BIOS

In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the booting process (power-on startup). On a computer using BIOS firmware, the firmware comes pre-installed on the computer's motherboard.

In computer architecture, microcode is a layer of low-level control data or instructions used to implement a processor's instruction set architecture or internal control sequences. It consists of hardware-level operations that carry out higher-level machine code instructions or direct internal sequencing in many digital components. In many modern Intel and AMD general-purpose processors, common instructions are decoded directly into internal micro-operations, while microcode is used mainly for more complex instructions, special cases, and processor updates.

special type of boot sector at the very beginning of partitioned computer mass storage devices

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is an open standard that operating systems can use to discover and configure computer hardware components, to perform power management (e.g. putting unused hardware components to sleep), auto configuration (e.g. plug and play and hot swapping), and status monitoring. It was first released in December 1996. ACPI aims to replace Advanced Power Management (APM), the MultiProcessor Specification, and the Plug and Play BIOS (PnP) Specification. ACPI brings power management under the control of the operating system, as opposed to the previous BIOS-ce

process performed by firmware or software routines immediately after a computer or other digital electronic device is powered on

portion of disk space containing the default operations.

standard for the layout of the partition table on a physical storage device used in a desktop or server PC

alt=|thumb|A physical Wake-on-LAN connector (white object in foreground) featured on the IBM PCI Token-Ring Adapter 2

In computing, rebooting is the process by which a running computer system is restarted, either intentionally or unintentionally. Reboots can be either a cold reboot (alternatively known as a hard reboot) in which the power to the system is physically turned off and back on again (causing an initial boot of the machine); or a warm reboot (or soft reboot) in which the system restarts while still powered up. The term restart (as a system command) is used to refer to a reboot when the operating system closes all programs and finalizes all pending input and output operations before initiating a sof

Preboot Execution Environment

common scheme used for specifying the location of blocks of data stored on computer storage devices

American software company

in early computers, unit used to control the machine

API developed by Intel and Microsoft, released in 1992, enabling an OS on an IBM-compatible PC to work with the BIOS to manage power

Extensions of Windows Driver Model

small, battery-backed memory component for storing a computer's BIOS settings

right|thumb|Cylinder, head, and sector of a hard drive. Cylinder-head-sector (CHS) is an early method for giving addresses to each physical block of data on a hard disk drive.

American software company

the 384KiB area of physical memory between 640KiB and 1024KiB on IBM PC compatibles

technical standard

video board software standard

operating mode of x86 central processor units

extension to the ISO 9660 CD-ROM specification allowing for a system to boot from CD

computer-software framework for managing components

company

BIOS interrupt call

AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA) is a procedure library developed by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), used to perform the Platform Initialization (PI) on mainboards using their AMD64 architecture. As part of the BIOS of such mainboards, AGESA is responsible for the initialization of the CPU cores, chipset, main memory, and the HyperTransport controller.

facility used by operating systems and application programs

firmware and software that runs on all modern Intel CPUs at a higher level than user-facing operating system

firmware

data structure holding volume geometry info in boot records of volumes with FAT, HPFS and NTFS file systems

American software company

boot sector of non-partitioned media in IBM PC compatible systems

computing specification

Wake-on-Ring (WOR) or Wake-on-Modem (WOM) is a specification that allows supported computers and devices to wake up or turn on from a sleeping, hibernating or soft off state (e.g. ACPI state G1 or G2), and begin operation.

trusted execution environment subsystem

Legacy Plug and Play standard

In computing, instant-on is the ability to boot nearly instantly, allowing to go online or to use a specific application without waiting for a PC's traditional operating system to launch. Instant-on technology is today mostly used on laptops, netbooks, and nettops because the user can boot up one program, instead of waiting for the PC's operating system to boot. This allows a user to launch a single program, such as a movie-playing program or a web browser, without the need of the whole operating system. There still remain a few true instant-on machines such as the Atari ST, as described in th

BIOS interrupt call 13(hex)