BIOS

In computing, BIOS (/ˈbaɪɒs, -oʊs/, BY-

oss, -⁠ohss; Basic Input/Output System,
also known as the System BIOS, ROM
BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware
used to provide runtime services for
operating systems and programs and to
perform hardware initialization during the
booting process (power-on startup).[1]
The BIOS firmware comes pre-installed
on an IBM PC or IBM PC compatible's
system board and exists in some UEFI-
based systems to maintain compatibility
with operating systems that do not
support UEFI native operation.[2][3] The
name originates from the Basic
Input/Output System used in the CP/M
operating system in 1975.[4][5] The BIOS
originally proprietary to the IBM PC has
been reverse engineered by some
companies (such as Phoenix
Technologies) looking to create
compatible systems. The interface of
that original system serves as a de facto
standard.
 A pair of AMD BIOS chips for a Dell 310
computer from the 1980s. The bottom one
shows the distinct window of an EPROM
chip.

Year started 1981[a]

Organization Originally IBM as

proprietary software,
later industry wide as
a de facto standard.
In 1996, the BIOS
Boot Specification
was written by
Compaq, Phoenix
 Technologies and
Intel.

Successor UEFI

The BIOS in modern PCs initializes and

tests the system hardware components
(Power-on self-test), and loads a boot
loader from a mass storage device which
then initializes a kernel. In the era of DOS,
the BIOS provided BIOS interrupt calls for
the keyboard, display, storage, and other
input/output (I/O) devices that
standardized an interface to application
programs and the operating system.
More recent operating systems do not
use the BIOS interrupt calls after
startup.[6]
Most BIOS implementations are
specifically designed to work with a
particular computer or motherboard
model, by interfacing with various
devices especially system chipset.
Originally, BIOS firmware was stored in a
ROM chip on the PC motherboard. In
later computer systems, the BIOS
contents are stored on flash memory so
it can be rewritten without removing the
chip from the motherboard. This allows
easy, end-user updates to the BIOS
firmware so new features can be added
or bugs can be fixed, but it also creates a
possibility for the computer to become
infected with BIOS rootkits. Furthermore,
a BIOS upgrade that fails could brick the
motherboard. The last version of
Microsoft Windows to officially support
running on PCs which use legacy BIOS
firmware is Windows 10 as Windows 11
requires a UEFI-compliant system.

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface

(UEFI) is a successor to the legacy PC
BIOS, aiming to address its technical
limitations.[7]

History

/* C P / M B A S I
C I / O S Y S T
E M (B I O S)
COPYRIGHT (C) GARY
A. KILDALL

JUNE, 1975 */
[…]
/* B A S I C D I
S K O P E R A T I
N G S Y S T E M
(B D O S)

COPYRIGHT (C) GARY

A. KILDALL

JUNE, 1975 */
 — An excerpt from the
BDOS.PLM file header in
the PL/M source code of
CP/M 1.1 or 1.2 for
Lawrence Livermore
Laboratories (LLL)[4]

The term BIOS (Basic Input/Output

System) was created by Gary Kildall[8][9]
and first appeared in the CP/M operating
system in 1975,[4][5][9][10][11][12] describing
the machine-specific part of CP/M
loaded during boot time that interfaces
directly with the hardware.[5] (A CP/M
machine usually has only a simple boot
loader in its ROM.)
Versions of MS-DOS, PC DOS or DR-DOS
contain a file called variously "IO.SYS",
"IBMBIO.COM", "IBMBIO.SYS", or
"DRBIOS.SYS"; this file is known as the
"DOS BIOS" (also known as the "DOS I/O
System") and contains the lower-level
hardware-specific part of the operating
system. Together with the underlying
hardware-specific but operating system-
independent "System BIOS", which
resides in ROM, it represents the
analogue to the "CP/M BIOS".

The BIOS originally proprietary to the IBM

PC has been reverse engineered by some
companies (such as Phoenix
Technologies) looking to create
compatible systems.

With the introduction of PS/2 machines,

IBM divided the System BIOS into real-
and protected-mode portions. The real-
mode portion was meant to provide
backward compatibility with existing
operating systems such as DOS, and
therefore was named "CBIOS" (for
"Compatibility BIOS"), whereas the
"ABIOS" (for "Advanced BIOS") provided
new interfaces specifically suited for
multitasking operating systems such as
OS/2.[13]
User interface
The BIOS of the original IBM PC and XT
had no interactive user interface. Error
codes or messages were displayed on
the screen, or coded series of sounds
were generated to signal errors when the
power-on self-test (POST) had not
proceeded to the point of successfully
initializing a video display adapter.
Options on the IBM PC and XT were set
by switches and jumpers on the main
board and on expansion cards. Starting
around the mid-1990s, it became typical
for the BIOS ROM to include a "BIOS
configuration utility" (BCU[14]) or "BIOS
setup utility", accessed at system power-
up by a particular key sequence. This
program allowed the user to set system
configuration options, of the type
formerly set using DIP switches, through
an interactive menu system controlled
through the keyboard. In the interim
period, IBM-compatible PCs‍—‌including
the IBM AT—‌held configuration settings
in battery-backed RAM and used a
bootable configuration program on
floppy disk, not in the ROM, to set the
configuration options contained in this
memory. The floppy disk was supplied
with the computer, and if it was lost the
system settings could not be changed.
The same applied in general to
computers with an EISA bus, for which
the configuration program was called an
EISA Configuration Utility (ECU).

A modern Wintel-compatible computer

provides a setup routine essentially
unchanged in nature from the ROM-
resident BIOS setup utilities of the late
1990s; the user can configure hardware
options using the keyboard and video
display. The modern Wintel machine may
store the BIOS configuration settings in
flash ROM, perhaps the same flash ROM
that holds the BIOS itself.
Operation

System startup

Early Intel processors started at physical

address 000FFFF0h. Systems with later
processors provide logic to start running
the BIOS from the system ROM. [15]

If the system has just been powered up

or the reset button was pressed ("cold
boot"), the full power-on self-test (POST)
is run. If Ctrl+Alt+Delete was pressed
("warm boot"), a special flag value stored
in nonvolatile BIOS memory ("CMOS")
tested by the BIOS allows bypass of the
lengthy POST and memory detection.
The POST identifies, tests and initializes
system devices such as the CPU, chipset,
RAM, motherboard, video card, keyboard,
mouse, hard disk drive, optical disc drive
and other hardware, including integrated
peripherals.

Early IBM PCs had a routine in the POST

that would download a program into
RAM through the keyboard port and run
it.[16][17] This feature was intended for
factory test or diagnostic purposes.

Boot process

Boot process
After the option ROM scan is completed
and all detected ROM modules with valid
checksums have been called, or
immediately after POST in a BIOS version
that does not scan for option ROMs, the
BIOS calls INT 19h to start boot
processing. Post-boot, programs loaded
can also call INT 19h to reboot the
system, but they must be careful to
disable interrupts and other
asynchronous hardware processes that
may interfere with the BIOS rebooting
process, or else the system may hang or
crash while it is rebooting.

When INT 19h is called, the BIOS

attempts to locate boot loader software
on a "boot device", such as a hard disk, a
floppy disk, CD, or DVD. It loads and
executes the first boot software it finds,
giving it control of the PC.[18]

The BIOS uses the boot devices set in

Nonvolatile BIOS memory (CMOS), or, in
the earliest PCs, DIP switches. The BIOS
checks each device in order to see if it is
bootable by attempting to load the first
sector (boot sector). If the sector cannot
be read, the BIOS proceeds to the next
device. If the sector is read successfully,
some BIOSes will also check for the boot
sector signature 0x55 0xAA in the last
two bytes of the sector (which is 512
bytes long), before accepting a boot
sector and considering the device
bootable.[b]

When a bootable device is found, the

BIOS transfers control to the loaded
sector. The BIOS does not interpret the
contents of the boot sector other than to
possibly check for the boot sector
signature in the last two bytes.
Interpretation of data structures like
partition tables and BIOS Parameter
Blocks is done by the boot program in
the boot sector itself or by other
programs loaded through the boot
process.
A non-disk device such as a network
adapter attempts booting by a procedure
that is defined by its option ROM or the
equivalent integrated into the
motherboard BIOS ROM. As such, option
ROMs may also influence or supplant the
boot process defined by the motherboard
BIOS ROM.

With the El Torito optical media boot

standard, the optical drive actually
emulates a 3.5" high-density floppy disk
to the BIOS for boot purposes. Reading
the "first sector" of a CD-ROM or DVD-
ROM is not a simply defined operation
like it is on a floppy disk or a hard disk.
Furthermore, the complexity of the
medium makes it difficult to write a
useful boot program in one sector. The
bootable virtual floppy disk can contain
software that provides access to the
optical medium in its native format.

Boot priority

The user can select the boot priority

implemented by the BIOS. For example,
most computers have a hard disk that is
bootable, but sometimes there is a
removable-media drive that has higher
boot priority, so the user can cause a
removable disk to be booted.

In most modern BIOSes, the boot priority

order can be configured by the user. In
older BIOSes, limited boot priority
options are selectable; in the earliest
BIOSes, a fixed priority scheme was
implemented, with floppy disk drives first,
fixed disks (i.e. hard disks) second, and
typically no other boot devices
supported, subject to modification of
these rules by installed option ROMs. The
BIOS in an early PC also usually would
only boot from the first floppy disk drive
or the first hard disk drive, even if there
were two drives installed.

Boot failure

On the original IBM PC and XT, if no

bootable disk was found, ROM BASIC
was started by calling INT 18h. Since few
programs used BASIC in ROM, clone PC
makers left it out; then a computer that
failed to boot from a disk would display
"No ROM BASIC" and halt (in response to
INT 18h).

Later computers would display a

message like "No bootable disk found";
some would prompt for a disk to be
inserted and a key to be pressed to retry
the boot process. A modern BIOS may
display nothing or may automatically
enter the BIOS configuration utility when
the boot process fails.
Boot environment

The environment for the boot program is

very simple: the CPU is in real mode and
the general-purpose and segment
registers are undefined, except SS, SP,
CS, and DL. CS:IP always points to
physical address 0x07C00 . What
values CS and IP actually have is not well
defined. Some BIOSes use a CS:IP of
0x0000:0x7C00 while others may
use 0x07C0:0x0000 .[19] Because
boot programs are always loaded at this
fixed address, there is no need for a boot
program to be relocatable. DL may
contain the drive number, as used with
INT 13h, of the boot device. SS:SP points
to a valid stack that is presumably large
enough to support hardware interrupts,
but otherwise SS and SP are undefined.
(A stack must be already set up in order
for interrupts to be serviced, and
interrupts must be enabled in order for
the system timer-tick interrupt, which
BIOS always uses at least to maintain the
time-of-day count and which it initializes
during POST, to be active and for the
keyboard to work. The keyboard works
even if the BIOS keyboard service is not
called; keystrokes are received and
placed in the 15-character type-ahead
buffer maintained by BIOS.) The boot
program must set up its own stack,
because the size of the stack set up by
BIOS is unknown and its location is
likewise variable; although the boot
program can investigate the default
stack by examining SS:SP, it is easier and
shorter to just unconditionally set up a
new stack.[20]

At boot time, all BIOS services are

available, and the memory below address
0x00400 contains the interrupt vector
table. BIOS POST has initialized the
system timers, interrupt controller(s),
DMA controller(s), and other
motherboard/chipset hardware as
necessary to bring all BIOS services to
ready status. DRAM refresh for all
system DRAM in conventional memory
and extended memory, but not
necessarily expanded memory, has been
set up and is running. The interrupt
vectors corresponding to the BIOS
interrupts have been set to point at the
appropriate entry points in the BIOS,
hardware interrupt vectors for devices
initialized by the BIOS have been set to
point to the BIOS-provided ISRs, and
some other interrupts, including ones
that BIOS generates for programs to
hook, have been set to a default dummy
ISR that immediately returns. The BIOS
maintains a reserved block of system
RAM at addresses 0x00400–
0x004FF with various parameters
initialized during the POST. All memory at
and above address 0x00500 can be
used by the boot program; it may even
overwrite itself.[21][22]

Extensions (option ROMs)

Peripheral cards such as hard disk drive
host bus adapters and video cards have
their own firmware, and BIOS extension
option ROM may be a part of the
expansion card firmware, which provide
additional functionality to BIOS. Code in
option ROMs runs before the BIOS boots
the operating system from mass storage.
These ROMs typically test and initialize
hardware, add new BIOS services, or
replace existing BIOS services with their
own services. For example, a SCSI
controller usually has a BIOS extension
ROM that adds support for hard drives
connected through that controller. An
extension ROM could in principle contain
operating system, or it could implement
an entirely different boot process such as
network booting. Operation of an IBM-
compatible computer system can be
completely changed by removing or
inserting an adapter card (or a ROM chip)
that contains a BIOS extension ROM.

The motherboard BIOS typically contains

code for initializing and bootstrapping
integrated display and integrated
storage. In addition, plug-in adapter
cards such as SCSI, RAID, network
interface cards, and video cards often
include their own BIOS (e.g. Video BIOS),
complementing or replacing the system
BIOS code for the given component. Even
devices built into the motherboard can
behave in this way; their option ROMs
can be a part of the motherboard BIOS.

An add-in card requires an option ROM if

the card is not supported by the
motherboard BIOS and the card needs to
be initialized or made accessible through
BIOS services before the operating
system can be loaded (usually this
means it is required in the boot process).
An additional advantage of ROM on
some early PC systems (notably
including the IBM PCjr) was that ROM
was faster than main system RAM. (On
modern systems, the case is very much
the reverse of this, and BIOS ROM code is
usually copied ("shadowed") into RAM so
it will run faster.)

Boot procedure

If an expansion ROM wishes to change

the way the system boots (such as from
a network device or a SCSI adapter) in a
cooperative way, it can use the BIOS Boot
Specification (BBS) API to register its
ability to do so. Once the expansion
ROMs have registered using the BBS
APIs, the user can select among the
available boot options from within the
BIOS's user interface. This is why most
BBS compliant PC BIOS implementations
will not allow the user to enter the BIOS's
user interface until the expansion ROMs
have finished executing and registering
themselves with the BBS API.

Also, if an expansion ROM wishes to

change the way the system boots
unilaterally, it can simply hook INT 19h or
other interrupts normally called from
interrupt 19h, such as INT 13h, the BIOS
disk service, to intercept the BIOS boot
process. Then it can replace the BIOS
boot process with one of its own, or it
can merely modify the boot sequence by
inserting its own boot actions into it, by
preventing the BIOS from detecting
certain devices as bootable, or both.
Before the BIOS Boot Specification was
promulgated, this was the only way for
expansion ROMs to implement boot
capability for devices not supported for
booting by the native BIOS of the
motherboard.

Initialization

After the motherboard BIOS completes

its POST, most BIOS versions search for
option ROM modules, also called BIOS
extension ROMs, and execute them. The
motherboard BIOS scans for extension
ROMs in a portion of the "upper memory
area" (the part of the x86 real-mode
address space at and above address
0xA0000) and runs each ROM found, in
order. To discover memory-mapped
option ROMs, a BIOS implementation
scans the real-mode address space from
0x0C0000 to 0x0F0000 on 2 KB
(2,048 bytes) boundaries, looking for a
two-byte ROM signature: 0x55 followed
by 0xAA. In a valid expansion ROM, this
signature is followed by a single byte
indicating the number of 512-byte blocks
the expansion ROM occupies in real
memory, and the next byte is the option
ROM's entry point (also known as its
"entry offset"). If the ROM has a valid
checksum, the BIOS transfers control to
the entry address, which in a normal
BIOS extension ROM should be the
beginning of the extension's initialization
routine.

At this point, the extension ROM code

takes over, typically testing and
initializing the hardware it controls and
registering interrupt vectors for use by
post-boot applications. It may use BIOS
services (including those provided by
previously initialized option ROMs) to
provide a user configuration interface, to
display diagnostic information, or to do
anything else that it requires. It is
possible that an option ROM will not
return to BIOS, pre-empting the BIOS's
boot sequence altogether.

An option ROM should normally return to

the BIOS after completing its initialization
process. Once (and if) an option ROM
returns, the BIOS continues searching for
more option ROMs, calling each as it is
found, until the entire option ROM area in
the memory space has been scanned.

Physical placement

BIOS chips in a Dell 310 that were

updated by replacing the chips
Option ROMs normally reside on adapter
cards. However, the original PC, and
perhaps also the PC XT, have a spare
ROM socket on the motherboard (the
"system board" in IBM's terms) into which
an option ROM can be inserted, and the
four ROMs that contain the BASIC
interpreter can also be removed and
replaced with custom ROMs which can
be option ROMs. The IBM PCjr is unique
among PCs in having two ROM cartridge
slots on the front. Cartridges in these
slots map into the same region of the
upper memory area used for option
ROMs, and the cartridges can contain
option ROM modules that the BIOS would
recognize. The cartridges can also
contain other types of ROM modules,
such as BASIC programs, that are
handled differently. One PCjr cartridge
can contain several ROM modules of
different types, possibly stored together
in one ROM chip.

Operating system services

The BIOS ROM is customized to the
particular manufacturer's hardware,
allowing low-level services (such as
reading a keystroke or writing a sector of
data to diskette) to be provided in a
standardized way to programs, including
operating systems. For example, an IBM
PC might have either a monochrome or a
color display adapter (using different
display memory addresses and
hardware), but a single, standard, BIOS
system call may be invoked to display a
character at a specified position on the
screen in text mode or graphics mode.

The BIOS provides a small library of

basic input/output functions to operate
peripherals (such as the keyboard,
rudimentary text and graphics display
functions and so forth). When using MS-
DOS, BIOS services could be accessed by
an application program (or by MS-DOS)
by executing an INT 13h interrupt
instruction to access disk functions, or
by executing one of a number of other
documented BIOS interrupt calls to
access video display, keyboard, cassette,
and other device functions.

Operating systems and executive

software that are designed to supersede
this basic firmware functionality provide
replacement software interfaces to
application software. Applications can
also provide these services to
themselves. This began even in the
1980s under MS-DOS, when
programmers observed that using the
BIOS video services for graphics display
were very slow. To increase the speed of
screen output, many programs bypassed
the BIOS and programmed the video
display hardware directly. Other graphics
programmers, particularly but not
exclusively in the demoscene, observed
that there were technical capabilities of
the PC display adapters that were not
supported by the IBM BIOS and could not
be taken advantage of without
circumventing it. Since the AT-compatible
BIOS ran in Intel real mode, operating
systems that ran in protected mode on
286 and later processors required
hardware device drivers compatible with
protected mode operation to replace
BIOS services.

In modern PCs running modern operating

systems (such as Windows and Linux)
the BIOS interrupt calls is used only
during booting and initial loading of
operating systems. Before the operating
system's first graphical screen is
displayed, input and output are typically
handled through BIOS. A boot menu such
as the textual menu of Windows, which
allows users to choose an operating
system to boot, to boot into the safe
mode, or to use the last known good
configuration, is displayed through BIOS
and receives keyboard input through
BIOS.[6]

Many modern PCs can still boot and run

legacy operating systems such as MS-
DOS or DR-DOS that rely heavily on BIOS
for their console and disk I/O, providing
that the system has a BIOS, or a CSM-
capable UEFI firmware.

Processor microcode updates

Intel processors have reprogrammable

microcode since the P6
microarchitecture.[23][24][25] AMD
processors have reprogrammable
microcode since the K7
microarchitecture. The BIOS contain
patches to the processor microcode that
fix errors in the initial processor
microcode; microcode is loaded into
processor's SRAM so reprogramming is
not persistent, thus loading of microcode
updates is performed each time the
system is powered up. Without
reprogrammable microcode, an
expensive processor swap would be
required;[26] for example, the Pentium
FDIV bug became an expensive fiasco for
Intel as it required a product recall
because the original Pentium processor's
defective microcode could not be
reprogrammed. Operating systems can
update main processor microcode
also.[27][28]

Identification

Some BIOSes contain a software

licensing description table (SLIC), a
digital signature placed inside the BIOS
by the original equipment manufacturer
(OEM), for example Dell. The SLIC is
inserted into the ACPI data table and
contains no active code.[29][30]

Computer manufacturers that distribute

OEM versions of Microsoft Windows and
Microsoft application software can use
the SLIC to authenticate licensing to the
OEM Windows Installation disk and
system recovery disc containing
Windows software. Systems with a SLIC
can be preactivated with an OEM product
key, and they verify an XML formatted
OEM certificate against the SLIC in the
BIOS as a means of self-activating (see
System Locked Preinstallation, SLP). If a
user performs a fresh install of Windows,
they will need to have possession of both
the OEM key (either SLP or COA) and the
digital certificate for their SLIC in order to
bypass activation.[29] This can be
achieved if the user performs a restore
using a pre-customised image provided
by the OEM. Power users can copy the
necessary certificate files from the OEM
image, decode the SLP product key, then
perform SLP activation manually.

Overclocking

Some BIOS implementations allow

overclocking, an action in which the CPU
is adjusted to a higher clock rate than its
manufacturer rating for guaranteed
capability. Overclocking may, however,
seriously compromise system reliability
in insufficiently cooled computers and
generally shorten component lifespan.
Overclocking, when incorrectly
performed, may also cause components
to overheat so quickly that they
mechanically destroy themselves.[31]

Modern use

Some older operating systems, for

example MS-DOS, rely on the BIOS to
carry out most input/output tasks within
the PC.[32]
Calling real mode BIOS services directly
is inefficient for protected mode (and
long mode) operating systems. BIOS
interrupt calls are not used by modern
multitasking operating systems after
they initially load.

In 1990s, BIOS provided some protected

mode interfaces for Microsoft Windows
and Unix-like operating systems, such as
Advanced Power Management (APM),
Plug and Play BIOS, Desktop
Management Interface (DMI), VESA BIOS
Extensions (VBE), e820 and
MultiProcessor Specification (MPS).
Starting from the 2000, most BIOSes
provide ACPI, SMBIOS, VBE and e820
interfaces for modern operating
systems.[33][34][35][36][37]

After operating systems load, the System

Management Mode code is still running
in SMRAM. Since 2010, BIOS technology
is in a transitional process toward UEFI.[7]

Configuration

Setup utility

Historically, the BIOS in the IBM PC and

XT had no built-in user interface. The
BIOS versions in earlier PCs (XT-class)
were not software configurable; instead,
users set the options via DIP switches on
the motherboard. Later computers,
including all IBM-compatibles with 80286
CPUs, had a battery-backed nonvolatile
BIOS memory (CMOS RAM chip) that
held BIOS settings.[38] These settings,
such as video-adapter type, memory size,
and hard-disk parameters, could only be
configured by running a configuration
program from a disk, not built into the
ROM. A special "reference diskette" was
inserted in an IBM AT to configure
settings such as memory size.

Early BIOS versions did not have

passwords or boot-device selection
options. The BIOS was hard-coded to
boot from the first floppy drive, or, if that
failed, the first hard disk. Access control
in early AT-class machines was by a
physical keylock switch (which was not
hard to defeat if the computer case could
be opened). Anyone who could switch on
the computer could boot it.

Later, 386-class computers started

integrating the BIOS setup utility in the
ROM itself, alongside the BIOS code;
these computers usually boot into the
BIOS setup utility if a certain key or key
combination is pressed, otherwise the
BIOS POST and boot process are
executed.
 Award BIOS setup utility on a
standard PC

A modern BIOS setup utility has a text

user interface (TUI) or graphical user
interface (GUI) accessed by pressing a
certain key on the keyboard when the PC
starts. Usually, the key is advertised for
short time during the early startup, for
example "Press DEL to enter Setup". The
actual key depends on specific hardware.
Features present in the BIOS setup utility
typically include:

Configuring, enabling and disabling the

hardware components
 Setting the system time
Setting the boot order
Setting various passwords, such as a
password for securing access to the
BIOS user interface and preventing
malicious users from booting the
system from unauthorized portable
storage devices, or a password for
booting the system

Hardware monitoring

A modern BIOS setup screen often

features a PC Health Status or a
Hardware Monitoring tab, which directly
interfaces with a Hardware Monitor chip
of the mainboard.[39] This makes it
possible to monitor CPU and chassis
temperature, the voltage provided by the
power supply unit, as well as monitor and
control the speed of the fans connected
to the motherboard.

Once the system is booted, hardware

monitoring and computer fan control is
normally done directly by the Hardware
Monitor chip itself, which can be a
separate chip, interfaced through I2C or
SMBus, or come as a part of a Super I/O
solution, interfaced through Industry
Standard Architecture (ISA) or Low Pin
Count (LPC).[40] Some operating
systems, like NetBSD with envsys and
OpenBSD with sysctl hw.sensors, feature
integrated interfacing with hardware
monitors.

However, in some circumstances, the

BIOS also provides the underlying
information about hardware monitoring
through ACPI, in which case, the
operating system may be using ACPI to
perform hardware monitoring.[41][42]

Reprogramming

BIOS replacement kit for a Dell 310

from the late 1980s. Included are two
chips, a plastic holder for the chips,
and a chip puller.
In modern PCs the BIOS is stored in
rewritable EEPROM or NOR flash
memory, allowing the contents to be
replaced and modified. This rewriting of
the contents is sometimes termed
flashing. It can be done by a special
program, usually provided by the
system's manufacturer, or at POST, with a
BIOS image in a hard drive or USB flash
drive. A file containing such contents is
sometimes termed "a BIOS image". A
BIOS might be reflashed in order to
upgrade to a newer version to fix bugs or
provide improved performance or to
support newer hardware.
Hardware

American Megatrends BIOS 686. This

BIOS chip is housed in a PLCC
package in a socket.

The original IBM PC BIOS (and cassette

BASIC) was stored on mask-programmed
read-only memory (ROM) chips in
sockets on the motherboard. ROMs
could be replaced, but not altered, by
users. To allow for updates, many
compatible computers used re-
programmable BIOS memory devices
such as EPROM, EEPROM and later flash
memory (usually NOR flash) devices.
According to Robert Braver, the president
of the BIOS manufacturer Micro
Firmware, Flash BIOS chips became
common around 1995 because the
electrically erasable PROM (EEPROM)
chips are cheaper and easier to program
than standard ultraviolet erasable PROM
(EPROM) chips. Flash chips are
programmed (and re-programmed) in-
circuit, while EPROM chips need to be
removed from the motherboard for re-
programming.[43] BIOS versions are
upgraded to take advantage of newer
versions of hardware and to correct bugs
in previous revisions of BIOSes.[44]

Beginning with the IBM AT, PCs

supported a hardware clock settable
through BIOS. It had a century bit which
allowed for manually changing the
century when the year 2000 happened.
Most BIOS revisions created in 1995 and
nearly all BIOS revisions in 1997
supported the year 2000 by setting the
century bit automatically when the clock
rolled past midnight, 31 December
1999.[45]

The first flash chips were attached to the

ISA bus. Starting in 1998, the BIOS flash
moved to the LPC bus, following a new
standard implementation known as
"firmware hub" (FWH). In 2005, the BIOS
flash memory moved to the SPI bus.[46]
The size of the BIOS, and the capacity of
the ROM, EEPROM, or other media it may
be stored on, has increased over time as
new features have been added to the
code; BIOS versions now exist with sizes
up to 32 megabytes. For contrast, the
original IBM PC BIOS was contained in
an 8 KB mask ROM. Some modern
motherboards are including even bigger
NAND flash memory ICs on board which
are capable of storing whole compact
operating systems, such as some Linux
distributions. For example, some ASUS
notebooks included Splashtop OS
embedded into their NAND flash memory
ICs.[47] However, the idea of including an
operating system along with BIOS in the
ROM of a PC is not new; in the 1980s,
Microsoft offered a ROM option for MS-
DOS, and it was included in the ROMs of
some PC clones such as the Tandy 1000
HX.

Another type of firmware chip was found

on the IBM PC AT and early compatibles.
In the AT, the keyboard interface was
controlled by a microcontroller with its
own programmable memory. On the IBM
AT, that was a 40-pin socketed device,
while some manufacturers used an
EPROM version of this chip which
resembled an EPROM. This controller
was also assigned the A20 gate function
to manage memory above the one-
megabyte range; occasionally an
upgrade of this "keyboard BIOS" was
necessary to take advantage of software
that could use upper memory.

The BIOS may contain components such

as the Memory Reference Code (MRC),
which is responsible for the memory
initialization (e.g. SPD and memory
timings initialization).[48]: 8 [49]

Modern BIOS[50] includes Intel

Management Engine[51] or AMD Platform
Security Processor firmware.
Vendors and products
Comparison of different BIOS implementations
Company AwardBIOS AMIBIOS Insyde SeaBIOS

License Proprietary Proprietary Proprietary LGPL v3

 Maintained / developed Terminated Terminated Terminated Yes

32-bit PCI BIOS calls Yes Yes Yes Yes

AHCI Yes Yes Yes Yes

APM Yes Yes Yes (1.2) Yes (1.2)

BBS Yes Yes Yes Yes

Boot menu Yes Yes Yes Yes

Compression Yes (LHA[52]) Yes (LHA) Yes (RLE) Yes (LZMA)

CMOS Yes Yes Yes Yes

EDD Yes Yes Yes Yes

ESCD Yes Yes ? No

Flash from ROM ? Yes ? No

Language Assembly Assembly Assembly C

LBA Yes (48) Yes (48) Yes Yes (48)

MultiProcessor Specification Yes Yes Yes Yes

Option ROM Yes Yes Yes Yes

Password Yes Yes Yes No

PMM ? Yes ? Yes

Setup screen Yes Yes Yes No

SMBIOS Yes Yes Yes Yes

Splash screen Yes (EPA)[53] Yes (PCX) Yes Yes (BMP, JPG)

TPM Un­known Un­known Un­known Some

USB booting Yes Yes Yes Yes

USB hub ? ? ? Yes

USB keyboard Yes Yes Yes Yes

USB mouse Yes Yes Yes Yes

IBM published the entire listings of the

BIOS for its original PC, PC XT, PC AT, and
other contemporary PC models, in an
appendix of the IBM PC Technical
Reference Manual for each machine type.
The effect of the publication of the BIOS
listings is that anyone can see exactly
what a definitive BIOS does and how it
does it.

Compaq Portable 386 BIOS

In May 1984 Phoenix Software

Associates released its first ROM-BIOS,
which enabled OEMs to build essentially
fully compatible clones without having to
reverse-engineer the IBM PC BIOS
themselves, as Compaq had done for the
Portable, helping fuel the growth in the
PC-compatibles industry and sales of
non-IBM versions of DOS.[54] And the first
American Megatrends (AMI) BIOS was
released on 1986.

New standards grafted onto the BIOS are

usually without complete public
documentation or any BIOS listings. As a
result, it is not as easy to learn the
intimate details about the many non-IBM
additions to BIOS as about the core BIOS
services.

Many PC motherboard suppliers licensed

the BIOS "core" and toolkit from a
commercial third party, known as an
"independent BIOS vendor" or IBV. The
motherboard manufacturer then
customized this BIOS to suit its own
hardware. For this reason, updated
BIOSes are normally obtained directly
from the motherboard manufacturer.
Major IBV included American
Megatrends (AMI), Insyde Software,
Phoenix Technologies, and Byosoft.
Microid Research and Award Software
were acquired by Phoenix Technologies
in 1998; Phoenix later phased out the
Award brand name. General Software,
which was also acquired by Phoenix in
2007, sold BIOS for embedded systems
based on Intel processors.
Open-source BIOS firmware

The open-source community increased

their effort to develop a replacement for
proprietary BIOSes and their future
incarnations with an open-sourced
counterparts. Open Firmware was an
early attempt to make open source
standard for booting firmware. It was
initially endorsed by IEEE in its IEEE 1275-
1994 standard but was withdrawn in
2005.[55][56] Later examples include the
libreboot, coreboot and OpenBIOS/Open
Firmware projects. AMD provided
product specifications for some chipsets,
and Google is sponsoring the project.
Motherboard manufacturer Tyan offers
coreboot next to the standard BIOS with
their Opteron line of motherboards.

Security

An American Megatrends BIOS

showing an "Intel CPU uCode Loading
Error" after a failed attempt to upload
microcode patches into the CPU

A detached BIOS chip

EEPROM and Flash memory chips are

advantageous because they can be
easily updated by the user; it is
customary for hardware manufacturers
to issue BIOS updates to upgrade their
products, improve compatibility and
remove bugs. However, this advantage
had the risk that an improperly executed
or aborted BIOS update could render the
computer or device unusable. To avoid
these situations, more recent BIOSes use
a "boot block"; a portion of the BIOS
which runs first and must be updated
separately. This code verifies if the rest
of the BIOS is intact (using hash
checksums or other methods) before
transferring control to it. If the boot block
detects any corruption in the main BIOS,
it will typically warn the user that a
recovery process must be initiated by
booting from removable media (floppy,
CD or USB flash drive) so the user can try
flashing the BIOS again. Some
motherboards have a backup BIOS
(sometimes referred to as DualBIOS
boards) to recover from BIOS
corruptions.

There are at least five known viruses that

attack the BIOS. Two of which were for
demonstration purposes. The first one
found in the wild was Mebromi, targeting
Chinese users.

The first BIOS virus was BIOS Meningitis,

which instead of erasing BIOS chips it
infected them. BIOS Meningitis has
relatively harmless, compared to a virus
like CIH.
The second BIOS virus was CIH, also
known as the "Chernobyl Virus", which
was able to erase flash ROM BIOS
content on compatible chipsets. CIH
appeared in mid-1998 and became active
in April 1999. Often, infected computers
could no longer boot, and people had to
remove the flash ROM IC from the
motherboard and reprogram it. CIH
targeted the then-widespread Intel
i430TX motherboard chipset and took
advantage of the fact that the Windows
9x operating systems, also widespread at
the time, allowed direct hardware access
to all programs.
Modern systems are not vulnerable to
CIH because of a variety of chipsets
being used which are incompatible with
the Intel i430TX chipset, and also other
flash ROM IC types. There is also extra
protection from accidental BIOS rewrites
in the form of boot blocks which are
protected from accidental overwrite or
dual and quad BIOS equipped systems
which may, in the event of a crash, use a
backup BIOS. Also, all modern operating
systems such as FreeBSD, Linux, macOS,
Windows NT-based Windows OS like
Windows 2000, Windows XP and newer,
do not allow user-mode programs to
have direct hardware access using a
hardware abstraction layer.[57]
As a result, as of 2008, CIH has become
essentially harmless, at worst causing
annoyance by infecting executable files
and triggering antivirus software. Other
BIOS viruses remain possible,
however;[58] since most Windows home
users without Windows Vista/7's UAC
run all applications with administrative
privileges, a modern CIH-like virus could
in principle still gain access to hardware
without first using an exploit. The
operating system OpenBSD prevents all
users from having this access and the
grsecurity patch for the Linux kernel also
prevents this direct hardware access by
default, the difference being an attacker
requiring a much more difficult kernel
level exploit or reboot of the machine.

The third BIOS virus was a technique

presented by John Heasman, principal
security consultant for UK-based Next-
Generation Security Software. In 2006, at
the Black Hat Security Conference, he
showed how to elevate privileges and
read physical memory, using malicious
procedures that replaced normal ACPI
functions stored in flash memory.[59]

The fourth BIOS virus was a technique

called "Persistent BIOS infection." It
appeared in 2009 at the CanSecWest
Security Conference in Vancouver, and at
the SyScan Security Conference in
Singapore. Researchers Anibal Sacco[60]
and Alfredo Ortega, from Core Security
Technologies, demonstrated how to
insert malicious code into the
decompression routines in the BIOS,
allowing for nearly full control of the PC
at start-up, even before the operating
system is booted. The proof-of-concept
does not exploit a flaw in the BIOS
implementation, but only involves the
normal BIOS flashing procedures. Thus, it
requires physical access to the machine,
or for the user to be root. Despite these
requirements, Ortega underlined the
profound implications of his and Sacco's
discovery: "We can patch a driver to drop
a fully working rootkit. We even have a
little code that can remove or disable
antivirus."[61]

Mebromi is a trojan which targets

computers with AwardBIOS, Microsoft
Windows, and antivirus software from
two Chinese companies: Rising Antivirus
and Jiangmin KV Antivirus.[62][63][64]
Mebromi installs a rootkit which infects
the Master boot record.

In a December 2013 interview with 60

Minutes, Deborah Plunkett, Information
Assurance Director for the US National
Security Agency claimed the NSA had
uncovered and thwarted a possible BIOS
attack by a foreign nation state, targeting
the US financial system.[65] The program
cited anonymous sources alleging it was
a Chinese plot.[65] However follow-up
articles in The Guardian,[66] The
Atlantic,[67] Wired[68] and The Register[69]
refuted the NSA's claims.

Newer Intel platforms have Intel Boot

Guard (IBG) technology enabled, this
technology will check the BIOS digital
signature at startup, and the IBG public
key is fused into the PCH. End users can't
disable this function.
Alternatives and successors
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
(UEFI) supplements the BIOS in many
new machines. Initially written for the
Intel Itanium architecture, UEFI is now
available for x86 and ARM architecture
platforms; the specification development
is driven by the Unified EFI Forum, an
industry Special Interest Group. EFI
booting has been supported in only
Microsoft Windows versions supporting
GPT,[70] the Linux kernel 2.6.1 and later,
and macOS on Intel-based Macs.[71] As
of 2014, new PC hardware predominantly
ships with UEFI firmware. The
architecture of the rootkit safeguard can
also prevent the system from running the
user's own software changes, which
makes UEFI controversial as a legacy
BIOS replacement in the open hardware
community. Also, Windows 11 requires
UEFI to boot.[72]

Other alternatives to the functionality of

the "Legacy BIOS" in the x86 world
include coreboot and libreboot.

Some servers and workstations use a

platform-independent Open Firmware
(IEEE-1275) based on the Forth
programming language; it is included
with Sun's SPARC computers, IBM's
RS/6000 line, and other PowerPC
systems such as the CHRP
motherboards, along with the x86-based
OLPC XO-1.

As of at least 2015, Apple has removed

legacy BIOS support from MacBook Pro
computers. As such the BIOS utility no
longer supports the legacy option, and
prints "Legacy mode not supported on
this system". In 2017, Intel announced
that it would remove legacy BIOS support
by 2020. Since 2019, new Intel platform
OEM PCs no longer support the legacy
option.

See also
Double boot
Extended System Configuration Data
(ESCD)
Input/Output Control System
Advanced Configuration and Power
Interface (ACPI)
Ralf Brown's Interrupt List (RBIL) –
interrupts, calls, interfaces, data
structures, memory and port
addresses, and processor opcodes for
the x86 architecture
System Management BIOS (SMBIOS)
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
(UEFI)
Notes
a. Although the term BIOS predates 1981,
the standard for IBM PC compatible
computers started with the release of the
original IBM Personal Computer.
b. The signature at offset +0x1FE in boot
sectors is 0x55 0xAA , that is 0x55
at offset +0x1FE and 0xAA at offset
+0x1FF . Since little-endian
representation must be assumed in the
context of IBM PC compatible machines,
this can be written as 16-bit word
0xAA55 in programs for x86
processors (note the swapped order),
whereas it would have to be written as
0x55AA in programs for other CPU
architectures using a big-endian
 representation. Since this has been mixed
up numerous times in books and even in
original Microsoft reference documents,
this article uses the offset-based byte-
wise on-disk representation to avoid any
possible misinterpretation.

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Further reading
IBM Personal Computer Technical
Reference (Revised ed.). IBM
Corporation. March 1983.
IBM Personal Computer AT Technical
Reference. IBM Personal Computer
Hardware Reference Library. Vol. 0, 1, 2
(Revised ed.). IBM Corporation. March
1986 [1984-03]. 1502494, 6139362,
6183310, 6183312, 6183355, 6280070,
6280099.
Phoenix Technologies, Ltd. (1989)
[1987]. System BIOS for IBM PC/XT/AT
Computers and Compatibles — The
Complete Guide to ROM-Based System
Software (https://archive.org/details/S
ystem_BIOS_for_IBM_PC_XT_AT_Com
puters_and_Compatibles) . Phoenix
Technical Reference Series (1st ed.).
Addison Wesley Publishing Company,
Inc. ISBN 0-201-51806-6.
Phoenix Technologies, Ltd. (1989)
[1987]. CBIOS for IBM PS/2 Computers
and Compatibles — The Complete Guide
to ROM-Based System Software for
DOS. Phoenix Technical Reference
Series (1st ed.). Addison Wesley
Publishing Company, Inc. ISBN 0-201-
51804-X.
Phoenix Technologies, Ltd. (1989)
[1987]. ABIOS for IBM PS/2 Computers
and Compatibles — The Complete Guide
to ROM-Based System Software for
OS/2. Phoenix Technical Reference
Series (1st ed.). Addison Wesley
Publishing Company, Inc. ISBN 0-201-
51805-8.
Phoenix Technologies, Ltd. (June
1991). System BIOS for IBM PCs,
Compatibles, and EISA Computers —
The Complete Guide to ROM-Based
System Software (https://archive.org/d
etails/isbn_9780201577600) . Phoenix
Technical Reference Series (2nd ed.).
Amsterdam: Addison Wesley
Publishing Company, Inc. ISBN 0-201-
57760-7.
BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu Uncovered,
1st edition (http://bioshacking.blogspo
t.com/2012/02/bios-disassembly-ninju
tsu-uncovered-1st.html) , a freely
available book in PDF format
 More Power To Firmware (http://osxbo
ok.com/book/bonus/chapter4/firmwar
e/) , free bonus chapter to the Mac
OS X Internals: A Systems Approach
book

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media
related to the BIOS.
Look up BIOS in Wiktionary, the free
dictionary.
"BIOS Boot Specification 1.01" (https://
web.archive.org/web/2011071508132
0/http://www.phoenix.com/resources/
specs-bbs101.pdf) (PDF).
Phoenix.com. 1996-01-11. Archived
from the original (http://www.phoenix.
com/resources/specs-bbs101.pdf)
(PDF) on 2011-07-15.

"How BIOS Works" (http://computer.ho

wstuffworks.com/bios.htm) . How
Stuff Works. 2000-09-06.
"Implementing a Plug and Play BIOS
Using Intel's Boot Block Flash Memory"
(https://web.archive.org/web/2007112
8165740/http://download.intel.com/de
sign/flcomp/support/applnots/292161
01.pdf) (PDF). Intel. February 1995.
Archived from the original (http://down
load.intel.com/design/flcomp/suppor
t/applnots/29216101.pdf) (PDF) on
2007-11-28. Retrieved 2007-11-28.
"List of BIOS options" (https://web.arch
ive.org/web/20140127174941/http://
www.techarp.com/freebog.aspx) .
techarp.com. Archived from the
original (http://www.techarp.com/free
bog.aspx) on 2014-01-27.
"Persistent BIOS Infection" (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20110430213042/h
ttp://www.phrack.com/archives/66/p6
6_0x07_Persistent%20BIOS%20infecti
on_by_aLS%20and%20Alfredo.txt) .
Phrack. No. 66. 2009-06-01. Archived
from the original (http://www.phrack.c
om/archives/66/p66_0x07_Persisten
t%20BIOS%20infection_by_aLS%20an
d%20Alfredo.txt) on 2011-04-30.
Retrieved 2011-04-30.
 "Preventing BIOS Failures Using Intel
Boot Block Flash Memory" (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20070329124418/h
ttp://download.intel.com/design/flcom
p/applnots/29219202.PDF) (PDF).
Intel. December 1998. Archived from
the original (http://download.intel.co
m/design/flcomp/applnots/29219202.
PDF) (PDF) on 2007-03-29. Retrieved
2007-03-29.

Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=BIOS&oldid=1165773019"

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