The BIOS Setup Utility
The BIOS setup utility varies from motherboard to motherboard. Some have a graphical appearance while others have a simple menu system. The most common is the basic menu system. The top figure on the opposite page is an example of that menu system.
This is what greets you when you press the trigger key to access the BIOS setup utility. As you can see, the screen consists of nothing more than a list of available sub-menus on the left and some commands on the right.
The keyboard's cursor keys are used to navigate this menu system. Pressing the Enter key performs actions like opening up a sub-menu or activating one of the commands on the left menu.
Open up a sub-menu and the bottom figure on the opposite page is what you may see.
This sub-menu (Advanced Chipset Features) displays a list of available BIOS options or features. You can browse through the list using the cursor keys.
The values of those BIOS options can be modified using the + (plus) or (minus) key in this BIOS. In other BIOS, you may use the Page Up and Page Down keys instead.
Figure 1.8 The ABIT SI7 BIOS setup utility. (Courtesy of ABIT Computer Corporation. Used with permission.)
Figure 1.9 A sub-menu in the ABIT SI7 BIOS setup utility. (Courtesy of ABIT Computer Corporation. Used with permission.)