BIOS question

[Randor]

Hi all,

I have a question about the BIOS.
While sitting in your BIOS screen is the cpu load is at 100% ?

Or do you think the BIOS programmer is issuing  HLT instructions?

[j_groothu]

As far as i know, Bios Uses Real Mode and so stays at 100%  :U,  Anything else requires an OS that can organise the time slices

[Edit: Bios configuration screens, thanks tedd ]

[Tedd]

Assuming you mean while in the bios config menu (and not during boot-up)...
I would expect HLTs to be used, with the keyboard and timer handled through interrupts - so there would be little sense spinning to be busy (while waiting for keyboard input, there isn't much else for the cpu to be doing.)

[MichaelW]

Back when I was actively building systems, as a quick test of the CPU cooling before I installed Windows, I would let the system set with the BIOS setup running. I started doing this after I noticed that the BIOS setup, even at the main menu, would produce CPU temperatures similar to running an intensive application under Windows, and considerably higher than running Windows with the typical low CPU loading.