BIOS Interview Questions & Answers

Question 1. Explain What Is Bios?

Answer :

Short for Basic Input/Output System, the BIOS (pronounced bye-oss) is a ROM chip located on all motherboards that allows you to access and set up your computer system at the most basic level. In the picture below, is an example of what a BIOS chip may look like on your computer motherboard. In this example, this is a picture of an early AMIBIOS, a type of BIOS manufactured by the AMI. Another good example of a BIOS manufacturer is Phoenix.

Question 2. Can You Please Explain The Difference Between Bios And Cmos?

Answer :

The BIOS and CMOS are often times thought to be the same thing, but they are not. They are two different components of a computer, but they do work together to make the computer function properly.

The CMOS setup lets you change the time and date and settings for how devices are loaded at start up, like hard drives, disc drives, and floppy drives. The CMOS setup lets you enable and disable various hardware devices, including USB ports, the onboard video card and sound card (if present), parallel and serial ports, and other devices.

Question 3. How To Reset Cmos Or Bios Settings?

Answer :

1. Enter CMOS setup.
2. In CMOS setup, look for an option to reset the CMOS values to the default setting or an option to load the fail-safe defaults. With many CMOS setup screens, there will be a function key to do this. For example, the F5, F6, F9, F11, or F12 key, as shown in the picture, may be set up as a shortcut to load the default settings. Other setups may list an option that you can arrow over to using the arrow keys and pressing Enter.
3. When found and selected, you'll likely be asked if you're sure you want to load the defaults. Press Y for yes or arrow to the yes option. Once the default values have been set, make sure to Save and Exit and not just exit.

Question 4. How Ami Bios Is Different?

Answer :

1. Tab key is used to navigate.
2. Arrow keys are used to change values.
3. Values are automatically saved when changed, no need to save and exit like other BIOS setups.

Question 5. List Other Bios?

Answer :

• ALFAROME
• BIOSTAR
• biostar
• biosstar
• CMOS
• cmos
• LKWPETER
• lkwpeter
• setup
• SETUP
• Syxz
• Wodj

Question 6. List Ibm Aptiva Bios?

Answer :

Press both mouse buttons repeatedly during the boot.

Question 7. How To Create A Bootable Cd, With The Bios Flash Utility?

Answer :

• If no Windows BIOS utility is available, create a bootable CD and copy the BIOS flash utility files to the CD. Then restart your computer and boot to the CD to run the BIOS flash utility.
• This option does require that your computer has a CD-Writer, blank disc, and that the CD-Writer has the capability of creating bootable CDs. Many CD-Writers have this capability, as do the CD creation software programs. The best way to find out is to either check documentation for your CD-Writer or just try creating a bootable CD and see if it works.
• You also need to make sure you force a boot to the CD when your computer starts up. In most cases, there is a function key that displays a list of bootable devices your computer can use to boot. F10 and F12 are common hotkeys for displaying this bootable device list. Select the CD drive and see if the computer will boot to the CD and load the BIOS flash utility.

Question 8. Described Bios Flash Utility That Runs In Windows?

Answer :

Check the motherboard manufacturer website to see if they have a Windows-based BIOS flash utility available for download and use. If this is available for your motherboard, this utility may be the best option to use. Typically the utility runs some of the BIOS flash process in Windows, then restart your computer and run the remainder of the flash process when the computer starts up, within DOS mode.

Question 9. What Is Non-volatile Bios?

Answer :

Nonvolatile BIOS memory refers to a small memory on PC motherboards that is used to store BIOS settings. It was traditionally called CMOS RAM because it used a volatile, low-power complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) SRAM powered by a small battery when system power was off.

Question 10. How Do Cmos And Acpi Relate To Bios?

Answer :

Complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) refers to a chip inside your computer that saves your BIOS settings. As a result, the terms CMOS and BIOS are sometimes used interchangeably.

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is an industry standard that defines power management features and other configuration information for computers. Some previous versions of BIOS do not support ACPI, and so the computer may not successfully enter advanced power modes such as sleep or hibernate. For more information, check the information that came with your computer or go to the computer manufacturer's website.

Question 11. How To Update Bios Chip?

Answer :

There are two methods to update yiour BIOS chip:

1. Flash it (software method)
2. Program it with an EEPROM programmer. This is a hardware method . This is how we at BIOSMAN program sall our BIOS chips.

Question 12. What Is Post In Terms Of Bios?

Answer :

For the person who still has no idea about the BIOS on your PC, notice when you first turn on your PC or laptop a few screens pop up. It might be a logo such as DELL or HP or ASUS, Tyan , AMI BIOS, AWARD BIOS etc. You might also see a memory count . This is all part of the POST (Power On Self Test). POST is a test the BIOS runs before it hands over control to the OS (Operating System). You can see more of the post if you disable the logo option in your BIOS. Otherwise just know that if you see a logo the POST is running.

Question 13. What Are The Different Types Of Bios?

Answer :

In pc's the most common are the AWARD,AMI, AND phoenix.

Question 14. What Is The Purpose Of Bios In A System?

Answer :

BIOS or Basic Input/Output System is the first program accessed by the processor during start up to ensure that all the other basic programs, hard drives, ports, peripherals and the central processing unit are in good working condition. BIOS is different from the computer's operating system. The operating system resides in the hard drive and provides the user interface that can be seen on the screen after start up. The BIOS program, on the other hand, can be found right in a flash memory chip or ROM located in the motherboard. It is the basic requirement for booting a computer.

BIOS Functions

BIOS has several functions in a computer but its most important task is to load the operating system. BIOS provides the microprocessor its first instructions upon activating the computer. The instructions of the BIOS to the microprocessor during start up are the following: power on self test which tests the operating status of all the hardware in the computer, activation of other BIOS chips in some other computer components like SCSI and graphics cards, checking and management of computer peripherals through low level routines during the start-up process, and management of clock, hard drive and other settings.

Question 15. What Are The Five Stages In A Dlx Pipeline?

Answer :

The instruction sets can be differentiated by

• Operand storage in the CPU
• Number of explicit operands per instruction
• Operand location
• Operations
• Type and size of operands.

Question 16. Convert 65(hex) To Binary?

Answer :

65 to decimal

65/16=4

remainder=1

==41 decimal

decimal to binary

101001

Question 17. How Can I Determine What Bios Is On My Pc And If There Is An Update?

Answer :

The easiest way to determine this is to run the eSupport BIOS Agent scan. It'll tell you which motherboard you have and if there is any update available.

An alternative manual way is to identify your motherboard manually by using the Award or AMI Numbers page to compare your BIOS id string to the ones in our database.

Question 18. What's The Difference Between Write-through And Write-back Caches? Explain Advantages And Disadvantages Of Each?

Answer :

The comparison can be made out of two factors

1. Performance and
2. Integrity of Data

Write through is better in integrity as it will flush for each writes.

Write back holds up the write till the same cache line has to be used up for a read, which question the data integrity when multiple processors access the same region of data using its own internal cache.

Write Back : gives a good performance, as it save many memory write cycles /write.

Question 19. What Is The Difference Between Interrupt Service Routine And Subroutine ?

Answer :

Subroutine are the part of executing processes(like any process can call a subroutine for achieve task),while the interrupt subroutine never be the part.interrupt subroutine are subroutine that are external to a process.

Question 20. How To Get Into Your Computer Bios?

Answer :

To change BIOS settings, you'll need to get into the computer BIOS first. This is done via a certain key or combination of keys

Most of the time during boot-up the key (combination) will be shown. If it is not, then you could try the following key combinations:

• Del
• F1
• F2
• F10
• Ins
• Esc
• Ctrl+Alt+Esc
• Ctrl+Alt+Enter
• Ctrl+Alt+Ins after Ctrl+Alt+Del
• Ctrl+Ins
• Ctrl+Alt+S
• Ctrl+S

Question 21. How Can You Clear Your Bios With The Dos Debug Command ?

Answer :

1.for AMI and Award BIOS:

C:DEBUG (at a clear DOS prompt, don't do this in DOS-box in Windows)

-O 70 17

-O 71 17

Q

2.for Phoenix BIOS:

C:DEBUG (at a clear DOS prompt, don't do this in DOS-box in Windows)

-O 70 FF

-O 71 17.

Question 22. What Is A (flash) Bios ?

Answer :

Pronounced "bye-ose," BIOS is an acronym for basic input/output system. The BIOS is built-in software that determines what a computer can do without accessing programs from a disk. On PCs, the BIOS contains all the code required to control the keyboard, display screen, disk drives, serial communications, and a number of miscellaneous functions.

Question 23. How To Generate A Boot Disk For Updating A Bios ?

Answer :

Follow this handy guide to generate a clean boot disk to update your BIOS:

1. Save DRDFlash.exe to your hard drive
2. Insert a blank floppy and double click the drdflash.exe file to create the boot disk.
3. Follow the onscreen instructions
4. Copy the BIOS Update and BIOS Flasher to the boot disk
5. Restart your PC and boot from the floppy.
6. Use the flasher to install the BIOS update.

Question 24. What Is A Snooping Cache?

Answer :

Snooping is the process where the individual caches monitor address lines for accesses to memory locations that they have cached. When a write operation is observed to a location that a cache has a copy of, the cache controller invalidates its own copy of the snooped memory location.

Snarfing is where a cache controller watches both address and data in an attempt to update its own copy of a memory location when a second master modifies a location in main memory.