Chapter 6. BIOS and CMOS Configuration
In this chapter
You know what the CPU does—it does the “thinking” for the computer. But, how does the CPU “know” what kinds of drives are connected to the computer? What tells the CPU when the memory is ready to be read or written to? What turns on the USB ports or turns them off? The answer to all these questions is the BIOS. Next to the CPU, the BIOS (basic input/output system) chip is the most important chip found on the motherboard.
The BIOS is firmware (“software on a chip”), and it performs a lot of different jobs during system operation. So, is it hardware, software, or firmware?
On systems that ...
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