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Intel Announces a BIOS Implementation Test Suite
Josh Triplett writes "Intel announced the release of a BIOS Implementation Test Suite (BITS), a bootable pre-OS environment based on GNU GRUB2 that tests how well (or how badly) your BIOS has configured your platform hardware. BITS also includes Intel's official power management reference code, so you can override your BIOS's initialization with a known-good configuration. 'In addition to those changes to GRUB2 itself, BITS includes configuration files which build a menu exposing the various BITS functionality, including the test suites, hardware configuration, and exploratory tools. These scripts detect your system's CPU, and provide menu entries for all the available functionality on your hardware platform. You can also access all of the new commands we've added directly via the command line.'"
I wonder if Intel released this due to the embarrassing and expensive Sandy Bridge chipset recall?
http://saveie6.com/
I don't often praise Intel (as their business practices seem overly shady on occasion) but I can definitely see this as being of use. Nice one guys.
Now to try and integrate it into my pxe environment...
a bootable pre-OS environment based on GNU GRUB2 that tests how well (or how badly) your BIOS has configured your platform hardware.
!!INTEL BIOS WARNING!!
We have just detect that you've configured your CPU in egg frying mode. Reverting to pansy mode. If you want a fast processor in pansy mode, please contact your nearest Intel dealer and open your wallet.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Can we finally go to EFI or at least something that's not 20 years old now?
That's not gonna work. One doesn't need info on how bad BIOS did its job. More accurate info is how to configure BIOS properly, which is not a subject of this program :)
Anybody knows if this can be used to enable VT-x on a cpu that the BIOS has disabled it on?
I have HP machine with a Intel Core2 Duo E4400 and the BIOS does not have a switch to enable it for some reason.
Looks like it allows you to skip the BIOS and load a Linux kernel directly. Sort of like coreboot.
My UID is prime. Hah!
tanks your info.
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BIOS does actually very little these days. The OS re-initializes most devices anyway on boot, using BIOS values only for reference. From first look, this release kind of makes BIOS obsolete. If it knows how to fix BIOS misconfiguration, then it can also configure it in the first place. The rest can be taken care by the OS.
we (US), appear to have lost whatever made us seem human (strong spine, integrity etc...) to the rest of the wwworld. as for the disposition of the many millions of displaced/damaged/still alive babies & their parents at the hands of one of our hired goons.....? we used to care?
Sounds like BITS rootkit on the way.
Yeah, that's just what I want. GRUB imbedded into my bios so I can get grub grub grub grub grub grub grub error before my bootloader.
the Year of HURD Desktop is near?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_2/Intel-Core%202%20Duo%20E4400%20HH80557PG0412M%20(BX80557E4400).html
EM64T, SSE 1, 2 & 3, but no VT.
Seems like you're SOL...
This sig left unintentionally blank.
As it's Grub-compatible, I hope it's going to be easy to add to a multi-boot usb toolkit. Along the lines of: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-multiple-iso-from-usb-multiboot-usb/
we (US), appear to have lost whatever made us seem human (strong spine, integrity etc...) to the rest of the wwworld. as for the disposition of the many millions of displaced/damaged/still alive babies & their parents at the hands of one of our hired goons.....? we used to care?
Speak for yourself, you weak willed, lilly-livered bitch. I hate foreigners, and babies, especially crying ones that are hungry and missing their terrorist mommies and daddies because they blew themselves up or got themselves shot dead or locked up for life for trying to bring "death to America".
I say get some hired goons to put a bullet through every single one of those whining babies in the name of national security before it grows up, starts worshipping some fucked up religion and then comes back to blow up America for freeing them from some nutjob that would have normally tortured them to death before their 20th birthday for being from the wrong tribe.
Soldier hating pussies like you make me sick.
**** GOD BLESS AMERICA ****
--GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS--
You know, if you translate your brainless hate speech into German, it kinda sounds like Hitler. (Imagine short angry guy with mustache screaming the following)
Sprich für dich, du schwach gewollt, lilly-livered Hündin. Ich hasse Ausländer und Kinder, insbesondere diejenigen, die weinen, sind hungrig und fehlende ihre terroristischen Mütter und Väter, weil sie selbst die Luft gesprengt oder habe sich erschossen oder dich für das Leben für den Versuch zu bringen "Tod Amerika" gesperrt.
Ich sage bekommen einige Schläger angeheuert, um eine Kugel durch jeden einzelnen dieser weinerliche Babys im Namen der nationalen Sicherheit bringen, bevor es aufwächst, beginnt verehren einige bis Religion gefickt und dann kommt wieder die Luft zu sprengen Amerika befreit sie von einigen Nutjob dass hätte normalerweise gefoltert sie ihren Tod vor 20. Geburtstag für sein von der falschen Stamm.
Soldier hassen Muschis wie du machst mich krank.
**** God Bless America ****
- Gott segne Unsere Truppen -
You are still innocent until proven guilty. What's changed is what they do to innocent people. - notnAP, #26891325
But I thought BITS stood for Background Intelligent Transfer Service. (the transport mechanism windows uses for windows updates among other things).
That gripe aside this could be useful.
Microsoft already snatched the "BITS" acronym to refer to the "background intelligent transfer service" used by Windows Update and other services. Hopefully there won't be any unnecessary confusion or ambiguity.
if ($question !~ m/bb|[^b]{2}/i) { die(); }
A lot of industrial equiment uses DOS because it allows bit banging on hardware without going through several layers of driver abstractions that add unpredictable latency. In these cases, DOS can't necessarily be virtualized without changing the latency that the peripherals see.
Then why does it take so frigging long to load?
BIOS does very little, but one of the things it does is a basic test of all the memory in a machine. That takes a while to work. Besides, if it were much faster, your hard disk wouldn't have a chance to spin up.
but your statement vastly over-trivializes the role of the BIOS in modern machines.
Hey, he doesn't understand it so he assigns it minimal value. There's a Dilbert where the PHB assigns Dilbert 3 minutes to design a world-wide client server architecture.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
This may sound ignorant, but what exactly what type of re-training does
RAM need with every boot?
Sounds a bit odd to have to retrain memory at all, let alone with each boot....
DDR2, DDR3, and GDDR5 require skew compensation (and perhaps equalization) for various signals because of manufacturing variations in the signal environment (motherboard, sockets, DIMMs, Number of occupied sockets, DIMM or chip loading, etc.) and in some cases because of the design (DDR3 chains some signals from chip to chip) in order to meet setup and hold requirements. GDDR5 is sensitive enough to require retraining even with temperature variations.