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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. [ 1 ] POST processes may set the initial state of the device from firmware and detect if any hardware components are non-functional.
In practice, CPUs in personal computers are usually also connected, through the motherboard, to a main memory bank, hard drive or other permanent storage, and peripherals, such as a keyboard and mouse. Graphics processing units (GPUs) are present in many computers and designed to efficiently perform computer graphics operations, including ...
Historically, separation of functions between CPU, northbridge, and southbridge chips was necessary due to the difficulty of integrating all components onto a single chip die. [2] However, as CPU speeds increased over time, a bottleneck emerged due to limitations caused by data transmission between the CPU and its support chipset. [3]
Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T. or SMART) is a monitoring system included in computer hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs). [3] Its primary function is to detect and report various indicators of drive reliability, or how long a drive can function while anticipating imminent hardware failures. [4] [5]
APM defines five power states for the computer system: Full On: The computer is powered on, and no devices are in a power saving mode. APM Enabled: The computer is powered on, and APM is controlling device power management as needed. APM Standby: Most devices are in their low-power state, the CPU is slowed or stopped, and the system state is saved.
A driver communicates with the device through the computer bus or communications subsystem to which the hardware connects. When a calling program invokes a routine in the driver, the driver issues commands to the device (drives it). Once the device sends data back to the driver, the driver may invoke routines in the original calling program.
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A hardware abstraction layer (HAL) is an abstraction layer, implemented in software, between the physical hardware of a computer and the software that runs on that computer. . Its function is to hide differences in hardware from most of the operating system kernel, so that most of the kernel-mode code does not need to be changed to run on systems with different hardwa