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System Setup Options: Dell Precision WorkStation 420 Systems User's Guide
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System Setup Options: Dell Precision™ WorkStation 420 Systems
User's Guide
AC Power Recovery determines what happens when AC
power is restored to the system. When Off is selected, the system remains
off when AC power is restored. When On is selected, the system starts up
when AC power is restored. When Last (the default) is selected, the
system returns to the power state (on or off) that it was in when AC power was removed.
Asset Tag displays the
customer-programmable asset tag number for the system if an asset tag number is assigned. You can use the Asset Tag
utility, which is included with your software support utilities, to enter an asset tag
number up to ten characters long into nonvolatile random-access
memory (NVRAM).
Auto Power On allows you to set the time
and days of the week to turn on the computer system automatically. You can set Auto
Power On to turn on the system either every day or every Monday through Friday.
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NOTE: This feature does
not work if you turn off your system using a power strip or surge protector. |
Time is kept in a 24-hour format (hours:minutes).
To change the start-up time, press the right-arrow key to increase the number in the
highlighted field or press the left-arrow key to decrease the number. If you prefer, you
can type numbers in both fields.
The default for Auto Power On is Disabled.
Boot Sequence enables you to set the order of the devices
from which the system attempts to boot.
The term boot refers to the system's start-up procedure. When turned on, the
system "bootstraps" itself into an operational state by loading into memory a
small program, which in turn loads the necessary operating system. Boot Sequence
tells the system where to look for the files that it needs to load.
To set the boot device order, press <Enter> to access the
field's pop-up options menu. Press the up- and down-arrow keys to move through the list of
devices. Press the spacebar to enable or disable a device (enabled devices appear with a
check mark). Press plus (+) or minus (–) to move a selected device up or down the
list. The following subsections describe typical boot devices.
Diskette Drive
Selecting Diskette Drive as the first device causes the
system to try booting from the diskette drive first. If the system finds a diskette that
is not bootable in the drive or finds a problem with the drive itself, it displays an
error message. If it does not find a diskette in the drive, the system tries to boot from
the next device in the boot sequence list.
Hard-Disk Drive
Selecting Hard-Disk Drive causes the system to attempt to
boot first from the hard-disk drive and then from the next device in the boot sequence
list.
IDE CD-ROM Device
Selecting IDE CD-ROM Device causes the system to try booting
from an IDE CD-ROM drive first. If it does not find a CD in the drive, the system tries to
boot from the next device in the boot sequence list.
MBA
Selecting MBA causes the system to prompt you to
press <Ctrl><Alt><b> at the Dell™ logo screen during boot. A menu
then appears that allows you to select PXE, RPL, BootP,
or NetWare as the active boot mode. If a boot routine is not available
from the network server, the system tries to boot from the next device in the boot
sequence list.
AIC-7899 SCSI CD-ROM Drive
Selecting AIC-7899 SCSI CD-ROM Drive causes the
system to try booting from a SCSI CD-ROM drive first. If it does not find a CD in the
drive, the system tries to boot from the next device in the boot sequence list.
ATAPI ZIP Drive
Selecting ATAPI ZIP Drive causes
the system to try booting from the ZIP drive first. If it does not find a ZIP drive, the
system tries to boot from the next device in the boot sequence list.
CPU Information opens a window that allows you to
configure or view the following properties of the installed microprocessor(s):
CPU Speed allows you to configure the internal
clock speed of the installed microprocessor(s). Set this option to Normal
for the rated speed, or to Compatible for a slower compatibility speed.
Bus Speed displays the front-side bus external
speed of the installed microprocessor(s).
Processor 0 ID displays the processor serial number
of processor 0.
Clock Speed (under Processor 0 ID) displays the
rated internal speed of processor 0.
Cache Size (under Processor 0 ID) displays the
amount of level-2 (L2) cache for processor 0.
Processor 1 ID displays the processor serial number
of processor 1.
Clock Speed (under Processor 1 ID) displays the
rated internal speed of processor 1.
Cache Size (under Processor 1 ID) displays the
amount of L2 cache for processor 1.
Diskette Drive A and Diskette
Drive B identify the type of diskette drives installed in your computer. With the
standard cabling configuration, Diskette Drive A (the boot diskette
drive) is the 3.5-inch diskette drive installed in the top externally accessible drive
bay; Diskette Drive B is a second diskette drive installed in any of the
lower externally accessible drive bays.
The Diskette Drive A and Diskette
Drive B options have the following possible settings:
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NOTES: Tape drives are not
reflected in the Diskette Drive A and Diskette Drive B
options. For example, if you have a single diskette drive and a tape drive attached to the
diskette/tape drive interface cable, set Diskette Drive A to match the
characteristics of the diskette drive and set Diskette Drive B to Not
Installed. For LS-120 SuperDisk
drives installed in place of a 1.44-MB diskette drive, set these options to Not
Installed.
If your system has a 1.44-MB diskette drive as Diskette
Drive A and you install an LS-120 SuperDisk drive in one of the lower externally
accessible drive bays, the system automatically assigns drive letter B to
it. |
Integrated Devices configures the following devices
integrated with the system board:
Press <Enter> to configure these options as explained in the following
subsections.
Sound determines whether the integrated audio
controller is On or Off. The default is On.
Network Interface Controller determines whether the
integrated NIC is On, Off, or On w/ MBA.
The default is On. On w/ MBA means that the NIC
is enabled and set to boot the system remotely from a network server. If you select On
w/ MBA, you are prompted to press <Ctrl><Alt><b> at the Dell
logo screen during the boot routine. A menu then appears that allows you to select PXE,
RPL, BootP, or NetWare as the active
boot mode.
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NOTE: The link integrity and
activiy indicators on the NIC remain active as long as the system is plugged into an
electrical outlet. This remains true even if the system is turned off or if the Network
Interface Controller or Remote Wake Up options are disabled in
System Setup. |
Mouse Port enables or disables the
system's integrated Personal System/2 (PS/2)-compatible mouse port. Disabling the mouse
allows an expansion card to use interrupt request (IRQ)12.
Serial Port 1 and Serial Port 2
configure the system's integrated serial ports. You can set these options to Auto
(the default) to automatically configure a port, to a particular designation (COM1
or COM3 for Serial Port 1; COM2 or COM4
for Serial Port 2), or to Off to disable the
port.
If you set a serial port to Auto and add
an expansion card containing a port configured to the same designation, the system
automatically remaps the integrated port to the next available port designation that
shares the same IRQ setting as follows:
- COM1 (input/output [I/O] address 3F8h),
which shares IRQ4 with COM3, is remapped to COM3 (I/O
address 3E8h).
- COM2 (I/O address 2F8h), which shares IRQ3
with COM4, is remapped to COM4 (I/O address 2E8h).
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NOTE: When two COM ports
share an IRQ setting, you can use either port as necessary, but you may not be able to use
them both at the same time. If the second port (COM3 or COM4)
is also in use, the integrated port is turned off. |
Parallel Port configures the system's
integrated parallel port. Press <Enter> to configure Parallel
Port options as explained in the following subsections.
You can set this option to PS/2 (the
default) , EPP, ECP, AT, or Off
to disable the port.
Set this option according to the type of peripheral device
connected to the parallel port. To determine the correct mode to use, see the
documentation that came with the device.
This option determines the I/O address used by the parallel
port and appears except when Mode is set to Off. You can
set I/O Address to 378h (the default), 278h,
or 3BCh.
This option determines the direct memory access (DMA) channel used
by the parallel port and appears only when Mode is set to ECP.
The available options are DMA 1, DMA 3, and Off.
IDE Drive Interface enables or disables
the system's enhanced integrated drive electronics (EIDE) hard-disk drive interface.
With Auto (the default) selected, the
system turns off the EIDE interface when necessary to accommodate an EIDE controller card
installed in an expansion slot.
As part of the boot routine, the system first checks for a
primary hard-disk drive controller card installed in an expansion slot. If no card is
found, the system enables the EIDE interface to use IRQ14 and IRQ15.
If a primary controller is detected on the expansion bus,
the EIDE interface is disabled.
Selecting Off disables the integrated EIDE
interface.
Diskette Interface controls the operation
of the system's integrated diskette drive controller.
With Auto (the default) selected, the
system turns off the integrated diskette drive controller when necessary to accommodate a
controller card installed in an expansion slot.
With Read Only selected, nothing can be
written to any diskette drives and tape drives using the system's integrated diskette/tape
drive controller. (The system can still read from the drives.) When Read Only
is selected, Auto (whereby the system turns off the integrated diskette
drive controller as necessary) is also in effect.
Selecting Off turns off the integrated
diskette/tape drive controller; this setting is used primarily for troubleshooting
purposes.
USB Emulation determines whether the
system basic input/output system (BIOS) controls Universal Serial Bus (USB) keyboards and
mice. When On is selected, the system BIOS controls USB keyboards and
mice until a USB driver is loaded by the operating system. When Off is
selected (the default), the system BIOS does not control USB keyboards and mice, though
they are functional during the boot routine. Set USB Emulation to Off
if you are using a Personal System/2 (PS/2)-compatible keyboard and mouse. You cannot use
the USB ports with PS/2 peripherals.
PC Speaker determines whether the legacy
PC sound is On (the default) or Off. A change to this
option takes effect immediately (rebooting the system is not required).
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NOTE: This option enables or
disables only the legacy PC sound. It does not turn the internal monophonic speaker on or
off. Basic input/output system (BIOS) beep codes are always audible regardless of this
option's setting. |
Video DAC Snoop lets you correct video
problems that may occur with the use of some video expansion cards. The default is Off.
If you are using a video expansion card and problems such as incorrect colors or blank
windows occur, set Video DAC Snoop to On.
SCSI Controllers turns the integrated SCSI
channels On or Off (the default).
Keyboard NumLock determines whether your system boots with the Num
Lock mode activated on 101- or 102-key keyboards (it
does not apply to 84-key keyboards).
When Num Lock mode is activated, the rightmost bank of keys on your keyboard
provides the mathematical and numeric functions shown at the tops of the keys. When Num Lock mode is turned off, these keys
provide cursor-control functions according to the label on the bottom of each key.
PCI IRQ Assignment specifies which IRQ
lines are assigned to the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) devices installed in the
computer. Press <Enter> to configure
these devices. Then select the device whose IRQ line you want to change, and press the
plus (+) or minus (–) key to scroll through the available IRQ lines. Normally you do
not need to change the IRQ lines assigned to PCI devices unless a particular device,
device driver, or operating system requires a specific IRQ line already in use by a PCI
device.
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NOTE: Manually assigning a
particular IRQ line to a device may cause a conflict with another device trying to use the
same IRQ line, which can cause one of the devices or the system to become unstable or
inoperable. |
Primary Drive n identifies drives
attached to the primary EIDE interface connector (labeled "IDE1") on the system
board; Secondary Drive n identifies drives connected to the
secondary EIDE interface connector (labeled "IDE2"). Use the secondary EIDE
interface connector for EIDE CD-ROM and EIDE tape drives.
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NOTE: For all devices obtained
from Dell that use the integrated EIDE controller, set the appropriate Drive
option to Auto. |
The following settings identify the type of EIDE devices
installed in the computer:
- Auto (use this setting for all EIDE devices
from Dell)
- A specific drive-type number
To choose a setting for each option, press <Enter> to
access the field's pop-up settings menu. Then type characters from the keyboard or press
the left- or right-arrow key to cycle through the settings.
A drive-type number specifies the parameters of a
hard-disk drive, based on a table recorded in the system's BIOS.
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NOTE: Operating systems
that bypass the system BIOS may not obtain optimum hard-disk drive performance. |
If the system generates a drive error message the first
time you boot your system after you install an EIDE drive, it may mean that a third-party
drive (a drive not purchased from Dell) does not work with the automatic drive-type detect
feature. If you suspect that your problem is related to drive type, try entering your
drive-type information in one of the following ways:
Use the drive-type number you found in
the documentation that came with the drive, or if the drive was installed by Dell when you
purchased your system, access the Manufacturing Test Report from the Dell
Accessories folder.
To set the drive-type number in System Setup, highlight the
appropriate drive option (Primary Drive 0 or Primary Drive 1)
and type the correct drive-type number. If you prefer, you can press the right- or
left-arrow key to increase or decrease, respectively, the drive-type number until the
correct one is displayed.
The Drive 0 and Drive 1
options display the following parameters for each drive:
- Drive Type is the drive-type number for the
selected hard-disk drive.
- Capacity (automatically calculated by the
system) indicates the number of millions of bytes of storage provided by the drive.
- Cylinders is the number of logical
cylinders.
- Heads indicates the number of logical heads
in the drive.
- Sectors is the number of
logical sectors per track.
If none of the supported drive types match the parameters
of your new drive, you can enter your own parameters. To do so, highlight the Drive
0 option and type u to display User 1. You can then press the right- or left-arrow
key to switch between the User 1 and User 2 settings
(only two user-defined drive types are allowed). Then press <Tab> to highlight each
of the parameter fields in succession, and enter the appropriate number for each field.
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NOTE: You can use the User
1 and User 2 drive types for both the Primary
and Secondary Drive 0 and Drive 1 options. However, if
you select the User 1 or User 2 drive type, you may not
obtain optimum hard-disk drive performance. Also, you cannot use the User 1
and User 2 drive types for hard-disk drives with a storage capacity that
is greater than 528 megabytes (MB). |
Primary Video Controller determines whether the
system looks for a video card in a PCI slot during the boot routine. When Auto
is selected, the system uses any PCI video card it finds during the boot routine. If no
PCI video card is found, the system uses the video card in the Accelerated Graphics Port
(AGP) slot. When AGP is selected, the system uses the video card in the
AGP slot as the primary video controller. If you have both a PCI and an AGP card, setting
this option to Auto designates the PCI card as primary video; setting it
to AGP designates the AGP card as primary video.
Remote Wake Up enables you to turn the
Wakeup On LAN feature On or Off. You must reboot your
system before a change takes effect.
Report Keyboard Errors enables or disables
reporting of keyboard errors during the power-on self-test (POST), which is a series of
tests that the system performs on the hardware each time you turn on the system or press
the reset button.
This option is useful when applied to self-starting servers
or host systems that have no permanently attached keyboard. In these situations, selecting
Do Not Report suppresses all error messages relating to the keyboard or
to the keyboard controller during POST. This setting does not affect the operation of the
keyboard itself if a keyboard is attached to the computer.
Second Processor enables or disables a
second microprocessor for troubleshooting purposes. If the system is having
microprocessor-related problems, you can disable the second microprocessor to see if the
problem is isolated to this microprocessor. This option appears only if the system has two
microprocessors.
The following information about the system is displayed in
the system data area of the System Setup screen:
- The microprocessor type and BIOS level.
- The size of the integrated level 2 (L2) cache.
- The system's five-character service tag number, which was
programmed into NVRAM by Dell during the manufacturing process. Refer to this number
during technical assistance or service calls. The service tag number is also accessed by
certain Dell support software, including the diagnostics software.
System Date enables the date on the
computer's internal calendar to be reset.
Your system automatically displays the day of the week
corresponding to the settings in the month, day-of-month,
and year fields.
To change the date, press the left- or right-arrow key to
select a field, and then press plus (+) or minus (–) to increase or decrease the
number. If you prefer, you can type numbers in the month, day-of-month,
and year fields.
System Memory indicates the entire amount
of installed memory detected in your system. After you add memory, check this option to
confirm that the new memory is installed correctly and is recognized by the system. Select
this option and press <Enter> to view the capacity and configuration of the memory
in each RIMM slot.
System Security configures the following password and chassis
intrusion options:
Press <Enter> to configure these options as explained in the following
subsections.
System Password displays the current
status of your system's password security feature and allows you to assign and verify a
new password. No one can assign a new password unless the current status is Not
Enabled, which is displayed in bright characters.
The System Password option has the
following settings:
- Not Enabled (the default)
When Setup Password is set to Enabled,
Password Status allows you to prevent the system password from being
changed or disabled at system start-up.
To lock the system password, you must first assign a setup
password in Setup Password and then change the Password Status
option to Locked. When Setup Password has a password
assigned and Password Status is set to Locked, the
system password cannot be changed through the System Password option and
cannot be disabled at system start-up by pressing <Ctrl><Enter>.
To unlock the system password, you must enter the setup
password in Setup Password and then change the Password Status
option to Unlocked. When the option is set to Unlocked,
you can disable the system password at system start-up by pressing
<Ctrl><Enter>. Then change the password through the System Password
option.
Setup Password lets you restrict access to
System Setup in the same way that you restrict access to your system with the system
password feature. The settings are:
- Not Enabled (the default)
Chassis Intrusion displays the status of the system chassis
intrusion monitor and can be set to Enabled, Enabled-Silent, or Disabled.
The default is Enabled.
If the computer cover is removed while the intrusion monitor is set
to Enabled, a Desktop Management Interface (DMI) event is generated, the setting
changes to Detected, and the following message appears during the boot routine at
the next system start-up:
Alert! Cover was previously removed.
If the computer cover is removed while the intrusion monitor is set
to Enabled-Silent, a DMI event is generated and the setting changes to Detected,
but the alert message does not appear during the boot sequence at the next system
start-up.
If the intrusion monitor is set to Disabled, no intrusion
monitoring occurs and no messages appear.
To reset the Detected setting, enter System Setup during the
system's POST. In the Chassis Intrusion option, press the left- or right-arrow key
to select Reset, and then choose Enabled, Enabled-Silent,
or Disabled.
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NOTE: When the setup password is
enabled, you must know the setup password before you can reset the Chassis Intrusion
option. |
CPU Serial Number determines whether the microprocessor serial
number(s) (if any) is provided to programs that request it. When Enabled
is selected, the system provides the microprocessor serial number(s) to programs that
request it. When Disabled is selected, the system never provides the
microprocessor serial number(s). The default is Disabled.
System Time enables the time on the
computer's internal clock to be reset.
Time is kept in a 24-hour format (hours:minutes:seconds).
To change the time, press the left- or right-arrow key to select a field, and then press
plus (+) or minus (–) to increase or decrease the number. If you prefer, you can type
numbers in each of the fields.
ZIP Floppy Support enables or disables the
support of Advanced Technology Attachment Packet Interface (ATAPI) ZIP devices by the
system BIOS. When Enabled is selected, ATAPI ZIP devices are supported as
diskette drives and the first ZIP device is listed as a bootable device under Boot Sequence. When Disabled
is selected, the system BIOS ignores ATAPI ZIP devices, though the operating system may
still support them.
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