Pentium II BIOS

BIOS Chip The motherboard uses an Intel/Phoenix basic input/output system (BIOS) which is stored in Flash erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM) and can be easily upgraded using a disk-based program. In addition to the Intel/Phoenix BIOS, the Flash EEPROM also contains the BIOS Setup Utility, Power-On Self Tests (POST), Advanced Power Management (APM), update recovery code, the PCI auto-configuration utility and Windows 95 Plug and Play code. This motherboard supports system BIOS shadowing, allowing the BIOS to execute from 64-bit write-protected Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM).

A new version of the BIOS can be installed from a disk using the IFlash Update utility. The disk-based IFlash upgrade utility, IFLASH.EXE, has three options for BIOS upgrades:

  • The Flash BIOS can be updated from a file on a disk
  • The current BIOS code can be copied from the Flash EEPROM to a disk file as a backup in the event that an upgrade cannot be successfully completed
  • The BIOS in the Flash device can be compared with a file to ensure the computer has the correct version.

The upgrade utility ensures the upgrade BIOS extension matches the target system to prevent accidentally installing a BIOS for a different type of computer.
Different languages may be selected for the BIOS Setup Utility using the BIOS update utility.