BIOS & Plug-and-play OS...

[Evenkeel]

I'm running WinXP Pro SP2 on Intel 925XCV. Currently BIOS is set to "No" on "Plug-and-play OS". I've been having some hard-to-isolate issues--should I change this BIOS setting to "Yes"?

Can you tell me the pros and cons of each setting?

I know these are newbie questions--I am a newbie. This is my first build (completed end of this Jan.), so I know I'm going to get lots of good experience trying to squash out the last couple problems. Thanks.

P.S. Sorry about the cross-post to Motherboards--wasn't sure which forum was the best place to get a response...

 

[drag]

It's not much of a difference...

With newer computers and operating systems many that the roles that the BIOS had to play in the past are now handled in a more intellegent manner in the OS itself.

Generally you want to enable that "P-N-P OS" option if your using a windows 9x style OS (95, 98, ME), and disable it if your using anything else (win2k, winXP, Linux, etc).

however it won't hurt to try. Also try to disable any unused stuff. Like any 'COM' ports or audio ports if you don't use onboard audio or whatnot. Usually it's not nessicary, and Intel generally does a pretty good job.

When I hear the term 'hard-to-issolate issues' I think of 'Bad Ram'... If you haven't ruled that out then check out http://www.memtest86.com/ Put it on a floppy or burn their ISO image to a cd (burn it as a ISO image, usually a special option. Don't just copy the ISO to the cd).

Let that run for a few hours, or overnight (the longer it runs the more reliable the results). If it detects any problems it will tell you. Just a tip.. it may or may not be the issue, but it's now the first thing I look for. Especially with weird hardware lock-ups or apps and/or the OS crashing, or not being able to install windows successfully...

 

[Evenkeel]

Originally posted by: drag
It's not much of a difference...

With newer computers and operating systems many that the roles that the BIOS had to play in the past are now handled in a more intellegent manner in the OS itself.

Generally you want to enable that "P-N-P OS" option if your using a windows 9x style OS (95, 98, ME), and disable it if your using anything else (win2k, winXP, Linux, etc).

however it won't hurt to try. Also try to disable any unused stuff. Like any 'COM' ports or audio ports if you don't use onboard audio or whatnot. Usually it's not nessicary, and Intel generally does a pretty good job.

When I hear the term 'hard-to-issolate issues' I think of 'Bad Ram'... If you haven't ruled that out then check out http://www.memtest86.com/ Put it on a floppy or burn their ISO image to a cd (burn it as a ISO image, usually a special option. Don't just copy the ISO to the cd).

Let that run for a few hours, or overnight (the longer it runs the more reliable the results). If it detects any problems it will tell you. Just a tip.. it may or may not be the issue, but it's now the first thing I look for. Especially with weird hardware lock-ups or apps and/or the OS crashing, or not being able to install windows successfully...

I did run MEMTEST86+. I let it run for 3 passes w/no errors. I know the website says you can let it run for hours or days, and as soon as I get a chance I'll do that.

It's funny you say to enable P-n-P in BIOS for Win 9x OS's, but disable for XP--I would have thought it just the opposite (so it's a good thing I asked!). The reason I thought the opposite, is that I thought XP did a much better job w/the P-n-P aspects than the old 9x OS's; i.e. 9x needed all the help it could get from the BIOS. Guess I was wrong about that one.

About the only thing I can disable in my BIOS is my parallel port, since my printers are either network or USB. Tho there are other settings that I have not yet had the chance to figure out what exactly they do, and have not found in the manual. (I need to make a list of whatever I can't find, and come back here to ask.)

Thanks for your advice.

 

[Nothinman]

I'm running WinXP Pro SP2 on Intel 925XCV. Currently BIOS is set to "No" on "Plug-and-play OS". I've been having some hard-to-isolate issues--should I change this BIOS setting to "Yes"?

Generally all it does is determine if the BIOS trys to set up ISA PNP devices, if PNP OS is set to yes it leaves them alone assuming the OS will setup the resources, if set to No the BIOS will do some basic setup to try and get the hardware usable by an OS that can't do the setup itself like DOS. If you're using a semi-recent OS the setting won't have much affect as they can always move the resources around if necessary even if the BIOS sets them up.