Technical Product Specification

Intel Desktop Board D2500CC Technical Product Specification

3.8.2 BIOS Boot Optimizations

Use of the following BIOS Setup program settings reduces the POST execution time.

• In the Boot Menu, set the hard disk drive as the first boot device. As a result, the

POST does not first seek a diskette drive, which saves about one second from the

POST execution time.

• In the Peripheral Configuration submenu, disable the LAN device if it will not be

used. This can reduce up to four seconds of option ROM boot time.

NOTE

It is possible to optimize the boot process to the point where the system boots so

quickly that the Intel logo screen (or a custom logo splash screen) will not be seen.

Monitors and hard disk drives with minimum initialization times can also contribute to a

boot time that might be so fast that necessary logo screens and POST messages

cannot be seen.

This boot time may be so fast that some drives might be not be initialized at all. If this

condition should occur, it is possible to introduce a programmable delay ranging from

zero to 30 seconds by 5 second increments (using the Hard Disk Pre-Delay feature of

the Advanced Menu in the Drive Configuration Submenu of the BIOS Setup program).

3.9 Hard Disk Drive Password Security Feature

The Hard Disk Drive Password Security feature blocks read and write accesses to the

hard disk drive until the correct password is given. Hard Disk Drive Passwords are set

in BIOS SETUP and are prompted for during BIOS POST. For convenient support of S3

resume, the system BIOS will automatically unlock drives on resume from S3. Valid

password characters are A-Z, a-z, and 0-9. Passwords may be up to 16 characters in

length.

The User hard disk drive password, when installed, will be required upon each power-

cycle until the Master Key or User hard disk drive password is submitted.

The Master Key hard disk drive password, when installed, will not lock the drive. The

Master Key hard disk drive password exists as an unlock override in the event that the

User hard disk drive password is forgotten. Only the installation of the User hard disk

drive password will cause a hard disk to be locked upon a system power-cycle.

Table 39 shows the effects of setting the Hard Disk Drive Passwords.

Table 39. Master Key and User Hard Drive Password Functions

Password Set Password During Boot

Neither None

Master only None

User only User only

Master and User Set Master or User