| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="settings-motherboard">
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| 4 | <title>Motherboard Tab</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>
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| 8 | On the <b outputclass="bold">Motherboard</b> tab, you can
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| 9 | configure virtual hardware that would normally be on the
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| 10 | motherboard of a real computer.
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| 11 | </p>
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| 12 | <ul>
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| 13 | <li>
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| 14 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Base Memory:</b> Sets the
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| 15 | amount of RAM that is allocated and given to the VM when it
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| 16 | is running. The specified amount of memory will be requested
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| 17 | from the host OS, so it must be available or made available
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| 18 | as free memory on the host when attempting to start the VM
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| 19 | and will not be available to the host while the VM is
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| 20 | running. This is the same setting that was specified in the
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| 21 | <b outputclass="bold">New Virtual Machine</b> wizard,
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| 22 | as described in <xref href="create-vm-wizard.dita#create-vm-wizard"/>.
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| 23 | </p>
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| 24 | <p>
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| 25 | Generally, it is possible to change the memory size after
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| 26 | installing the guest OS. But you must not reduce the memory
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| 27 | to an amount where the OS would no longer boot.
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| 28 | </p>
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| 29 | </li>
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| 30 | <li>
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| 31 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Boot Order:</b> Determines the
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| 32 | order in which the guest OS will attempt to boot from the
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| 33 | various virtual boot devices. Analogous to a real PC's BIOS
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| 34 | setting, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> can tell a guest OS to start from
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| 35 | the virtual floppy, the virtual CD/DVD drive, the virtual
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| 36 | hard drive (each of these as defined by the other VM
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| 37 | settings), the network, or none of these.
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| 38 | </p>
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| 39 | <p>
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| 40 | If you select <b outputclass="bold">Network</b>, the VM will attempt to boot from a
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| 41 | network using the PXE mechanism. This needs to be configured in detail on the command
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| 42 | line. See <xref href="vboxmanage-modifyvm.dita"/>.
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| 43 | </p>
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| 44 | </li>
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| 45 | <li>
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| 46 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Chipset:</b> You can select
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| 47 | which chipset will be presented to the virtual machine.
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| 48 | PIIX3 is the default chipset for most guests. For some guest
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| 49 | OSes such as Mac OS X, the PIIX3 chipset is not well
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| 50 | supported. As a result, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> supports an emulation
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| 51 | of the ICH9 chipset, which supports PCI express, three PCI
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| 52 | buses, PCI-to-PCI bridges and Message Signaled Interrupts
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| 53 | (MSI). This enables modern OSes to address more PCI devices
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| 54 | and no longer requires IRQ sharing. Using the ICH9 chipset
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| 55 | it is also possible to configure up to 36 network cards,
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| 56 | compared to a maximum of eight network adapters with PIIX3.
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| 57 | Note that ICH9 support is experimental and not recommended
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| 58 | for guest OSes which do not require it.
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| 59 | </p>
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| 60 | </li>
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| 61 | <li>
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| 62 | <p><b outputclass="bold">TPM:</b> Enables support for a
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| 63 | Trusted Platform Module (TPM) security processor. Choose
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| 64 | from the supported TPM versions.
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| 65 | </p>
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| 66 | </li>
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| 67 | <li>
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| 68 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Pointing Device:</b> The
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| 69 | default virtual pointing device for some guest OSes is the
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| 70 | traditional PS/2 mouse. If set to <b outputclass="bold">USB
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| 71 | Tablet</b>, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> reports to the virtual
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| 72 | machine that a USB tablet device is present and communicates
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| 73 | mouse events to the virtual machine through this device.
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| 74 | Another setting is <b outputclass="bold">USB Multi-Touch
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| 75 | Tablet</b>, which is suitable for guests running
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| 76 | Windows 8 or later.
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| 77 | </p>
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| 78 | <p>
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| 79 | Using the virtual USB tablet has the advantage that
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| 80 | movements are reported in absolute coordinates, instead of
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| 81 | as relative position changes. This enables <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> to
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| 82 | translate mouse events over the VM window into tablet events
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| 83 | without having to "capture" the mouse in the guest as
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| 84 | described in <xref href="keyb_mouse_normal.dita#keyb_mouse_normal"/>. This
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| 85 | makes using the VM less tedious even if Guest Additions are
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| 86 | not installed.
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| 87 | </p>
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| 88 | </li>
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| 89 | <li>
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| 90 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Enable I/O APIC:</b> Advanced
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| 91 | Programmable Interrupt Controllers (APICs) are an x86
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| 92 | hardware feature that have replaced Programmable Interrupt
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| 93 | Controllers (PICs). With an I/O APIC, OSes can use more than
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| 94 | 16 interrupt requests (IRQs) and therefore avoid IRQ sharing
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| 95 | for improved reliability.
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| 96 | </p>
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| 97 | <note>
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| 98 | <p>
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| 99 | Enabling the I/O APIC is <i>required</i>,
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| 100 | especially for 64-bit Windows guest OSes. It is also
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| 101 | required if you want to use more than one virtual CPU in a
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| 102 | virtual machine.
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| 103 | </p>
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| 104 | </note>
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| 105 | <p>
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| 106 | However, software support for I/O APICs has been unreliable
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| 107 | with some OSes other than Windows. Also, the use of an I/O
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| 108 | APIC slightly increases the overhead of virtualization and
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| 109 | therefore slows down the guest OS a little.
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| 110 | </p>
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| 111 | <note type="attention">
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| 112 | <p>
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| 113 | All Windows OSes install different kernels, depending on
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| 114 | whether an I/O APIC is available. As with ACPI, the I/O
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| 115 | APIC therefore <i>must not be turned off after
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| 116 | installation</i> of a Windows guest OS. Turning it
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| 117 | on after installation will have no effect however.
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| 118 | </p>
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| 119 | </note>
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| 120 | </li>
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| 121 | <li>
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| 122 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Hardware Clock in UTC Time:</b>
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| 123 | If selected, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> will report the system time in
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| 124 | UTC format to the guest instead of the local (host) time.
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| 125 | This affects how the virtual real-time clock (RTC) operates
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| 126 | and may be useful for UNIX-like guest OSes, which typically
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| 127 | expect the hardware clock to be set to UTC.
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| 128 | </p>
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| 129 | </li>
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| 130 | <li>
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| 131 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Enable EFI:</b> Enables
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| 132 | Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI), which replaces the
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| 133 | legacy BIOS and may be useful for certain advanced use
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| 134 | cases. See <xref href="efi.dita#efi"/>.
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| 135 | </p>
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| 136 | </li>
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| 137 | <li>
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| 138 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Enable Secure Boot:</b> Enables
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| 139 | Secure Boot, to provide a secure environment for starting
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| 140 | the guest OS.
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| 141 | </p>
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| 142 | </li>
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| 143 | </ul>
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| 144 | <p>
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| 145 | In addition, you can turn off the <b outputclass="bold">Advanced
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| 146 | Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)</b> which
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| 147 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> presents to the guest OS by default.
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| 148 | </p>
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| 149 | <p>
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| 150 | ACPI is the current industry standard to allow OSes to recognize hardware, configure
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| 151 | motherboards and other devices and manage power. As most computers contain this feature and
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| 152 | Windows and Linux support ACPI, it is also enabled by default in <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>. ACPI
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| 153 | can only be turned off using the command line. See <xref href="vboxmanage-modifyvm.dita"/>.
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| 154 | </p>
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| 155 | <note type="attention">
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| 156 | <p>
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| 157 | All Windows OSes install different kernels, depending on
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| 158 | whether ACPI is available. This means that ACPI <i>must
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| 159 | not be turned off</i> after installation of a Windows
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| 160 | guest OS. However, turning it on after installation will have
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| 161 | no effect.
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| 162 | </p>
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| 163 | </note>
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| 164 | </body>
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| 165 |
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| 166 | </topic>
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