Troubleshooting And Repair; System Rom And Security Support; Hp Bios - HP Vectra XM5 4 Supplementary Manual

3

TROUBLESHOOTING AND REPAIR

After reading this chapter you will know which sub-assemblies can be replaced, and
understand the new features of the POST and Setup .

SYSTEM ROM AND SECURITY SUPPORT

The System ROM consists of a 256 KB flash programmable EEPROM. This contains the
HP Vectra XM 5/xx series 4 PC BIOS program, containing the POST and Setup programs.
These are described in the next section of this chapter.
In addition, the System ROM provides support for the following securityfeatures, to protect
against unauthorized access to the computer and its data:
• power-on prompt, with User or System Administrator password
• power-on keyboard lock, with User or System Administrator password
• communications port protection (ports can be disabled in SETUP)
• disabling or enabling the network interface, the flexible disk drive, the IDE interface, the
hard disk drive boot sector
• write protection of flexible disk drives
• disabling or enabling re-booting from the network interface, the flexible disk drive, the
CD-ROM drive, the hard disk drive
• system configuration protection, with administrator password
• disabling or enabling space bar power-on
• cover lock
• on the desktop models, a security bracket.
After turning on the PC, the POST informs the user if there have been any unsuccessful
attempts at running the PC. It gives the date and time at which the last successful attempt was
made, and the number of unsuccessful attempts.
If, on the other hand, the user has forgotten the User and System Administrator passwords,
they can be cleared by using the system board switches (SW-5 to clear the User and System
Administrator passwords, as indicated under "System Board and Switches" later in this
chapter).

HP BIOS

The system BIOS is identified by the version number GW.07.xx. It incorporates a new field to
represent the "CPU date code". If the POST routines run without finding any error, the user is
only presented with the following screen.