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Nonvolatile BIOS memory refers to a small memory on PC motherboards that is used to store BIOS settings. It is traditionally called CMOS RAM because it uses a volatile, low-power complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) SRAM (such as the Motorola MC146818 [1] or similar) powered by a small battery when system and standby power is off. [2]
CMOS inverter (a NOT logic gate). Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss ", / s iː m ɑː s /, /-ɒ s /) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFETs for logic functions. [1]
Later computers, including most IBM-compatibles with 80286 CPUs, had a battery-backed nonvolatile BIOS memory (CMOS RAM chip) that held BIOS settings. [48] These settings, such as video-adapter type, memory size, and hard-disk parameters, could only be configured by running a configuration program from a disk, not built into the ROM.
Ralf Brown's Interrupt List (aka RBIL, x86 Interrupt List, MS-DOS Interrupt List or INTER) is a comprehensive list of interrupts, calls, hooks, interfaces, data structures, CMOS settings, memory and port addresses, as well as processor opcodes for x86 machines from the 1981 IBM PC up to 2000 (including many clones), [1] [2] [nb 1] most of it still applying to IBM PC compatibles today.
Typical POST screen (AMI BIOS) Typical UEFI-compliant BIOS POST screen (Phoenix Technologies BIOS) Summary screen after POST and before booting an operating system (AMI BIOS) A power-on self-test ( POST ) is a process performed by firmware or software routines immediately after a computer or other digital electronic device is powered on.
The MRC is part of reference BIOS code, which relates to memory initialization in the BIOS. It includes information about memory settings, frequency, timing, driving and detailed operations of the memory controller. The MRC is written in a C-language code, which can be edited and compiled by board makers. It provides a space to develop advanced ...
An option ROM for the PC platform (i.e. the IBM PC and derived successor computer systems) is a piece of firmware that resides in ROM on an expansion card (or stored along with the main system BIOS), which gets executed to initialize the device and (optionally) add support for the device to the BIOS.
This is usually managed by the operating system's power management software or through the BIOS, thus different settings can be configured for laptop battery mode versus running from the battery charger. Low power mode is often achieved by reducing or even stopping the serial bus clock as well as possibly powering down the PHY device itself.