In this section, ambitious users can learn how to speed system boot-up to the max, accelerate graphics cards, make the fullest use of their CPU power, tune motherboard chipsets, and squeeze more performance out of their RAM.

14. Display Power-on Self-Test (POST) Results During Boot-up

During PC start-up, many computers simply flash a colorful vendor logo instead of showing you what's going on. Instead of pretty pictures, you can - and probably should - have the PC show you the results of the tests it's performing.

Here's how to do it. From within the "Advanced BIOS Features" menu, set the value for the "Full Screen LOGO Display" option to "Disabled". After that, you can follow along and read the results of all the tests your PC runs while it's starting itself up.

15. Boot Your PC Twice As Fast

This trick lets your computer skip various component tests during start up. For example, available RAM space will be tallied just once, rather than the customary three times; your computer should start nearly twice as fast as a result.

From within the "Advanced" or "Advanced BIOS Features" menus, change the value of the "Quick Power On Self Test" or "Quick Boot" option to "Enabled".

Warning: If any hardware problems show up after you make this change, you'll want to revisit BIOS Setup and return this option to "Disabled" - that will let the BIOS help you identify what's causing the trouble, so you can fix it.

16. Start The Right Graphics Card

The BIOS tries to decide which graphics card to use each time it runs, but this isn't really necessary - you already know!

Pick the menu option labeled "Init Display First", which may also appear as "Primary VGA BIOS" or "VGA Boot From" depending on your BIOS version. Set its value to "AGP" if you use an AGP graphics card in your PC. In brand-new systems with PCI Express, this option is normally named "PEG Port/Graphic Adapter Priority" instead. In that case, set its value to "PEG", if your system uses a PCI Express graphics card.