What are these BIOS settings????

[RobUK]

I have the following settings in my BIOS under Power Management:-

**EXTERNAL SWITCHES**

Dock i/o SMI Disabled
AC Power SMI Disabled
Thermal SMI Disabled

Can anyone tell me what they are for?? They all have the same options enabled and disabled.

Thanx - RobUK

[RobUK]

I should have said that the mobo bios in question belongs to a Jetway 542c with Award bios and Aladdin v5 chipset. I have had a look at my manual but it says nothing about what they do or what they are. Can anyone tell me what these are for???

Thanx RobUK

[Bovon]

From Wimbios site, http://www.wimsbios.com/

I suspect that 'SMI' refers to STANDBY and/or SUSPEND MODE.

Does your mainboard manual give any clues or definitions for SMI?

Most everybody turns Power Management off if possible. If not, then 'User Define' is used, and disable most, if not all options.

Here is what the site offers for Power Management. You may like to go to the site, and email the webmanager and ask the specific question concerning exactly what SMI is and does...be sure to repost here anything you may find out.


Last update: 06/03/2001 17:50:04Power Management:

Disabled: Global Power Management will be disabled.
User Define: Users can define their own power management
Min Saving: Pre-defined timer values are used such that all timers are in their MAX value
Max Saving: Pre-defined timer values are used such that all timers are in their MIN value

PM Control by APM:

No: System BIOS will ignore APM when power managing the system.
Yes: System BIOS will wait for APM's prompt before it enter any PM mode e.g. DOZE, STANDBY or SUSPEND.
Note: If APM is installed & there is a task running, even the timer is time out, the APM will not prompt the BIOS to put the system into any power saving mode!
Note: If APM is not installed, this option has no effect

Video Off option:

Always on: System BIOS will never turn off the screen.
Suspend => Off: Screen off when system is in SUSPEND mode.
Susp, Stby => Off: Screen off when system is in STANDBY or SUSPEND mode.
All modes => Off: Screen off when system is in DOZE, STANDBY or SUSPEND mode.

Video Off Method:

Blank Screen: The system BIOS will only blank off the screen when disabling video.
V/H SYNC + Blank: In addition to Blank screen, BIOS will also turn off the V-SYNC & H-SYNC signals from VGA cards to monitor.
DPMS: Select this option if your monitor supports the Display Power Management Signaling (DPMS) standard of the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). Use the software supplied for your video subsystem to select video power management values.
Note: Green monitors detect the V/H SYNC signals to turn off it's electron gun.

It is important to realize that the CRT consumes the most power (several hundred watts) of any system. To really save energy, we must shut it down when not in use. Green monitors (also known as Energy Star monitors) assist us by reducing power usage by 90% without actually turing off the CRT. Enable this as follows:
>>>To make a green monitor function properly you MUST use Video Off Method = V/H Sync, because this tell the Green Monitor to shut down. If you incorrectly use the "Blank Screen" setting then you will just get a blank screen which still consumes 100% power.
>>>If you have a screensaver running, then you obviously won't have CPU inactivity, and the standard BIOS options will not shut the CRT down ever. So, turn OFF your screensaver in the WINDOWS (not BIOS) control panel. Yes your old monochrome CRT needed a screensaver, but your VGA tube does not. In fact, an idle green CRT is even better than a screensaver. Think how many kilowatt-hours, nay megawatt-hours, we could save if we all enabled these options at home and in the office

Modem Use IRQ:

Name the interrupt request (IRQ) line assigned to the modem (if any) on your system. Activity of the selected IRQ always awakens the system.

Suspend Switch:

This setting is used for enabling or disabling the hardware suspend switch on the motherboard. Many MBs have those two pins, in most cases near other connetion pins ( pins for turbo sw, turbo led, reset sw, power led, etc.).
(Thanks to Klemen Kovacic for giving me this info)

HDD Off after / HDD Power down:

Disabled: HDD's motor will not be off.
1Min ~ 15Min: Defines the continuous HDD idle time before the HDD entering power saving mode (motor off).
When Suspend: BIOS will turn the HDD's motor off when system is in SUSPEND mode.
Note: When HDD is in power saving mode, any access to the HDD will wake the HDD up.

Doze Mode:

Disabled: The system will never enter Doze mode.
1Min ~ 1Hr: Defines the continuous idle time before the system entering Doze mode. If any item defined in "Wake Up Events In Doze & Standby" / "PM Events" is ON and activated, the system will be waken up.
After the selected period of system inactivity (1 minute to 1 hour), the CPU clock runs at slower speed while all other devices still operate at full speed.

Standby Mode:

Disabled: The system will never enter Standby mode.
1Min ~ 1Hr: Defines the continuous idle time before the system entering Standby mode. If any item defined in "Wake Up Events In Doze & Standby" / "PM Events" is ON and activated, the system will be waken up.
After the selected period of system inactivity (1 minute to 1 hour), the fixed disk drive and the video shut off while all other devices still operate at full speed.

Suspend Mode:

Disabled: The system will never enter Suspend mode.
1Min ~ 1Hr: Defines the continuous idle time before the system entering Suspend mode. If any item defined in "Wake Up Events In Suspend" / "PM Events" is ON and activated, the system will be waken up.
After the selected period of system inactivity (1 minute to 1 hour), all devices except the CPU shut off.

PM Events / Wake up events in Doze, Standby and Suspend Mode:

Disabled: The specified event's activity will not affect the PM Timers/wake up the system.
Enabled: The specified event's activity will affect the PM Timers/wake up the system.
For example, if you have a modem on IRQ3, you can turn On IRQ3 as a wake-up event, so an interrupt from the modem can wake up the system. Or you may wish to turn Off IRQ12 (the PS/2) mouse as a wake-up event, so accidentally brushing the mouse does not awaken the system.
The default wake-up event is keyboard activity.