UPGRADING REPAIRING PCs

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Chapter 3—BIOS Configurations and Upgrades
Specific Tests to Determine Whether Your BIOS Needs
an Update
To determine whether your BIOS needs to be updated because of
hard drive capacity limitations, see Chapter 4, “SCSI and IDE Hard
Drives and Optical Drives.”
To determine whether your BIOS needs to be updated because of
operating system or CPU-upgrade issues, consult the technicalsupport
Web sites for the operating system or CPU upgrade.
If your computer was built before 1999 and you have not performed
a BIOS upgrade or loaded year-2000 patches for your operating
system and applications, you might have Y2K-related
problems with accurate date handling. Because the RTC (Real-Time-
Clock) on most computers doesn’t track centuries, the system BIOS
must accurately add this information before handing the date to
the operating system and applications, and the BIOS/RTC must also
accurately handle leap years such as 2000 and beyond. A BIOS
upgrade is the best way to handle RTC/BIOS issues, but software
patches in the AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS can also be used.
Consult your operating system and application vendors for appropriate
solutions, including software updates or replacement versions.
Fixing BIOS Limitations—BIOS Fixes and Alternatives
Use Table 3.1 to determine which options you can follow if a BIOS
update isn’t possible, depending on the BIOS problem noted.
Table 3.1 Alternatives to BIOS Upgrades
Benefits of Limitations of
Problem Alternative Fix Alternative Fix Alternative Fix
Y2K date Install Y2K- Provides hardware Uses an ISA slot; doesn’t
rollover compliant BIOS solution to non- handle problems with direct
card. compliant BIOS; access to RTC that might
can be combined be performed by some
with fix for hard disk operating systems and
capacity limitations. applications.
Install Y2K- Provides hardware Uses an ISA slot; some
compliant BIOS solution for both versions require that drivers
and RTC card. BIOS and RTC Y2K. be installed for the operating
system in use.
Install Y2K- Low-cost or free Can be bypassed by bootcompliant
TSR or solution that avoids ing off floppy; might not
device driver. opening system. handle allY2K clock rollover
problems; can be removed
from boot process; not
available for all operating
systems.