Basic Components & Bootstrapping
Answer 1) BIOS is an acronym for basic input/output system. It is the in built software that determines what a computer can do without loading full OS.
Answer 2) The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface is a specification that defines a software interface between an operating system and platform firmware.
BIOS works by reading the first sector of the hard drive which has the next device’s address to initialize or code to execute. BIOS also selects the boot device that needs to be initialized for starting the operating system. Since BIOS has been in use since the very beginning, it still works in 16-bit mode, limiting the amount of code that can be read and executed from the firmware ROM.
UEFI does the same task a little differently. It stores all the information about initialization and startup in an .efi file instead of the firmware. This file is stored on the hard drive inside a special partition called EFI System Partition (ESP). The ESP partition will also contain the boot loader programs for the Operating System installed on the computer.
Answer 3) Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor is a technology for constructing integrated circuits.
CMOS is an on-board, battery powered semiconductor chip inside computers that stores information. This information ranges from the system time and date to system hardware settings for your computer. Its a small circular power battery inside PC.
Answer 4) CPU :Central Processing Unit.
Clock Speed: Clock speed is measured in GHz (gigahertz), a higher number means a faster clock speed. To run your apps, your CPU must continually complete calculations, if you have a higher clock speed, you can compute these calculations quicker and applications will run faster and smoother as a result of this. A CPU’s clock speed, as the name implies, greatly affects the amount of tasks each core can churn through at a given period of time. The speed, along with its bit width, tells you how much data can flow through per second. If one CPU has a bit width of 32 bits and a speed of 3.93 GHz, that means it can process almost 4 billion units of 32 bits of data per second.
Core & number of cores: a CPU with only one core ensures that you would only be able to accomplish one task at a time. Having multiple cores lets a CPU process multiple things at one time, dividing the work into multiple units. If one core gets “clogged” by a task that just keeps looping (e.g. the program using that core freezes), the chip’s overall work can still continue while you figure out what’s wrong or eventually close the program to free up that core. Multi core processors became popular as it became increasingly difficult to increase clock speed on single core processors due to technological limitations. Rather than working tirelessly for an extra 0.1 GHz of clock speed, manufacturers instead added more identical processing units to single processors. A core is a single processing unit, multi core processors have multiple processing units. So a dual core 3.0GHz processor has 2 processing units each with a clock speed of 3.0GHz. A 6 core 3.0GHz processor has 6 processing units each with a clock speed of 3.0GHz.
Bus Speed: A bus is simply a circuit that connects one part of the motherboard to another. The more data a bus can handle at one time, the faster it allows information to travel. The speed of the bus, measured in megahertz (MHz), refers to how much data can move across the bus simultaneously.
Bus Width :All buses consist of two parts -- an address bus and a data bus. The data bus transfers actual data whereas the address bus transfers information about where the data should go.The size of a bus, known as its width, is important because it determines how much data can be transmitted at one time. For example, a 16-bit bus can transmit 16 bits of data, whereas a 32-bitbus can transmit 32 bits of data.
Word Size: "Word size" refers to the number of bits processed by a computer's CPU in one go (these days, typically 32 bits or 64 bits). Data bus size, instruction size, address size are usually multiples of the word size.
cache : A CPU cache is a hardware cacheused by the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer to reduce the average cost (time or energy) to access data from the main memory. A cache is a smaller, faster memory, closer to a processor core, which stores copies of the data from frequently used main memory locations.
Hyperthreading :
Hyper-Threading is a technology used by some Intel microprocessor s that allows a single microprocessor to act like two separate processors to the operating system and the application program s that use it. It is a feature of Intel's IA-32 processor architecture.With Hyper-Threading, a microprocessor's "core" processor can execute two (rather than one) concurrent streams (or thread s) of instructions sent by the operating system. Having two streams of execution units to work on allows more work to be done by the processor during each clock cycle . To the operating system, the Hyper-Threading microprocessor appears to be two separate processors. Because most of today's operating systems (such as Windows and Linux) are capable of dividing their work load among multiple processors (this is called symmetric multiprocessing or SMP ), the operating system simply acts as though the Hyper-Threading processor is a pool of two processors.
Answer 5)
Well, there once was a chip called 8086, with a cheaper version called 8088 that was used in a personal computer called IBM PC. An improved version of that chip was made and called 80186, though that wasn't a very popular version. However, an improved improved version was then made, and called 80286. Now, that was a very popular chip, in particular because it was used in a computer called IBM PC AT.
Later, Intel, which created and sold the 8086, 8088, 80186 and 80286 chips, all of which had a 16 bits architecture, saw the need to create a 32 bits chip to compete with similar offerings by others. To take advantage of its incumbent position, it made the new chip capable of running software made for the previously mentioned chips. Naturally, Intel called this new chip the 80386.
By then there were lots of computers using various versions of the Intel chips, and there were also non-Intel chips that were compatible with the Intel ones. So people started referring to them as 80x86.
After a while, Intel launched a new chip, but it decided to drop the 80, so it became the 486 instead of 80486. Likewise, people were dropping the "80" from the front of "80x86", and calling this stuff just x86.
The fact is that the ever-increasing middle digit gave rise to 80x86, and x86 came from that -- even if 80186 and 80286 were not 32 bits.
So, once Intel finally went 64 bits, what did it call its new architecture? Right! IA64! :-) It also retroactively renamed the x86 to IA32, so to speak. Only IA64 was not compatible with x86, I mean, IA32, so everyone ignored it.
And then came AMD, which decided the market wanted a 64 bits CPU that was compatible, to the extent possible, with the x86 family. As a marketing appeal, they called it the "x86-64" family, and they were hugely succesful. So much so that Intel ended up grudgingly following with their own 64 bits CPU based on x86.
Later, because people are lazy, the x86-64 became known simply as the x64.
Answer 6)
There are basically two ways to reboot the system – cold (hard) booting and warm (soft) booting. While both the methods produce the same outcome, their definition varies slightly in terms of the boot process. A cold boot or a hard boot is a boot process in which a computer system starts up from a complete powerless state. When you turn off the system and turn it back on, you do what generally is called as a cold boot. The system runs power-on self test or POST during cold boot before loading the operating system, finally preparing the system ready to use. A cold boot generally does nothing but completely resets the hardware and reloads the operating system.
Warm boot, on the other hand, refers to the boot process in which a system regains its initial state without hampering the power source. In simple terms, when you restart your personal computer without having to interrupt the power, you’re doing a warm boot of the system. It means you’re initiating a reset command by pressing the Ctrl, Alt and Delete key combination simultaneously, which ultimately restarts the system without losing power. You can also perform a warm boot by clicking on the “Restart” button on the Start menu. The computer gets back to its initial state after a few seconds thereby concluding the boot process.
Well, there are many different scenarios that would force you to do either a cold boot or a warm boot. And each boot process has its own uses and outcomes. You may be forced to do a warm boot in any of the following situations:
By performing a warm boot, you are actually force-closing all the programs and processes that are running in the background, which eventually unfreeze the system and clear the errors. A warm boot is usually preferable over a cold boot because it takes less time to reboot the system and the components don’t reset completely. A cold boot, on the other hand, completely wipes off the memory and resets the components and power source. A cold boot can be a better alternative in case of system crashes though, which would require a full diagnosis of the system. One major downside of doing a cold boot is that it completely wipes off the temporary memory, thereby forcing the system to start from the scratch.
Answer 7)
To specify the boot sequence:
Answer 8)
Shut Down :
Press the Windows key on the keyboard, or click the Start button. The Start Menu opens
In the Start Menu, click Power, then click Shut down.
or
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del and click the power button in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
or
From the Windows Desktop, press Alt+F4 to get the Shut Down Windows screen shown here.
Restart :
The "normal" way to reboot a computer running Windows 10/8 is through the Start menu:
Open the Start menu.
Click or tap the Power button (Windows 10) or Power Options button (Windows 8)
Or
The second is a little faster and doesn't require the full Start menu:
Open the Power User Menu by pressing the WIN (Windows) key and X.
In the Shut down or sign out menu, choose Restart.
To lock your computer:
Windows-L
Hit the Windows key and the L key on your keyboard. Keyboard shortcut for the lock!
2. Ctrl-Alt-Del
Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete. On the menu that pops up, click Lock. Boom, done.
3. Start button
Tap or click the Start button in the bottom-left corner. Click your user icon and then select Lock.
To Reset:
Here's how to reset your PC in Windows 10.
Navigate to Settings. You can get there by clicking the gear
icon on the Start menu.
Select settings
Select "Update & security"
Select Update & security
Click Recovery in the left pane.
select recovery
Windows presents you with three major options: Reset this PC, Go back to an earlier build and Advanced startup. Reset this PC is the best option for starting fresh. Advanced startup lets you boot off a recovery USB drive or disc and "Go to an earlier build" is made for Windows Insiders who want to roll back to a previous version of the OS.
Recovery options
Click Get started under Reset this PC.
Click Get started
Click either "Keep my files" or "Remove everything," depending
on whether you want to keep your data files intact. Either way, all
of your settings will return to their defaults and apps will be
uninstalled.
Choose whether to keep your files
Select "Just remove my files" or "Remove files and clean the
drive" if you chose to "remove everything" in the prior step.
Cleaning the drive takes a lot longer but will make sure that, if
you are giving the computer away, the next person will have a hard
time recovering your erased files. If you are keeping the computer,
choose "Just remove my files."
select clean drive option
Click Next if Windows warns you that you won't be able to roll
back to a prior version of the OS.
click Next
Click Reset when prompted.
Click Reset
Windows will then restart and take several minutes to reset itself.
Click Continue when prompted.
Answer 9)
About the Safe Mode
In Safe Mode, your computer is running with non-core components disabled which makes it easier to fix potential errors or remove various software that, in normal conditions, can’t be fixed or removed.
If you boot into Safe Mode, you can use various diagnostic tools:
Usually, you can choose from 3 options: Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking and Safe Mode With Command Prompt:
Safe Mode in Windows 7
The steps to boot a Windows 7 system into Safe Mode are similar to those of Windows Vista:
Safe Mode in Windows 10:
Safe Mode in Windows 8, 8.1 and Windows 10
For Windows 8 or Windows 10 to boot into Safe Mode, follow these steps if you can boot into Windows:
If F8 or Shift + F8 doesn’t work, go to Windows 8 – F8 key not working or follow the alternative instructions below:
Another method is the combination of Shift and Restart keys at the login window:
It is also possible to use the installation CD/DVD to boot into Safe Mode:
Basic Components & Bootstrapping What does the acronym BIOS stand for? What does the acronym UEFI...
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