Upgrading & Fixing Laptops DUMmIES

plugged in to a daughterboard or attached to a USB port or a PC Card

connection — come with small pieces of software called device drivers.

These drivers help the basic system work with the specialized functions

they offer. In logical terms, device drivers sit between the BIOS and the

operating system.

Why are there differentiated “layers” of control? This is one of the reasons

modern PCs are nearly infinitely adjustable to purposes known now or devel-

oped tomorrow. The BIOS handles basic housekeeping, the drivers adapt the

machine to any specialized hardware, and the operating system is free to

respond to the user without being concerned whether you have a Belkin-,

Keyspan-, or Microsoft-brand network interface card (NIC)or other piece of

hardware.

Turning a BIOS inside out..................................................................

As the machine comes to life, watch very carefully to see the machine go

through a quick diagnostic check of its major components. It usually speeds

by too quickly; try keeping a finger near the Pause/Break key (usually in the

upper-right corner of the keyboard) and press it to freeze the screen and read.

Press Esc (on some machines, Pause/Break again) to resume the zippy test.

Here is some of the information contained in the boot-up diagnostic, in this

case from Phoenix NoteBIOS 4.0 on a Toshiba Satellite laptop:

CPU = Intel(r) Pentium(r) M Processor 1.50 GHz

479M System RAM Passed

2048 Cache SRAM Passed

System BIOS shadowed

Video BIOS shadowed

Fixed Disk 0: IC25N060ATMR04-0

ATAPI CD-ROM: UJDA760 DVD/CDRW

Mouse initialized

When you first turn on your laptop, the options in the BIOS screen are

already set to their default settings, but you are given the opportunity to

make changes and set the clock and date the first time you run the machine.

A number of laptops I’ve worked with come ready to go — although the time

and date may have been set in China and need to be adjusted for my office on

the East Coast of the United States.

Figure 6-5 shows some selected sections of a Phoenix BIOS, revealing the option,

the setting (with any defaults shown in boldface), and some explanation.

102 Part II: Explaining What Could Possibly Go Wrong