Acer Altos T350 F2 Faq page 7

Altos T350 F2 FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
In this example, the BMC firmware version is 1.17.4151, SDR version is 1.09.
NOTE. The FRU is included in SDR package. There is no additional version information
for FRU.
9. Can Altos T350 F2 support BIOS Recovery when BIOS is corrupted unexpectedly during BIOS
update?
ANSWER: Yes.
10. What's UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface)?
ANSWER: The first EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) specification was completed in the
late 1990s, and in 2005 the Unified EFI Forum was formed to standardize and promote UEFI
implementations.
In contrast to BIOS, UEFI defines a set of boot and runtime services that have standard
syntax and semantics for interfaces and data structures. This means that all UEFI
implementations behave essentially the same way, making it possible to test and develop
standard drivers and applications. This greatly improves interoperability, reduces the
complexity of supporting new hardware, and helps computer manufacturers to update and
maintain firmware more rapidly.
More information can be found at:
http://www.uefi.org/
11. What's the difference between EFI & UEFI?
ANSWER: The EFI 1.10 specification is contributed by Intel and Microsoft. Intel holds the
copyright of EFI 1.10 specification. The UEFI Forum evolves, extends, and adds new
functionality required to produce UEFI 1.0 specification. All licensing for UEFI 1.0
specification will come from UEFI Forum.
12. What's the benefit of UEFI?
ANSWER: UEFI firmware provides several technical advantages:
OS Boot from GPT (GUID Partition Table)
•
UEFI supports a more flexible partitioning scheme based on GPT. GPT disks use 64-bit
values to describe partitions, which allow a maximum disk size of roughly 16.8 million
TB and over 100 primary hard disk partitions.
Provides a pre-boot execution environment (not an OS)
•
UEFI drivers and applications are designed to execute in the boot environment with
very few constraints. Therefore, UEFI can provide a full network stack with
high-resolution graphics and access to all devices, even if no functional operating
system is available.
Removes the Upper Memory Block limit for Option ROM's
•
All UEFI implementations that conform to the UEFI specification include an EBC (EFI
Byte Code) interpreter. EBC images are option ROMs that are compatible across all
processor architectures. Additionally, because EBC images are highly compact and
universally applicable, option ROMs in a PCI card can be much smaller than on BIOS
systems.
Compatibility with earlier BIOS
•
The systems with UEFI firmware can boot operating systems that are UEFI-capable and
older operating systems that support only BIOS.
13. What's EFI shell?
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