Specifications

CHAPTER 3
154
All About Motherboards
CHANGING BIOS SETUP FOR BRAND-NAME COMPUTERS
Many brand-name computer manufacturers, such as IBM, Dell, and Gateway, use their own
custom-designed setup screens. These screens differ from the ones just shown. For example,
Figure 3-64 shows the IBM BIOS Setup main menu for an IBM Thinkpad notebook
computer. Under the Config option on the screen, you can configure the network port,
serial port, parallel port, PCI bus, USB port, floppy drive, keyboard, display settings, power
settings, power alarm, and memory settings.
Reboot your PC and look for the message on the first or
second display screen that tells you how to enter BIOS
setup. Press that key. What version of BIOS are you using? Explore the BIOS setup menus until
you find the boot sequence. What is the order of storage media that startup BIOS uses to find
an OS? What keystrokes do you use to change that order? Exit setup without making any
changes. The system should reboot to the Windows desktop.
APPLYING CONCEPTS
Figure 3-64 BIOS setup main menu for an IBM computer
Courtesy: Course Technology/Cengage Learning
Compare this BIOS setup main menu to the one shown in Figure 3-65 for a Gateway
desktop computer. For all these different brand-name computers, what you can configure is
similar, but the setup screens are likely to be organized differently.
A+ Exam Tip
The A+ 220-702 Practical Application exam expects you to be able to configure a
motherboard. You need to know how and when to use BIOS setup to make appropriate changes. And to
help secure a computer, you need to know how to set startup passwords.
PROTECTING DOCUMENTATION AND CONFIGURATION SETTINGS
If the battery goes bad or is disconnected, you can lose the settings saved in CMOS RAM. If
you are using default settings, reboot with a good battery and instruct setup to restore the
default settings. Setup has to autodetect the hard drive present, and you need to set the date
A+
220-702
1.1
1435487389_ch03_CTP.qxd 7/30/09 5:23 PM Page 154