# Setting up BIOS



## I Am That Is (Aug 23, 2012)

Hey all,
If you remember from my old thread I am building a PC. Well, I got all the parts and assembled it, but I'm not sure what to do next. I need to do some bios setup or something, but I'm not sure where to start with that. What do you do after it is all assembled? Can I go straight to my windows install disk and install it?

Thanks guys.


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## greg-the-fox (Aug 23, 2012)

Have you watched this yet?
[video=youtube;RxaVBsXEiok]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxaVBsXEiok[/video]


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## Runefox (Aug 23, 2012)

You can, the BIOS is already set up with 'sensible defaults', but depending on what you've put into the computer, you may want to adjust some things if the BIOS hasn't detected, for example, the proper speed of your RAM (which is common, I find). The motherboard's instruction manual should be able to tell you what everything does, since it's different for each motherboard.


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## I Am That Is (Aug 23, 2012)

Thanks. All I did was change the date and time. I noticed it said I only had 4 gigs of ram so I changed the ram configuration until it displayed both. But now I have the problem of vista. I installed vista from a CD my dad burned years ago, and after setting up and installing all the drivers, I realized its only 32 bit! Its only using 3 gigs of my ram. Is there any way to change this without buying a new copy?


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## AshleyAshes (Aug 23, 2012)

I Am That Is said:


> Thanks. All I did was change the date and time. I noticed it said I only had 4 gigs of ram so I changed the ram configuration until it displayed both. But now I have the problem of vista. I installed vista from a CD my dad burned years ago, and after setting up and installing all the drivers, I realized its only 32 bit! Its only using 3 gigs of my ram. Is there any way to change this without buying a new copy?



No, it's 32bit, it's only capable of 32bit addressing, you need to install the 64bit version.


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## I Am That Is (Aug 24, 2012)

AshleyAshes said:


> No, it's 32bit, it's only capable of 32bit addressing, you need to install the 64bit version.



Im fine with a fresh install, it only took me 10 minutes. I am just wondering if I can change something when installing, or if I need to purchase a whole new disc.


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## AshleyAshes (Aug 24, 2012)

I Am That Is said:


> Im fine with a fresh install, it only took me 10 minutes. I am just wondering if I can change something when installing, or if I need to purchase a whole new disc.



An entirely new disc.  32bit and 64bit versions of windows are released on entirely different discs due to the signifigant ammount of files that are different.  You'll need to buy a 64bit OS to make use of more than 3.8GB of RAM.


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## greg-the-fox (Aug 24, 2012)

Eww, Vista. Get windows 7 :V


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## Elim Garak (Aug 24, 2012)

Always set AHCI to on for your sata controller.
Also just torrent a clean Vista x64 disc and burn it or make a USB install, the x86/32bit key also works on the x64 version, just make sure its the same edition(Home premium/Professional). 
Microsoft doesn't give two shits about it and it's legal as long you have the key.
The only thing that might give you trouble is activation, but it will give you an option to call Microsoft's automated machine phone line that allows you to activate with ease and no problems at all.

Of course you can actually pirate Windows 7/8, but I am not gonna explain it here due legal and forum regulations.
I recommend getting Windows 7/8 due Vista will hog your resources more than a furry fox hogs cocks.


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## kayfox (Aug 24, 2012)

Some keys are pinned to the architecture, as in they are for i386 and wont work for x86-64.  This is usually not the case with anything using the new activation system (Vista and later), but still crops up.  

If it was activated under the 32 bit version, it will probably balk at activation on 64bit, ymmv.


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## AshleyAshes (Aug 24, 2012)

I don't understand why they even still sell 32bit Windows versions when almost all hardware is sold with 64bit processors.  Sure there is legacy hardware that could run the OS but use 32bit hardware, but those should sold specifically and not main stream.  I don't get why you can buy new machines with 64bit processors but 32bit Windows installed onto it.


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## Elim Garak (Aug 24, 2012)

AshleyAshes said:


> I don't understand why they even still sell 32bit Windows versions when almost all hardware is sold with 64bit processors.  Sure there is legacy hardware that could run the OS but use 32bit hardware, but those should sold specifically and not main stream.  I don't get why you can buy new machines with 64bit processors but 32bit Windows installed onto it.



Some people still buy 32bit, so they still sell it.
We only sold x64, and most places do it as well...though users still sometimes download 32bit cracked versions and such.
OEMs also were retarded with Vista and supplied 32 bit on a lot of systems, even ones with 4+ GB(I am looking at you Acer and Packard Bell).
Starting from  Windows 7 all oem systems were x64 bit.

Also the desktops we sold were running on 64 bit, we custom build em.
Our WDS deployment images only came in 64 bit as well(I didn't bother to make em for 32 bit, since it was rare(XP is the only exception)).
Repairs that came in thus ended up with 64 bit if a reinstall was needed.


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## kayfox (Aug 24, 2012)

AshleyAshes said:


> I don't understand why they even still sell 32bit Windows versions when almost all hardware is sold with 64bit processors.  Sure there is legacy hardware that could run the OS but use 32bit hardware, but those should sold specifically and not main stream.  I don't get why you can buy new machines with 64bit processors but 32bit Windows installed onto it.



Usually:
1.  For things that need upgrading but drivers don't exist for 64 but.
2.  Virtual machines (so many scenarios work better with 32bit OSes).
3.  The large number of machines that are not sufficiently, or not at all 64bit, but can still run Windows 7, see 1 and 2.

Edit,
More specifically on 2, ESXi 4.1 will run on 64bit machines without VT-x, etc, but cant run 64bit OSes under that scenario.  For that I must use 32bit OSes, and it kinda cramps my ability to use some of the stuff I run at work (64bit only).  Also, one very important issue exists for anyone programming modern Motorola radios: the driver for the programming software is 32bit only.


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## I Am That Is (Aug 24, 2012)

Ok I went on tpb and found a 64 bit ISO and burned it to a disk and did a fresh install. It didn't accept my key, so I will have to figure that out later, but everything's running smoothly. I can use all my ram. Woo hoo! I would love to get 7 but i just spend 550 bucks on the build and am broke for the moment. I would pirate it (temporarily) but until college starts I'm stuck with my parents and they would notice. 

One thing I noticed that's interesting is I can max out bf3 at a good res and good fps as well as crysis and other such games, but I noticed almost no performance increase from my old crappy computer in minecraft. Kinda weird.


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## Runefox (Aug 24, 2012)

If you got a copy from TPB, make sure that the copy matches the kind of key you have. If you have a key that came with your computer (known as an OEM key), you'll need a copy of Vista that's labelled "OEM". If you bought the copy of Vista at retail (and no longer have the discs), then you need a copy labelled "Retail".

It's really too bad you don't have 7, since you can download 7 legitimately from Microsoft.


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## I Am That Is (Aug 25, 2012)

Yeah I bought it retail but I couldn't find any with any kind of labels. I activated it, so it doesn't matter to much anymore. When I move out I will upgrade to windows 7 through tpb and then buy it later.


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## Elim Garak (Aug 25, 2012)

Runefox said:


> If you got a copy from TPB, make sure that the copy matches the kind of key you have. If you have a key that came with your computer (known as an OEM key), you'll need a copy of Vista that's labelled "OEM". If you bought the copy of Vista at retail (and no longer have the discs), then you need a copy labelled "Retail".
> 
> It's really too bad you don't have 7, since you can download 7 legitimately from Microsoft.



Actually, no difference between a retail ISO and OEM iso, it's just the edition that could ounts like pro/HP.


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## CyberFoxx (Aug 25, 2012)

Ya know, I always find it funny when people say the whole "And remember to set it to AHCI! You won't get <insert random features here> otherwise!" Thing is, if you install the proper drivers and are using Vista/7 (Sometimes even in XP), even in the IDE emulation mode you'll still get those features. Once the proper drivers take over, the controller gets put into AHCI mode. The only times this won't happen, is with the default drivers that come with Windows, and really lazy written drivers from the chipset manufacturer.


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## kayfox (Aug 25, 2012)

CyberFoxx said:


> Ya know, I always find it funny when people say the whole "And remember to set it to AHCI! You won't get <insert random features here> otherwise!"



Actually one I have been encountering lately is VT-x being disabled in the BIOS and not finding out about it till I join the machine to the VMWare vSphere cluster.

Yeah, you have to reboot to change that setting.


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## Elim Garak (Aug 25, 2012)

CyberFoxx said:


> Ya know, I always find it funny when people say the whole "And remember to set it to AHCI! You won't get <insert random features here> otherwise!" Thing is, if you install the proper drivers and are using Vista/7 (Sometimes even in XP), even in the IDE emulation mode you'll still get those features. Once the proper drivers take over, the controller gets put into AHCI mode. The only times this won't happen, is with the default drivers that come with Windows, and really lazy written drivers from the chipset manufacturer.



I have noticed differences with performance, especially on SSDs, Intel supplied drivers for x58.


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## AshleyAshes (Aug 25, 2012)

The performance increase when switching the hardware, in the BIOS, from IDE to AHCI is pretty well documented by countless sources.  Ignore what CyberFoxx said.


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## Runefox (Aug 25, 2012)

CyberFoxx said:


> Ya know, I always find it funny when people say the whole "And remember to set it to AHCI! You won't get <insert random features here> otherwise!" Thing is, if you install the proper drivers and are using Vista/7 (Sometimes even in XP), even in the IDE emulation mode you'll still get those features. Once the proper drivers take over, the controller gets put into AHCI mode. The only times this won't happen, is with the default drivers that come with Windows, and really lazy written drivers from the chipset manufacturer.


Uhh... No. The driver doesn't take over. At the chipset level, the hardware is presented as IDE hardware. No driver will change that. You must be thinking of USB, where EHCI does indeed allow the driver to take control.

The biggest thing AHCI gives for traditional drives is NCQ, which can reduce access times in certain scenarios (typically when many operations are happening simultaneously), since the drive can intelligently get data for each request in the most efficient order, rather than in the typical first-come-first-served fashion. For SSD's, AHCI is absolutely essential to maintaining performance, since it exposes TRIM and other SSD-specific features. TRIM is essential because during idle cycles, it allows the drive to erase unused sectors. Since an overwrite takes significantly longer than writing an empty sector on an SSD, that can be a crippling feature to lose.


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## CyberFoxx (Aug 26, 2012)

OK, I'll just ignore the fact that I can just compile in the AHCI driver into the Linux kernel and it works and I get NCQ and all those other wonderful features even though I got the BIOS set to IDE Emulation. (Windows Server 2008 also uses the "Intel(R) 5 Series/3400 Series SATA AHCI Controller" device as well)

EDIT

OK, after doing some reading, it seems that some chipsets (Intel's for example) expose both the IDE and AHCI interfaces (Something to do with "Enhanced" on other chipsets/BIOS' or somesuch), the BIOS option just chooses which one it boots from.


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## Runefox (Aug 26, 2012)

Which would be why having it enabled at the BIOS level is essential even for chipsets that expose both for most OS'es that aren't homebrewed Linux (mainstream default Linux distros have this same problem). The OS won't switch over from IDE emulation to AHCI after it's already mounted the system volume. Only time that can be done is at kernel init from the initial ramdisk image.


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## Kairuk (Sep 1, 2012)

Building a gaming PC? If your motherboard supports it go into your BIOS and max everything out (Only if your case is cool enough)


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## Elim Garak (Sep 1, 2012)

Kairuk said:


> Building a gaming PC? If your motherboard supports it go into your BIOS and max everything out (Only if your case is cool enough)


Worst advice ever.
If you don't know what the fuck you are doing don't overclock.
Maxing everything, if he maxed out his voltages it can fry his crap.


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## AshleyAshes (Sep 1, 2012)

Elim Garak said:


> Worst advice ever.
> If you don't know what the fuck you are doing don't overclock.
> Maxing everything, if he maxed out his voltages it can fry his crap.



One time, I set my motherboard to automatically manage the vCore to maintain stability when overclocking.  Turns out at the automatic level I set it to, it was stupidly generious with the vcores.  i5 2500k got kinda hot at 1.66v. :X  Never using that setting again. @_@


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