The Power On Self Test

When the system is powered on, the BIOS will perform diagnostics and initialize system components, including the video system.
(This is self-evident when the screen first flicks before the Video Card header is displayed).
This is commonly referred as POST (Power-On Self Test).
Afterwards, the computer will proceed its final boot-up stage by calling the operating system.
Just before that, the user may interrupt to have access to SETUP.
To allow the user to alter the CMOS settings, the BIOS provides a little program, SETUP.
Usually, setup can be entered by pressing a special key combinatio…