3.8.4 BIOS & UEFI Settings

Learn to configure BIOS settings using the system firmware configuration utility.

Find the Config Utility

Check the system documentation to know what key to press during the boot screen to access the firmware config program.

Review System Hardware Info

Settings > General > System Information Contains information regarding the connected hardware.

• Memory Available
• Memory Module Speed
• Memory Technology (aka DDR version)
• Processor Info
  • Name
  • Cores
  • Clock Speed

Set Date/Time

Settings > General > Date/Time Only go here if the imperfect CMOS battery drifts too much and you need to reset the system date/time.

Toggle Onboard Devices

Settings > System Configuration You'll find options for devices connected to the motherboard like the integrated NIC or Serial-Port. You can also:

• configure how the SATA interface operates
• toggle audio
• configure USB
• toggle and configurate the serial port (which is usually disabled)

Configure SMART Reporting

Settings > General > System Configuration > SMART Reporting Self Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology Used to monitor the overall health of the storage devices connected in the system, since they wear out over time. SMART keeps track of worn out areas and reserves others for use. Once the hard drives have no more usable areas, you'll start to get SMART errors, but you need to have the option enabled in order to get them. If you don't, you might lose data on a failing hard drive when you could've moved it onto a new one.

Using your device's SMART utility, you can run the following tests

• a drive self-test (short)
• a read time test
• a confidence test

USB Configuration

Settings > General > System Configuration > USB Configuration Define how the USB ports on the I/O shield on the back of the motherboard operate. You can enable Boot Support, to allow the OS to load systems that are saved on USB flash drives, but that isn't good security wise. Paranoid IT technicians disable USB ports completely by deselecting the Enable External USB Port option.

Audio

Settings > General > System Configuration > Audio Define the default audio interface for the system to use, or disable audio completely. I don't know, your call.

Secure Boot

Settings > Secure Boot A feature found on newer systems that prevents the firmware from loading an OS off of a hard drive unless it has a valid security certificate for that OS.

Normally, you'd want to keep Secure Boot on, but to install other OS's (e.g. Linux), they might not have a valid security certificate since they're not completely UEFI compliant, so then you'd want to disable secure boot.

Secure boot is designed to prevent rootkit attacks, which are malware attacks that insert itself into the boot loader of an OS, making it so that the malware gets loaded first before any other security software (like an antivirus) gets loaded and can intercept the malicious program.

Configure POST Behavior

Settings > POST Behavior Some random obscure settings. One of those settings is called Extend BIOS POST Time, which means that the system doesn't give you time to press the keystroke to access the BIOS config utility. It's usually defaulted to 0.

Virtualization Support

Settings > Virtualization Support Manages the system's ability to run Virtual Machines. Useful for developing apps, training, and other things. Can be used to run multiple instances of different OS's at the same time on the same CPU.

Chassis Intrusion Detection

Settings > Security > Chassis Intrusion Enables a tripwire that goes off every time the system case get's opened, and logs that event.

Save & Exit

Make sure you do that when rebooting or else you don't get your applied changes. That's it.

#III

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