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|AF_IC04_ The motherboard. Components and configuration. |

|AF Unit 4 Motherboard Configuration. |

In this unit you will be able to view the possibilities of configuration of desktop motherboards. First, you will learn about the motherboard manuals, and next you will work with the board configuration system, including the EFI/BIOS and the jumpers.

4.1 Motherboard manuals.

The motherboard manual is an invaluable source of information for you to know about its features and configuration features. The manual is usually included with the motherboard, but in the case you do not have it available, it is possible to find it on the internet.

Using the previously seen program cpu-z, open the mainboard tab on your computer and you look for the model of your motherboard. Once your have found it, write it down.

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With this information you can go to the manufacturer page and find the manual or datasheet for the motherboard, usually in pdf format. Check out the manual and you will see that there is a huge amount of information that allows us to service the motherboard by knowing its components very well.

Find the chapters that relate to:

• The motherboard's physical layout and components.

• The chipset that the board uses and the features it has.

• Processors which are compatible with this particular motherboard.

• Information you find out about the system BIOS.

Activity: Use the manual to review all the information learned in the previous units, answering the next questions while you advance through the manual.

1. List the expansion slots that are present in your motherboard according to the manual.

2. Find the basic information about your system (motherboard, processor, chipset and RAM) and check that it is the same that you found earlier with software tools like cpu-z.

3. Find and copy the instructions that indicate how to install or replace a processor in your motherboard

Visit the following page to check out one of the pages where you can find manuals and other kinds of information for ASUS computers. If your computer is of this brand, you will have to use this particular page.

|ASUS SUPPORT PAGE |

|Client service support page, with downloads section, videos, and other resources. |

|[pic] |

|Support page. |

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4.2 BIOS and EFI.

The name BIOS is the acronym of basic input-output system. It is a subsystem of the computer that is allocated in a motherboard chip. It usually contains a firmware stored in EPROM memory (erasable programmable read only memory) and non-volatile flash memory that can be erased and reprogrammed electrically.

|BIOS function |

|The BIOS initially takes care of detecting and testing all the components connected to the computer, in order to give them connection with |

|the operating system. This process is called POST (power-on self-test). |

The BIOS configuration can be done using a visual program that usually loads pressing a key on the keyboard (for example Del, Esc, F1, F2, or other key combinations like Ctrl-Esc and Ctrl-Alt-Esc).

The most usual features are the following:

• Change the date and time of the system.

• View and configure the storage devices.

• Set and change the BIOS access password

• Configure devices like the keyboard.

• Configure ports and devices: PCI, USB, etc.

• Configure advanced parameters, like the processor frequency, the memory, the BIOS update.

• Configure low-consumption parameters.

• Change the boot order.

Watch this video where you will be taken step by step through several parameters that you can configure in a computer BIOS. Get into your computer BIOS and try to find all the concepts and configurations that appear in the video.

Be very careful not to do anything that you do not understand in the BIOS, you could damage your computer.

|[pic] |Basics of the system BIOS and its most commonly used features. |

Have you understood the main parts of what was said? Watch it again stopping at the difficult points and trying to get all the relevant vocabulary.

Visit the following site, where you can find an exhaustive list of BIOS manufacturers with the support page. Make sure to find the page for your system BIOS. Remember that you can consult what BIOS you have using the manual, programs like cpu-z or by plain-sight.

|BIOS MANUFACTURER LIST |

|List of manufacturers with links to their support pages. |

|[pic] |

|Website with the list of BIOS manufacturers |

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The main menu of the BIOS allows us to access to the system information and the storage devices configuration.

Access the next link that contains a BIOS Setup Simulator if you do not have access to an actual BIOS Setup program.

|BIOS ONLINE SIMULATOR |

|Access a handy BIOS simulator in the grs-software webpage. |

|[pic] |

|Phoenix BIOS Setup Utility |

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Although still very widely used, the BIOS standard is no longer the only one on the market. One of the most used at this current time is the EFI standard (Extensible Firmware Interface). This is a specification that defines an interface between an operating system and a firmware platform. EFI is much bigger and more complex than BIOS, and overcomes some of its limitations.

The initial EFI specification was developed by Intel, but has been taken over by the Unified EFI Forum. All current important operating systems support it. Visit in the next link the Unified EFI Forum webpage.

|UNIFIED EFI FORUM |

|All kinds of information on the UEFI standard. |

|[pic] |

|UEFI Forum webpage |

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4.3 Configuration with jumpers.

The first generations of personal computers made a wide use of jumpers for their configuration. For example a 386 motherboard by Intel could have up to thirty or forty configuration jumpers. Each jumper had to be assigned a label with a name that was documented in a manual or in the actual motherboard.

|Motherboard Jumpers |

|In electronics and computers, a bridge or jumper is a small piece of conducting cable that is used to close an electric circuit. The |

|jumpers have been traditionally used to configure or adjust printed circuits, like motherboards, graphic cards or hard disks. |

The tendency has been to avoid the configuration by jumpers in favour of software-controlled configurations, stored in non-volatile memories, and loaded when the system starts.

[pic]

Several jumpers to configure a computer.

One still widely used utility of the configuration using jumpers is the possibility to erase the BIOS CMOS memory when we do not have access to the BIOS program (usually because of lost passwords) but we do have access to the physical inside of the case. Find out if your system has the possibility to restore the BIOS to its initial values using a jumper.

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