Build Your Own PC
Configure the BIOSMay 31, 1999
By David Risley
Now, your new PC should be up and running and you should be staring at the BIOS setup screen.
The following procedure will walk you through this initial setup. Please bear in mind that this serves as an outline. Your actual settings and names may vary for different BIOS versions.
- Auto-detect your Hard Drive. Just about all somewhat modern BIOS versions are capable of auto-detecting the hard drive and using the DriveID command to find and configure it in the BIOS. You should see a menu option for this. Go ahead and do this now. If it does not successfully detect the drive, then make sure the drive is properly connected, because it probably isn't.
- Now enter the Standard Settings option. Configure the following items:
- The date and time. The date is in MM/DD/YY format, and the time is in 24-hour format, like "military-time".
- Drive IDE settings: Type: Probably set to "User"
- Heads/Sectors, etc...leave these set to the values determined by Auto-Detect.
- Translation Mode: Modern drives are set to LBA, the older drives below 500 MB or so are set to Normal, or CHS.
- Block Mode: Disabled on most systems
- PIO Mode: Usually auto-detected, but most drive should be set to PIO mode 3.
- Floppy Drive(s): Just set the correct type, like 1.44MB, 720K, etc.
- Video Display: Set to VGA
- Halt On: All errors, to be sure you see all errors
- Now, go into Advanced Features, its all the same thing:
- Virus Protection/Warning: Disable
- Internal Cache: Enable. If you can't, then this is a hardware problem.
- External Cache: Enable.
- Quick POST: Disable to make sure all tests are performed on boot-up, but you can enable it, sacrificing valuable tests, but increasing boot speed.
- Boot Sequence: Best left at A:, C:, SCSI
- Swap Floppy Drive: If your floppies are set in the correct locations on the floppy ribbon cable, you will not need to enable this. If your a: and b: are reversed, though, you can enable this.
- Fast A20: Disable
- Video/System BIOS Shadow: Disable now for minimum problems.
- Go to the Chipset Advanced Features menu:
- Chipset Special Features: Disable
- Cache Timing: leave at "Auto", the default
- L2 Cache size: Set it to match the size of your external cache.
- DRAM Parity Checking: Enable only if using parity memory
- Dram parity/ECC mode: "Parity" if using parity memory, "ECC" if using ECC memory
- DRAM speed/Timing: Set to "Auto", or speed of memory. For SDRAM, you probably won't see 10ns listed, just choose "Auto", the memory runs at the correct speed.
- Disable all other options
- Disable Power Management Features for now.
- Set PCI/PnP Configuration Settings. If using Windows 95, set the PnP Aware OS to enabled. All other options set to Auto, or disable if "Auto" is not available.
- Go to Integrated Peripherals. Configure these items:
- Integrated Floppy Controller: Enable.
- Integrated IDE/ HDD Controller: Enable those you are using. Most likely, you have a hard drive on controller 1 and a CD-ROM on controller 2, so enable both.
- Integrated Serial Port. Both COM 1 and COM 2 are usually enabled.
- Integrated Parallel Port: Enable on most systems.
- Parallel Port Mode: Set to either "EPP" or "SPP".
- PS/2 Mouse: Set to "Auto" if available, otherwise, enable if using a PS/2 mouse.
- USB: Disable on most systems, but enable if actually using USB.
- If you are using a "jumperless" motherboard equipped with "SoftMenu", enter this option and configure the following items:
- CPU Operating Speed. Setting this will automatically set the External Clock and Multiplier Settings.
- External Clock: Set to the bus speed of your system.
- Multiplier Factor: Set it. Obvious.
- CPU Power Plane: Set to either dual voltage or single voltage. Most modern chips use dual voltage, one for core, one for I/O.
- I/O Voltage: Set to appropriate voltage for your chip.
- Core Voltage: Set to appropriate voltage for your chip.
- Save and Exit the BIOS setup program. This will reboot the machine. Make sure your system disk is still in Drive A.
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