CompTIA A_ Certification All-In-One Exam Guide, Seventh Edition - Michael Meyers [107]
Advanced Chipset Features
The Advanced Chipset Features screen strikes fear into most everyone, because it deals with extremely low-level chipset functions. Avoid this screen unless a high-level tech (such as a motherboard maker’s support tech) explicitly tells you to do something in here (Figure 7-20).
Integrated Peripherals
You will use the Integrated Peripherals screen quite often. Here you configure, enable, or disable the onboard devices, such as the integrated sound card (Figure 7-21).
Figure 7-20 Advanced Chipset Features
Figure 7-21 Integrated Peripherals
Power Management Setup
As the name implies, you can use the Power Management Setup screen to set up the power management settings for the system. These settings work in concert (sometimes in conflict) with Windows’ power management settings to control how and when devices turn off and back on to conserve power (Figure 7-22).
Figure 7-22 Power Management Setup
PnP/PCI Configurations
All CMOS setup utilities come with menu items that are for the most part no longer needed, but no one wants to remove them. PnP/PCI Configurations is a perfect example. Plug and play (PnP) is how devices automatically work when you snap them into your PC. PCI is a type of slot used for cards. Odds are very good you’ll never deal with this screen (Figure 7-23).
Figure 7-23 PnP/PCI Configurations
And the Rest of the CMOS Settings…
The other options on the main menu of an Award CMOS do not have their own screens. Rather, these simply have small dialog boxes that pop up, usually with “Are you sure?” messages. The Load Fail-Safe/Optimized default options keep you from having to memorize all of those weird settings you’ll never touch. Fail-Safe sets everything to very simple settings—you might occasionally use this setting when very low-level problems such as freeze-ups occur and you’ve checked more obvious areas first. Optimized sets the CMOS to the best possible speed/stability for the system. You would use this option after you’ve tampered with the CMOS too much and you need to put it back like it was!
Many CMOS setup programs enable you to set a password in CMOS to force the user to enter a password every time the system boots. Don’t confuse this with the Windows logon password. This CMOS password shows up at boot, long before Windows even starts to load. Figure 7-24 shows a typical CMOS password prompt.
Figure 7-24 CMOS password prompt
Some CMOS setup utilities enable you to create two passwords: one for boot and another for accessing the CMOS setup program. This extra password just for entering CMOS setup is a godsend in, for example, schools, where non-techs tend to wreak havoc in areas (such as CMOS) that they should not access!
Drive Lock Passwords On some motherboards, the CMOS setup program enables you to control the ATA Security Mode Feature Set, also commonly referred to as drive lock or DriveLock. ATA Security Mode is the first line of defense for protecting hard disks from unwanted access when a system is lost or stolen. It has two passwords, a user password and a master password; and two modes, high security mode and max security mode. In high security mode, the drive can be accessed by both the master and user passwords. In addition, the master can reset the user password in CMOS setup.
In max security mode, the drive is accessible only with the user password. In this mode, the master can reset the user password, but all of the data on the drive is destroyed. Note that in either mode, if the master and user passwords are both lost, the drive is rendered unusable; these passwords are stored in the hard disk’s control circuitry and cannot be reset by clearing CMOS.
Trusted Platform Module The Trusted