Advanced BIOS features

Virus warning: When Enabled if any attempt to access the Boot sector or Partition table is made the BIOS will warn you & either ask you too allow it to make changes or disable any changes. While safer to leave enabled it can interfere with certain updates & programs, particularly Partition Magic. I'd recommend leaving it set to disabled.

CPU L1: Make sure to enable this if not already enabled. The L1 cache is effectively extremely fast RAM, running at the same speed as the processor.

CPU L2 cache: Make sure to enable this if not already enabled. Some PC's (e.g. K6-3) may contain a L3 cache. Although most won't, but enable it if it does. The L2 cache is effectively extremely fast RAM, although the L2 cache generally runs at a fraction of CPU speed. On Pentium 3 E, or EB models the L2 cache runs at the same speed as the processor.

CPU L2 cache ECC checking: set this to enabled. It will check your L2 cache for errors & can fix some of them. This will improve to the stability of your PC.

Quick power on self test: When booting up a series of tests are run on a system. Enabling this feature will simplify these tests resulting in a faster boot-up. You should Disable this if your system is experiencing problems.

Boot order: For fastest boot up select your hard-drive only, usually C:. If you encounter problems you can change this later on.

First boot device: Selects the first bootable device, choose where your operating system is stored, usually HDD-0 (Choose SCSI if appropriate). If you need to boot from a Floppy disk or CD-ROM, select appropriately. If this fails it will check the second boot device for a bootable media. NOTE - For optimal boot time set this to wherever your OS is stored.

Second boot device: Selects the second bootable device, where your operating system is stored, usualy HDD-0. If this fails it will check the third boot device for a bootable media. NOTE - For optimal boot time set this to Disabled.

Third boot device: Selects the third bootable device. If this fails it will check the other boot device for a bootable media. NOTE - For optimal boot time set this to Disabled.

Boot other device: Selects the other bootable device. NOTE - For optimal boot time set this to Disabled.

Swap Floppy drive: This allows for quick swapping off floppy drive names, i.e. your A: drive changes to B: & B: changes to A:. By default this is Disabled & should be left at this unless you have, 1. - Multiple floppy drives (unlikely) & Need to swap around their drive names without having to swap cables around.

Boot up floppy seek: Use this setting to determine whether or not the BIOS will try to detect a FDD (Floppy Disk Drive) in your system. If enabled & no FDD is present then an error message will be displayed. I'd recommend setting this to disabled to skip this test & improve boot time.

Boot from floppy: disable this, if something happens you can re-enable it, but for now it slows boot-time. Only needed when you want to load from a bootable floppy, e.g. When wanting to flash your BIOS.

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