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Breaking Through the BIOS Barrier: The Definitive BIOS Optimization Guide for PCs [Paperback]

Adrian Wong (Author)

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Product Description

Book Description

What is a BIOS? BIOS, pronounced "bye-ose," is an acronym that standsfor Basic Input Output System. The BIOS is built-in software that determineswhat a computer can do without accessing programs from a disk. On PCs, theBIOS contains all the code required to control the keyboard, display screen,disk drives, serial communications, and a number of miscellaneous functions.Furthermore, The BIOS is responsible for booting your PC by providing abasic set of instructions. The BIOS performs all the necessary tasks that needto be initiated at start-up time: POST(Power-On Self Test, booting anoperating system from FDD or HDD). In essence, it is necessary to upgradethe BIOS on your PC in order to maintain or inevitably obtain compatibilitywith the PC industries latest hardware, software and operating systems.

From the Inside Flap

Breaking Through the BIOS BarrierForeword

Breaking Through the BIOS Barrier: The Definitive BIOS Optimization Guide for PCs is absolutely the best guide of its kind.

Recent advances in technology have turned the user-friendly BIOS of the past into an engineer's maze of jargon and techno-babble. Most descriptions of BIOS settings from motherboard manufacturer's manuals give little more than a list of the available settings options. A description of the settings and an indication of how to set timings are virtually nonexistent.

Breaking Through the BIOS Barrier solves all that by providing easy-to-understand, layman's descriptions for all of the latest BIOS settings.

Combining these descriptions with real-world reasons for choosing certain options makes the guide an invaluable resource to any computer "tweaker" or enthusiast. For the advanced user and the curious, the book is full of technical information that delves deeply into the mysterious and uncharted waters of the modern BIOS setup.

Memory timings are an extremely important part of performance and stability in today's high-end computers.It has been an indispensable tool for our technical personnel to use in R&D and troubleshooting.

Kudos to Adrian Wong!

Lewis Keller
Technical Services Manager,
Mushkin Enhanced Memory Systems, Inc.All rights reserved.

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Amazon.com: 4.3 out of 5 stars  13 reviews
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Outdated Feb 12 2007
By G. Frank - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Unimpressive. I bought this to help with overclocking an Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard (launched mid 2006) and it didn't even mention most of the BIOS options I wanted to know about. The book advertises that it gives you 3 months access to the online Bios guide that is supposedly updated, but when I went online to activate that, it said the "promotion had expired". It's a dictionary of bios terms, not a guide. And the items covered are more pertinent to motherboards of 2004, not those made in 2007. One could use google or wikipedia and get the same or better explanations as those in this book.
33 of 36 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Explaining the Arcane Sep 27 2004
By John Matlock - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
When you are starting your computer if you hold down F8, or the DELETE key or perhaps some other key, you get into the BIOS setup routines. When you look at these screens you are presented with a bewildering array of optional settings. They are all, of course, clearly identified with some kind of gibberish like AGP to DRAM Prefetch.

This book is organized so that inside the front and back covers are a listing of the BIOS options. Looking up AGP to DRAM Prefetch you are told that there is a Quick Review on Page 40 and a Detailed Description on Page 169. And after a little reading you will understand what this option does, and why you probably want it enabled. About 250 BIOS options are explained in this manner. There have been many times in the past when having such a book would have been invaluable. It is clearly written using words that will make sense to the computer literate and those maybe one step above novice.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Outdated Glossary with Some Recommendations. Mar 19 2007
By J. Panepinto - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is little more than a glossary of BIOS entries which may or may not match the ones in your computer. If you purchased a computer within the last year, this book will be of no help. It does not cover PCIE cards or dual video-card platforms. The terms rarely match up to specific BIOS terms, so you have to read through to find what you are looking for. What's worse this book is organized alphabetically. This is just the glossary to a book that was never written. There is no logical layout that will let you know what you need. For example, why not group all of the topics that affect RAM in one? Discuss RAM and how your BIOS interacts with it? No, instead you have to look through until you can find the entry for the BIOS menu. If I had the exact BIOS Mr. Wong had when he wrote this, it would be useful. However, I don't. I have a more recent BIOS and without a guide to how the thing works and why, this glossary is useless. I got more out of the guide posted on Tom's Hardware than this book.

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