bios settings

herbert6 · 10-13-2007, 11:31 PM

starting to use suse10.2.
question - can you access bios setting from the command prompt or do you have to press delete or other key when booting?
herbert6

peterb · 10-14-2007, 02:27 AM

Hi,

That depends on the system bios.

The most common is way to access the bios is by pressing on the del key at the moment that you turn the power on.
Other systems use F2, ctrl-f1, and a few other variations.

You should not have to access your bios unless your system is an older one and requires a manual update when adding new hardware such as a hard disk or something else.

If you have loaded Suse then I see no reason for you to access the bios.

Peter

Larry Webb · 10-14-2007, 03:50 AM

Some of the newer sets with O/S installed come with the hd as first boot. He would need to change boot order.

Edit: Sorry didn't notice he already had Suse installed.

b0uncer · 10-14-2007, 06:12 AM

I understood the OP question in a different fashion; here's my answer, in case it's helpful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by herbert6

question - can you access bios setting from the command prompt or do you have to press delete or other key when booting?

No, basically you don't. Some BIOSes can be upgraded by downloading (from the BIOS manufacturer) an upgrade kit, which you run and the program then upgrades your BIOS. This is the only way I know to alter BIOS from within a booted operating system; usually you shouldn't be able to do so (think about if malware could access your BIOS when it wanted to; your machine would be wrecked in an instant, and a reinstall wouldn't do anymore - this isn't impossible, btw). Like said, you shouldn't have to access your BIOS unless it's malfunctioning, or some system settings are not all right (disk detection, clock, ...) - and when you do, you reboot and hit the button to get "into BIOS" before any bootloaders are searched. There are probably several reasons to this (compared to the situation where you'd alter your BIOS settings from within your OS), some that first come to my mind are
1) it's safer this way - no OS loaded, no OS' diseases loaded
2) it's faster - no need to wait for a heavy OS to load
3) doesn't depend on the OS you've installed, or if you have one at all: this needs to work on machines where there are no disks either.

herbert6 · 10-14-2007, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by b0uncer

I understood the OP question in a different fashion; here's my answer, in case it's helpful.

No, basically you don't. Some BIOSes can be upgraded by downloading (from the BIOS manufacturer) an upgrade kit, which you run and the program then upgrades your BIOS. This is the only way I know to alter BIOS from within a booted operating system; usually you shouldn't be able to do so (think about if malware could access your BIOS when it wanted to; your machine would be wrecked in an instant, and a reinstall wouldn't do anymore - this isn't impossible, btw). Like said, you shouldn't have to access your BIOS unless it's malfunctioning, or some system settings are not all right (disk detection, clock, ...) - and when you do, you reboot and hit the button to get "into BIOS" before any bootloaders are searched. There are probably several reasons to this (compared to the situation where you'd alter your BIOS settings from within your OS), some that first come to my mind are
1) it's safer this way - no OS loaded, no OS' diseases loaded
2) it's faster - no need to wait for a heavy OS to load
3) doesn't depend on the OS you've installed, or if you have one at all: this needs to work on machines where there are no disks either.

thanks for the great reply - reason for my question - have new box, 750w power supply, 4 hd's [raid 1],etc. but fan is very noisey, sounds like a hair dryer running, very disturbing! am told by the my box builder that i can access the bois, choose 'hardware monitor', 'fan setting', change fan setting to '4 pin workstation', save and exit. understand this, makes sense, and supposedly a temp sensor on fan will automatically increase fan rpm if needed, - but was just thinking that if the senor does not automatically increase fan rpm - could i access the bios then and there and restore fan rpm to avoid overheating rather then shutting down and accessing the bios at boo-up.
your comment about the pit-falls of accessing bios in an un-safe enviroment is one i had not thought about!
thanks again, herbert6

b0uncer · 10-14-2007, 12:51 PM

Ok, that clarifies your question. The fan speeds may probably be "dynamically" changed without rebooting, like you can change your CPU frequency on the fly nowadays; it's the job of a power management system, nowadays ACPI handles that stuff on Linux (used to be apm; I haven't got too deep into that, but anyway). For the CPU frequency scaling, for example, you need to have some options enabled in your kernel that allow it to change the CPU frequency; for desktops it's not of much use, but for laptops it's a huge help if you can have the CPU run at 50% frequency (For example) most of the time - and therefore consume less battery and cause less heat - and run at full frequency only when cpu-intensive tasks are being run. I guess the fans are the same, you should be able to control them (trough ACPI or something) if you kernel and hardware supports it. I'm sorry I can't give more detailed instructions here, but you'll probably find answers from the web with this information. Check power management related things, if nothing else comes up.