BIOS plug'n'play v's XP's plug'n'play

[Monkey muppet]

My technical vocabulary is has quite a bit to be developed, so please bare with me whilst I try to explain the best I can.

In most, modern, BIOS's I see an option asking "Plug & Play OS: y/n". I've wondered would it be best to turn this on or off.

Some people say turn it on because it will free up the checks done during POST giving you a faster boot-time. Then let windows think about detecting all the necesssary pheripherals (sp?).

Some people state that BIOS is clever enough to detect quite a few things therfore taking the strain off an all ready 'bloated' peice of software that is XP.

Comments any-one please??

 

[foxkm]

as far as I know, using the "PNP OS" is irrevalent in XP cause xp uses its own kernel level PNP to detect devices, with very little interaction from the bios. That is actually there for backward compatibility for non PNP oses such as DOS. I would leave the switch on (to not let the bios detect IRQs and such during POST) as its just one less step for your PC to do during boot.

 

[Nothinman]

You save the OS no "strain" by turning on PnP OS in the BIOS. And AFAIK it's only for ISA PNP devices, all PCI devices are autoconfigured whether you like it or not, so it's doubtful that it's doing anything for you anyway.