Asus P2B - Manual (Page 56)

56 ASUS P2B User’s Manual
V
. SOFTW
ARE
DMI Introduction
Introducing the ASUS DMI Configuration Utility
This motherboard supports DMI within the BIOS level and provides a DMI Configu-
ration Utility to maintain the Management Information Format Database (MIFD).
DMI is able to auto-detect and record information pertinent to a computer’s system
such as the CPU type, CPU speed, and internal/external frequencies, and memory
size. The onboard BIOS will detect as many system information as possible and store
those collected information in a 4KB block in the motherboard’s Flash EPROM and
allow the DMI to retrieve data from this database. Unlike other BIOS software, the
BIOS on this motherboard uses the same technology implemented for Plug and Play
to allow dynamic real-time updating of DMI information versus creating a new BIOS
image file and requiring the user to update the whole BIOS. This DMI Configuration
Utility also allows the system integrator or end user to add additional information into
the MIFD such as serial numbers, housing configurations, and vendor information.
Those information not detected by the motherboard BIOS and has to be manually
entered through the DMI Configuration Utility and updated into the MIFD. This
DMI Configuration Utility provides the same reliability as PnP updating and will
prevent the refreshing failures associated with updating the entire BIOS.
System Requirements
The DMI Configuration Utility (DMICFG2.EXE) must be used in real mode in order
for the program to run, the base memory must be at least 180K. Memory managers
like HIMEM.SYS (required by windows) must not be installed. You can boot up
from a system diskette without AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files, “REM”
HIMEM.SYS in the CONFIG.SYS, or press <F5> during bootup to bypass your
AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files.
V. SUPPORT SOFTWARE
Desktop Management Interface (DMI)