BIOS Settings - Standard Settings



This settings group contains basic parameters that you will 
normally need to set (or adjust) for your system to work 
properly. Most of these are present on virtually every PC.


Date

The system date. Make sure that you enter it in the correct 
format; normally this is mm/dd/yy in North America, but may 
vary elsewhere.


Time

The system time. Most systems require this to be entered using 
a 24-hour clock.


Daylight Savings

If your BIOS has this setting, enabling it will forward the time 
by one hour on the first Sunday in April, and drop it back by one 
hour on the last Sunday in October. The default value is 
usually "Enabled".

This setting is not present on most PCs; however, some operating 
systems, such as Windows 95, will do this for you automatically 
if you enable the daylight savings time option in their 
control settings.

Note: The date when daylight savings time "kicks in" can change 
in some cases; for example, a few years ago the spring date 
changed from the last Sunday in April to the first. If this 
happens again your BIOS will change the time on the wrong date 
so you will want to disable this unless a flash BIOS upgrade is 
made available to you that compensates.


IDE Primary Master

This is where the hard disk parameters are entered for the 
primary master IDE/ATA device, the first drive in a modern IDE 
system. See the hard disk section for details on what these terms 
mean and how these devices are set up. The various settings for 
the drive are discussed in detail in the IDE Setup / Autodetection 
section . The default setting for this on a system with IDE 
autodetection, is usually "Auto".

Note: Some older systems only have places for two drives' 
parameters to be entered; often in this case they just call 
them "Drive C" and "Drive D".


IDE Primary Slave

This is where the hard disk parameters are entered for the 
primary slave IDE device, the second drive in a modern IDE 
system. See the hard disk section  for details on what these 
terms mean and how these devices are set up. The various settings 
for the drive are discussed in detail in the IDE 
Setup / Autodetection section . The default setting for this on 
a system with IDE autodetection, is usually "Auto".


IDE Secondary Master

This is where the hard disk parameters are entered for the 
secondary master IDE device, normally the third drive in a 
modern IDE system (though it can be the second as well, if the 
primary slave device is not used). See the hard disk section for 
details on what these terms mean and how these devices are set
up. The various settings for the drive are discussed in detail 
in the IDE Setup / Autodetection section . The default setting 
for this on a system with IDE autodetection, is usually "Auto".


IDE Secondary Slave

This is where the hard disk parameters are entered for the 
secondary slave IDE device, the fourth drive in a modern IDE 
system. See the hard disk section for details on what these 
terms mean and how these devices are set up. The various 
settings for the drive are discussed in detail in the IDE 
Setup / Autodetection section . The default setting for this 
on a system with IDE autodetection, is usually "Auto".


Floppy Drive A

The type of the first floppy drive . The choices normally are: 

	1.44 MB: A normal 3.5" drive. 

	1.2 MB: A normal 5.25" drive. 

	2.88 MB: A high-density 3.5" drive, 
	found on some newer systems. 

	720 KB: A low-density 3.5" drive. 

	360 KB: A low-density 5.25" drive. 

This setting usually defaults to a 1.44 MB 3.5" drive, the most 
common type currently in use.


Floppy Drive B

The type of the second floppy drive. See common choices under 
"Floppy Drive A" above.


Video Display Type

This is the standard type of the display you are using; almost 
always this should be set to either "VGA" or "VGA/EGA" for a 
modern PC, if you are using any sort of VGA or SVGA card (which 
is basically every PC made in the nineties.) This is also usually 
the default value.


Halt On

Some PCs give you the ability to tell the BIOS specifically 
which types of errors will halt the computer during the power-on 
self test section of the boot process . Using this, you can tell 
the PC to ignore certain types of errors; common settings for 
this parameter are: 

	All Errors: The boot process will halt on all errors. 
	You will be prompted for action in the event of 
	recoverable errors. This is the normally the default 
	setting, and is also the recommended one. 

	No Errors: The POST will not stop of any type of error. 
	Not recommended except for very special case. 

	All But Keyboard: The boot process will stop for any 
	error except a keyboard error. This can be useful for 
	setting up a machine without a keyboard, for example for 
	a file or print server. 

	All But Diskette/Floppy: All errors will halt the system 
	except diskette errors. In my opinion, if your floppy 
	drive has recurring and known problems, it is most likely 
	best just to replace (or disconnect) the drive rather 
	than using this. 

Warning: Telling the system not to halt for any error types is 
generally not wise. You may end up missing a problem with your 
system that you will want to know about.
