Firmware & Software; How To Use The Cmos Setup Utility; Clearing Cmos - ECS P5TX-Apro User Manual

P5TX–Apro User's Manual
2: Using Your Mainboard – 2.10
Firmware & Software
The mainboard hardware is supported by both firmware and
software components. Firmware is software that is stored on a
chip on the board rather than on disk media.
The firmware component you interface with on this main-
board is the CMOS Setup Utility. This utility establishes various
settings used by the BIOS, the basic software that is an interface
between the system hardware and software.
The software component is comprised of software drivers that
support the PCI IDE controller and some of the other hardware
features.

How To Use The CMOS Setup Utility

The CMOS Setup Utility options are listed in detail in Section
4: Reference Information. This section is just a brief explanation
of how to run the program to adjust settings as noted in this and
the next section.
To run the CMOS Setup Utility, press the Del or Delete key
while the computer is starting up, before the operating starts to
load. The utility's main screen will appear as shown on the next
page. To navigate the program, use the controls shown on the
screen. The utility has several sections. Many of the features con-
figured by the utility are set to operate automatically when the
'Setup Defaults', the recommended mode, are used. With Setup
Defaults loaded you can still customize various settings.

Clearing CMOS

Under some unusual circumstances the configuration record
created by the CMOS Setup utility and stored on the mainboard
can become corrupted and unusable, possibly leading to the board
being unable to operate properly. If this happens, the CMOS
record can be cleared by setting jumper JP2 to the clear setting for
a moment and then setting it back to the Normal setting. Refer to
Section 4 for more information.