EVGA Z270 FTW-K Initial Installation page 24

EVGA Z270 FTW – K (132-KS-E277)
29. Removable BIOS Chip
The ability to remove and replace the BIOS chip without requiring special tools
is a key feature on many of our boards, by adding a level of protection against
BIOS failures, bad BIOS flashes, BIOS corruption, etc. This feature also allows
EVGA to work with end-users if something happens to render the BIOS chip
unusable or a BIOS update is needed for CPU compatibility; rather than
replacing the whole board, Customer Support can send a pre-flashed BIOS chip
to get you up and running without requiring the end-user to send in the
motherboard. Please see the walkthrough on Page 137 for further information.
30. CMOS Battery
The CMOS battery backup provides uninterruptable power to the BIOS/UEFI
to keep all of the settings; otherwise, each boot would behave like you just reset
the BIOS. These batteries typically last several years and rarely need to be
replaced.
31. PC Speaker
This is a small mono low-fidelity speaker permanently attached to the
motherboard used mainly for debugging purposes. A POST beep may indicate
a successful POST, various tones for USB initialization, and other beeps to
indicate an issue during the post process. Please see Page 145 for more details.
32. Rear Panel Connectors (Figure 2)
This is the section referred to as the I/O Hub. This panel contains the
hardwired USB, Sound, and Ethernet connections. Please see Page 16 for a
component level breakdown.
* There are two numeric references for PCI-Express: one is mechanical, which is the
actual slot-length footprint, and the second is electrical, which is a reference of how
many PCI-E lanes are routed to the slot.
As PCI Express is designed to be a universal architecture, you can install x1 cards, such
as sound cards or USB controllers into a x16 slot. Many types of cards can use different
amounts of PCI-E lanes, while some applications use only certain parts of a card, such
as compute apps that allow a card to run off of a single PCI-E lane. This is why there
are x16 mechanical slots with a x1 electrical PCI-E lane. Using the entire length of a
PCI-E slot is unnecessary, nor does it cause an adverse effect to use a shorter form-
factor bus card in a slot that physically can hold a larger form-factor bus card.
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