Change BIOS Settings

[rpboyle]

Can any extraordinarily kind person tell me how, or definitively whether it's even possible to access my BIOS settings in XP running on a C2D Mac?

A certain program for which I *need* Windows access is telling me some BIOS attributes must be altered for smooth sailing.

If it matters, I'm running:

Windows XP Pro 2005 SP2
OS X 10.4.8
Bootcamp 1.1.1
iMac 24" 2.33

Thanks a ton.

 

[Transeau]

The Intel Mac's have no BIOS, only some basic Emulation.
The EFI turns on the emulation (the delay you see before Windows starts to boot). Unfortunately, you have no control over these settings.

What is it that you need changed?

 

[rpboyle]

I need to turn off multicore support, speed-stepping, and possibly on-board audio.

 

[displaced]

I need to turn off multicore support, speed-stepping, and possibly on-board audio.

You should be able to address the multicore problem as follows:

- Run the application you want to use
- Right-click a blank area of the task bar and choose Task Manager
- Click the Processes tab, and find the program in the list.
- Right-click the program's name, and choose Set Affinity
- Deselect CPU1, leaving just CPU0 selected.

Speed stepping's trickier. It might be worth googling for Intel's speed step management software, although I'm not sure if it'll work with the Mac hardware.

On-board audio can be disabled by finding the relevant devices in Windows' Device Manager, viewing the properties, and disabling the device.

Out of curiosity, what's the app you're trying to run? It sounds rather fussy, since I can only imagine that the multi-core thing could be a problem. Speed Stepping should be pretty much invisible to the application - if it demands more power, SpeedStep should crank the machine up to its highest speeds automatically and transparently

 

[Transeau]

All easily addressed...

For the CPUs add "/ONECPU" to your boot.ini line.

For SpeedSteping, go to the Power Control Panel and change it to "Always On"

For the Sound, Go to the Device Manager and disable the HD Audio