Now that we’ve explored the BIOS and discussed some of the configuration information it gives us, we want to examine what diagnostics info we get from the BIOS, for example POST.
Built in diagnostics are an important part of computer systems. Every BIOS runs a POST (Power-on Self Test) each time the system boots. It performs basic checks on some core devices to ensure they are installed and operational. Some versions can also include hard drive and memory tests.
At the completion of this lesson, you’ll understand why the BIOS performs diagnostics in the order it does, what happens on a test failure, what the difference is been launch and initialization, what role Memory has in the execution of all the BIOS functions, particularly diagnostics, and finally what information the number of beeps tells us about the status of Windows and BIOS processes.