Copyright (c) 1996 Micro International. This information is for the benefit of Mint (Micro International) customers only. We are prepared to file suit against any organization that duplicates or refers non-Mint customers to this material without permission. To report such a violation, please call 1-800-967-5667.

#6200: The correct CMOS (SCU) settings.

CMOS settings are important - if they are changed, some features of your system may stop working until the CMOS settings are corrected. THEY HAVE ALREADY BEEN SET BY MICRO INTERNATIONAL PRIOR TO SHIPPING YOUR MACHINE. However, CMOS settings can be changed without your knowlege by a virus or system crash, so even if you have not changed them, it is a good idea to check them if you are having trouble.

PART A: GETTING IN TO THE CMOS SETUP (required).

  1. Locate the Cntl, Alt, and S keys on your keyboard. You will need to be ready to press them quickly.
  2. Turn on your machine.
  3. When the message "<CNTL-ALT-S to Enter ... " appears on your screen, hold down the Cntl and Alt keys and press the S key. (You have about 1 second to do this from the time the message appears).
  4. The SystemSoft Setup Configuration Utility screen should appear. If it does not, turn off the power immediately and go back to step 1.

There are two types of menu items in the SystemSoft SCU: option items (enabled or disabled) and configuration items (these pull up a configuration window for a certain device).

For the following steps, you will need to know that the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard move through the menus. The space bar enables or disables option items; a check mark beside the item means enabled, and a flat line means disabled. The Enter key opens up the blue configuration window for a configuration item. When you are in a blue configuration window, the Tab key moves you through the different configuration items in the window.

If your glidepoint is enabled, you may find it easier to use the glidepoint to move around the menus and windows of the SCU.

PART B: THE SYSTEM MENU

  1. Hold down Alt and press S for the System menu.
  2. Press Enter on the Date and Time item if you wish to change the date or time on your system clock.
  3. Fast boot should be normally be enabled for your convenience, unless you are concerned that your memory may be malfunctioning, in which case you should disable Fast Boot so that a full, extensive memory test will be performed every time your system is turned on.
  4. Unless you use a serial pointing device (such as a Microsoft(r) Serial Mouse) all the time and need to open up an extra interrupt, we recommend leaving Enable Pointing Device enabled.
  5. Press Enter on Boot Device if you want to choose whether the system will first try to boot from the A drive, C drive (hard disk), or a special PCMCIA bootable card. The normal setting is Diskette A, to boot from a floppy disk, so that you can use a boot disk to get to your files if you lose your hard disk boot configuration.
  6. Press Enter on Video Display if you want to choose which display(s) (internal or external or both) are active. The normal setting is LCD and CRT. If you choose Auto Sense, the system will try to sense the presence of an external monitor and use it exclusively if it senses it.
  7. The normal setting for Video Expansion Enabled is disabled (no checkmark). Enabling this will expand older 640 x 480 type graphics programs to fill the entire screen, but it also distorts them a bit in the process.
  8. Press Enter on System Security if you wish to give your notebook a password. If you give it a password and enable Enable Setup Password in the blue configuration window that pops up, no one will be able to use your notebook without the password. Note that this does NOT protect your sensitive data; if it is your data someone is after, they can simply remove your hard drive and use it in a different notebook.

PART C: The Devices Menu

  1. Press Enter on Diskette Drive to configure your floppy drive. The normal setting is 1.44MB. You can set it to None if you have removed your floppy drive and want to get rid of the floppy drive error message at startup.
  2. Press Enter on Hard Disk 1 to configure your primary hard disk. The normal settings in the blue configuration window are: Disk type set to Auto-ID, LBA Mode enabled, and Fast PIO Mode enabled.
  3. Press Enter on Hard Disk 2 to configure your secondary hard disk. This option is only applicable when using the as yet unreleased docking station. The normal settings are: Disk Type set to None, everything else disabled or set to 0.
  4. Press Enter on COM Ports to set up the serial ports. The normal settings are: COM A Settings: 3F8H, IRQ 4. COM B Settings: None. (If COM B Settings is set to none, the COM B definition will be grayed out). If you have a specific use for the Infared Port, you should enable it by setting COM B Settings to 2F8H, IRQ 3 and the COM B definition to IrDA. Be advised that this may cause a conflict with your modem, particularly when using non-self-configuring operating systems such as Windows for Workgroups or Windows NT.
  5. Press Enter on LPT Port to change settings for the printer port. The normal settings are: Port Setting set to 378H, IRQ Setting set to IRQ 7, and Port Definition set to SPP Mode. If you have a parallel port SCSI interface, or other high-speed parallel port interface of some type, you will probably want to set the Port Definition to EPP Mode for better performance if the device supports EPP.
  6. Press Enter on AUDIO Port to check the settings for the audio card. Changing these settings is highly discouraged! The normal settings are: Port Setting 220H, IRQ Setting IRQ 9, and DMA Setting DMA 1. The BIOS default for IRQ is 5, but changing this to 9 opens up a clear IRQ for PC Cards.
  7. Press Enter on MIDI port to change the setting for the MIDI port. The normal setting is 300H.
  8. The normal setting for WAVE Table Enabled is enabled (checkmarked). The wave table provides high quality sampled sounds (real pianos, guitars, drums, etc) for your sound card to use when playing back MIDI files, such as during a multimedia presentation. Otherwise, it uses synthesized sounds.
  9. The normal setting for Keyboard Numlock is enabled (checkmarked).
  10. Press Enter on Keyboard Repeat to change settings for the keyboard repeat rate and delay. These settings determine what happens when you hold down a key. The rate is how many repeats per second, and the delay is how long the system waits while you hold down the key before it starts repeating it. The normal settings are Key Repeat Rate 10 cps, and Key Delay 1/2 sec.

PART D: The Power Menu

  1. Press Enter on Power Management to change the power management settings. The normal settings are: Power Saving Mode Always On and Power Saving Level to Medium. If most of your work is text-type Word Processing, in which case you will want to set the Power Saving Level to High. Note: if you enable power saving in the CMOS setup, you must also enable power saving in your operating system. If you use Windows 95, see tech note #6201 or #6203 (Part A) for instructions on enabling power saving.
  2. The normal setting for Video Monitoring is Enabled. (checkmarked).
  3. Press Enter on Suspend Controls to set what happens when the battery runs low. The normal settings are: Battery Weak Flash Beeping and Suspend Mode Suspend to Memory. If you don't want any audible warning before you system shuts off due to a low battery condition, you could set the Battery Weak to Flash Only; you'll have to watch carefully to catch the flashing red "3-minutes until shutoff" light. If you'd rather have the notebook try to automatically save everything in the memory of your notebook to hard disk before shutting off when the battery runs low, you can set Battery Weak to Suspend System and Suspend Mode to Suspend to Disk. See tech note # 6202 for setting up Suspend to Disk! One final, thoughtful option: if you'd like to have your notebook stop everything and go black until you press a key when the battery runs dangerously low, set Battery Weak to Suspend System and Suspend Mode to Suspend to Memory. If you set this up in this manner, and you are in front of the notebook, you will see the screen go black when the battery is low, and know to press a key to get the screen back on and save your work using the last few minutes of battery power. This is particularly useful when in sensitive situations such as meetings or night-time plane travel. A fun, if somewhat dubiously useful, option is the ability to set the system to automatically "wake back up" at a particular time after being suspended.To use this, enable Set Resume Alarm and set the Resume Hour (using 0-24 "military time") and Resume Minute to the time you want it to wake up.

WHEN YOU'RE FINISHED: The Exit Menu

  1. Press Enter on Save and Reboot if you are satisfied with the changes you made and wish to make them permanent (you can change them again later!).
  2. Press Enter on Exit (No Save) if you think you messed up something, or didn't make any changes.
  3. Press Enter on Default Settings if you want to load the CMOS defaults. These are not all identical to the recommended settings above. You'll need to go through each menu after doing this and make sure the items match the "normal" settings in the above instructions.
  4. Press Enter on Restore Settings if you want to go back to the settings you had when you pressed Cntl-Alt-S to enter the CMOS setup.
  5. Press Version Info for a glimpse at the possibly surprising BIOS-authoring experience level of Systemsoft(r), the company that wrote this BIOS. Maybe you haven't heard of them, but they've been writing BIOS's (and other system software) for even longer than Micro International has been satisfying customers ... speaking of which ...

Technical support is available Monday-Friday 9am-6pm at 1-800-967-5667, excluding major holidays and local Houston-area disasters.

 

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