The system setup program contains the standard settings for your computer.
NOTICE: Unless you are an expert computer user or are directed to do so by
Dell technical support, do not change the settings for this program. Certain
changes might make your computer work incorrectly.
HINT: To see information
about a specific item on a
system setup screen,
highlight the item and
refer to the Help area on
the screen.
The system setup screens display the current setup information and settings for your computer. On each screen, the system setup options are listed at the left. To the right of each option is a field that displays the setting or value for that option. You can change settings that appear as white type on the screen. Options or values that you cannot change (because they are determined by the computer) appear less bright.
A box in the upper-right corner of the screen displays help information for the currently highlighted option; a box in the lower-right corner displays information about the computer. System setup key functions are listed across the bottom of the screen.
The screens display such information as:
System configuration
Boot Order
Boot (start-up) configuration and docking-device configuration settings
The boot sequence, or boot order, tells the computer where to look to find the software needed to start the operating system. You can control the boot sequence using the Boot Order page of the system setup program.
The Boot Order page displays a general list of the bootable devices that may be installed in your computer, including but not limited to the following:
Diskette Drive
Modular bay HDD
Internal HDD
CD/DVD/CD-RW drive
During the boot routine, the computer starts at the top of the list and scans each enabled device for the operating system start-up files. When the computer finds the files, it stops searching and starts the operating system.
To control the boot sequence, you can select (highlight) devices (by pressing the
and
keys) and then enable or disable the device or change their order in the list.
To enable or disable a device, highlight the item and press
. Enabled items appear as white and display a small triangle to the left; disabled items appear blue or dimmed without a triangle.
To reorder a device in the list, highlight the device and then press
or
(not case-sensitive) to move the highlighted device up or down.
Boot sequence changes take effect as soon as you save the changes and exit the system setup program.
You can set a one-time-only boot sequence without going into the system setup program. (You can also use this procedure to boot to the Dell Diagnostics on the Diagnostics utility partition on your hard drive.)
Turn off the computer.
If the computer is connected to a docking device (docked), undock it.
See the documentation that came with the docking device for
instructions.
Connect the computer to an electrical outlet.
Turn on the computer. When the Dell logo appears, press
immediately.
If you wait too long and the Windows® logo appears, continue to wait until you see the Windows desktop. Then shut down your computer and try again.
When the boot device list appears, highlight the device from which
you want to boot and press
.
The computer boots to the selected device.
The next time you reboot the computer, the normal boot order is restored.
HINT: You can only boot
(start up) your computer
from a CD, CD-RW, or
DVD drive installed as a
fixed optical drive. You
cannot boot from one of
these modules installed in
the module bay.
Set the Parallel Mode option according to the type of printer or device connected to the parallel connector. To determine the correct mode to use, see the documentation that came with the device.
Setting Parallel Mode to Disabled disables the parallel port and the port's LPT address, freeing its interrupt for another device to use.
Serial Port allows you to map the serial port COM address or disable the serial port and its address, freeing that interrupt for another device to use.
immediately.
and 
keys) and then enable or disable the device or change their order in the list.
. Enabled items appear as white and display a small triangle to the left; disabled items appear blue or dimmed without a triangle.
or 
(not case-sensitive) to move the highlighted device up or down.
immediately.
.