Every so often my computer locks up going into a blue screen- it recommends turning off BIOS options like caching or shadowing. How exactly would I go about doing that? I’ve looked through control panel stuff and didn’t see it anywhere. And no, Linux or reformatting isn’t an option.
You get to the BIOS config by pressing del or some other button (depending on your motherboard) when you turn the computer on. Look for a message that goes “press del to enter setup”.
I think you can also call your MS-DOS console and type setup, the hit Enter.
Have fun browsing your BIOS config options.
Lucky for you, BIOS setup is a hardware configuration thing, which has nothing to do with your hard drive partitions or OS. So installing Linux wouldn’t help anyway. 
To get to your BIOS setup, you need to reboot your machine (ctrl-alt-delete sometimes doesn’t work, so do a power cycle to be sure). Watch the messages that come up. There should be something about pressing a certain key to enter BIOS setup. If there are no messages, just press keys like F1, F10, or delete as the computer is starting up. Something should pop up.
Once you’re in BIOS, it’s just a matter of navigating to the right menu and turning the appropriate options on or off. Don’t forget to save your changes too!
EDIT: Here are some good resources for learning about what those settings do. Maybe this will help you decide which options you want to change.
Cache settings: <a href=“http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/bios/set/advInternal-c.html”>here</a> and <a href=“http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/bios/set/advExternal-c.html”>here</a>.
Shadowing: <a href=“http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/bios/set/advVideo-c.html”>here</a> and <a href=“http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/bios/set/advSystem-c.html”>here</a> and <a href=“http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/bios/set/advC8000-c.html”>here</a>.
Alright, thanks guys =D
BIOS troubles? Buy a new motherboard! =P
Originally posted by Green Mage
BIOS troubles? Buy a new motherboard! =P
I know buying new hardware to substitute malfunctioning one sucks but I have to agree with GM.
Originally posted by Kagon
Every so often my computer locks up going into a blue screen- it recommends turning off BIOS options like caching or shadowing. How exactly would I go about doing that? I’ve looked through control panel stuff and didn’t see it anywhere. And no, Linux or reformatting isn’t an option.
Ah the blue screen of death
yes it involves the motherboard, you could go get a new one,
you can also try to configure setup through restarting ure comp and pressing del or F10 or whatever ( watch for this as it is unique for each comp) normally you will press it when the computer is in its first screen that tells the maker of the computer, eg. dell compaq gateway, etc
THOUGH
messing with bios is a serious thing
you could seriously screw your comp up.
also
you may have to tear it apart as there are sometimes switches on the M-board that also affect Bios.
try all of this
but remember
messing with bios is a serious thing!!
Originally posted by Kagon
Every so often my computer locks up going into a blue screen- it recommends turning off BIOS options like caching or shadowing. How exactly would I go about doing that? I’ve looked through control panel stuff and didn’t see it anywhere. And no, Linux or reformatting isn’t an option.
Tell me, along with the blue screens will it appear strange errors messages along with memory dumps? Or do you only get those BIOS messages?
It does say that there’s a memory dump, and it does list some rather strange error messages. If it happens again, I’ll write down what all it says and such.
Originally posted by Green Mage
BIOS troubles? Buy a new motherboard! =P
I bought a new motherboard once, and discovered that the bios on that entire production batch was faulty. It’s a good thing that the bios can be flashed to another version.
Anyway. As long as it is a hardware error, it’s just to trace yourself back to the day when things started being fubared, and see if you can recall if you did anything that day. Hardware, unlike software, very rarely screws itself up.
Don’t these kind of things come with a warranty?
Originally posted by Kagon
It does say that there’s a memory dump, and it does list some rather strange error messages. If it happens again, I’ll write down what all it says and such.
well, if turing off BIOS’s shadowing and caching obtions does not work, I think one of your ram memories is probably “trashed”, when those “memory dump” messages start appearing it’s usually that, my advice would be to take one of the ram out and use the PC, if you stop getting those messages it probably means you got the right one, replace it, if you don’t stop getting those error messages put that one back in an take another one out and do the same with all ram memories until you stop getting those messages…
Alright, I’ll see if it crashes again after working with BIOS before I start taking out RAM and such. Thanks again guys.