this would help? http://www.maximumpc.com/print/6543
Could also combine the single-page print version with Firefox's PDFit extension.
-Paul Lilly
Submitted by adeletwo6789 on Tue, 09/29/2009 - 11:16am
Thanks much for this writeup!! Great job on describing EXACTLY what to do! All in all the whole setup took me.
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Submitted by domih2009 on Wed, 06/17/2009 - 9:34pm
...If you've already installed Windows, suddenly switching from IDE mode to AHCI will quickly muck things up. On the other hand, it's a good way to see what a BSOD looks like if you've never seen one before. Otherwise, be prepared to start fresh with a new Windows installation.
You can save yourself a new Windows installation depending on your OS and ICH chipset.
For Vista: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976 (easy)
For XP: brave minds can peruse through http://www.google.com/search?q=How+to+enable+AHCI+on+Intel+under+XP (less easy)
Submitted by babalooo on Wed, 06/17/2009 - 1:20am
Great article! I doubt, that many people are aware, just how time consuming such work is. Respect...
If you are having pc gaming performance issues, you're welcome @ http://www.lowfps.com/improving-performance
Fantastic Guide.....BUT.......
Submitted by ghot on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 6:32am
......kind of useless if I cant down load it, since i seriously doubt that Ill be ONLINE while OCing in the BIOS :)
This DESERVES to be in .pdf format, as well as the linked to articles ^^ Remember also that nVidia still makes chipsets :)
Take an OS, and edit out all the efficiency, and what you have left is a post-XP Microsoft operating system :)
simply copy paste it to
Submitted by Bless on Wed, 06/17/2009 - 3:17am
simply copy paste it to word, and hit print
Sweet
Submitted by FenixSS on Mon, 06/15/2009 - 11:22pm
Another example of great bathroom reading material.
Submitted by rob41 on Mon, 06/15/2009 - 6:29pm
Great job Paul. This is some very useful information!
Submitted by water_man3 on Mon, 06/15/2009 - 12:10pm
One of my favorite issues of all time, the August 2003 issue, happens to have - I quote - "the most in depth white paper - EVER" on BIOS Secrets. This is great stuff guys - exactly why I subscribe.
Submitted by Dysthymia on Mon, 06/15/2009 - 11:34am
I'm confused... the only users who should have this setting enabled are those running a legacy os with an older processor -- and those running XP, Vista, or Windows 7?
I saw the same thing. This
Submitted by BlazePC on Mon, 06/15/2009 - 7:20pm
I saw the same thing. This article, although well intentioned, has some really poor grammar/explanation of logic in relation to BIOS "settings". I'm actually quite shocked at how bad some of this reads. I subscribe to the mag and I'm coming up on renewal shortly, and this may have been the straw that changed my mind on doing that. Pretty sloppy guys...you might consider clearing up the explanations for the "new" user base on the next go around ...and there will be a next time because this stuff gets recycled a lot.
Submitted by Mothership on Mon, 06/15/2009 - 10:35am
I found this very helpful and already printed a copy for myself and others. Good if you want to learn what your ACTUALLY doing when your OCing that cpu =).
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