Lab 1-6 Observing the Boot Process and Hardware Components

1. Reboot either your lab computer, or one of your virtual machines. Carefully watch your computer screen during the boot process (press Pause if necessary), and record which CPU is used by your home or lab computer. If you do not see anything, hit F2 to get into the BIOS and turn off “Quiet Boot”. (You’ll have to search for it.)
2. Who is the BIOS vendor and what version of the BIOS are you using?
3. As the computer boots, memory is counted. Observe the memory count and record the amount of memory detected. What number system is used to count this memory?
4. Open the printer icon in the Windows Control Panel and find out which is the default Windows printer for your home or lab computer.
5. Repeat this in your other operating systems. What difference do you see?

Info	DOS	Win98	Win 7
RAM
Hard Drive
BIOS Version

Why do you see differences?

6. Look at the back (or the front if the ports are located there) of your home or lab computer and make a drawing. Label on the drawing the purpose of each port and connection you see. If you are not sure what the purpose of the port is, label the port “unknown port.” In later chapters, the purposes of these unknown ports will become clear.