VirtualBox

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1<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
2<!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
3<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="settings-motherboard">
4 <title>Motherboard Tab</title>
5
6 <body>
7 <p>On the <b outputclass="bold">Motherboard</b> tab, you can configure virtual hardware that would normally be on
8 the motherboard of a real computer. </p>
9 <ul>
10 <li>
11 <p><b outputclass="bold">Base Memory:</b> Sets the
12 amount of RAM that is allocated and given to the VM when it
13 is running. The specified amount of memory will be requested
14 from the host OS, so it must be available or made available
15 as free memory on the host when attempting to start the VM
16 and will not be available to the host while the VM is
17 running. This is the same setting that was specified in the
18 <b outputclass="bold">New Virtual Machine</b> wizard,
19 as described in <xref href="create-vm-wizard.dita#create-vm-wizard"/>.
20 </p>
21 <p>Generally, it is possible to change the memory size after installing the guest OS. But you must not reduce
22 the memory to an amount where the OS would no longer boot. </p>
23 </li>
24 <li>
25 <p><b outputclass="bold">Boot Order:</b> Determines the
26 order in which the guest OS will attempt to boot from the
27 various virtual boot devices. Analogous to a real PC's BIOS
28 setting, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> can tell a guest OS to start from
29 the virtual floppy, the virtual CD/DVD drive, the virtual
30 hard drive (each of these as defined by the other VM
31 settings), the network, or none of these.
32 </p>
33 <p>If you select <b outputclass="bold">Network</b>, the VM will attempt to boot from a network using the PXE
34 mechanism. This needs to be configured in detail on the command line. See <xref
35 href="vboxmanage-modifyvm.dita"/>. </p>
36 </li>
37 <li>
38 <p><b outputclass="bold">Chipset:</b> You can select
39 which chipset will be presented to the virtual machine.
40 PIIX3 is the default chipset for most guests. For some guest
41 OSes such as Mac OS X, the PIIX3 chipset is not well
42 supported. As a result, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> supports an emulation
43 of the ICH9 chipset, which supports PCI express, three PCI
44 buses, PCI-to-PCI bridges and Message Signaled Interrupts
45 (MSI). This enables modern OSes to address more PCI devices
46 and no longer requires IRQ sharing. Using the ICH9 chipset
47 it is also possible to configure up to 36 network cards,
48 compared to a maximum of eight network adapters with PIIX3.
49 Note that ICH9 support is experimental and not recommended
50 for guest OSes which do not require it.
51 </p>
52 <!-- 7.1: Any chipset options for Arm?-->
53 </li>
54 <li>
55 <p><b outputclass="bold">TPM:</b> Enables support for a
56 Trusted Platform Module (TPM) security processor. Choose
57 from the supported TPM versions.
58 </p>
59 </li>
60 <li>
61 <p><b outputclass="bold">Pointing Device:</b> The
62 default virtual pointing device for some guest OSes is the
63 traditional PS/2 mouse. If set to <b outputclass="bold">USB
64 Tablet</b>, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> reports to the virtual
65 machine that a USB tablet device is present and communicates
66 mouse events to the virtual machine through this device.
67 Another setting is <b outputclass="bold">USB Multi-Touch
68 Tablet</b>, which is suitable for guests running
69 Windows 8 or later.
70 </p>
71 <p>Using the virtual USB tablet has the advantage that movements are reported in absolute coordinates, instead
72 of as relative position changes. This enables <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> to
73 translate mouse events over the VM window into tablet events without having to "capture" the mouse in the
74 guest as described in <xref href="keyb_mouse_normal.dita#keyb_mouse_normal"/>. This makes using the VM less
75 tedious even if Guest Additions are not installed. </p>
76 </li>
77 <li>
78 <p><b outputclass="bold">Enable I/O APIC:</b> Advanced
79 Programmable Interrupt Controllers (APICs) are an x86
80 hardware feature that have replaced Programmable Interrupt
81 Controllers (PICs). With an I/O APIC, OSes can use more than
82 16 interrupt requests (IRQs) and therefore avoid IRQ sharing
83 for improved reliability.
84 </p>
85 <note>
86 <p>Enabling the I/O APIC is <i>required</i>, especially for 64-bit Windows guest OSes. It is also required if
87 you want to use more than one virtual CPU in a virtual machine. </p>
88 </note>
89 <p>However, software support for I/O APICs has been unreliable with some OSes other than Windows. Also, the use
90 of an I/O APIC slightly increases the overhead of virtualization and therefore slows down the guest OS a
91 little. </p>
92 <note>
93 <p>All Windows OSes install different kernels, depending on whether an I/O APIC is available. As with ACPI,
94 the I/O APIC therefore <i>must not be turned off after installation</i> of a Windows guest OS. Turning it on
95 after installation will have no effect however. </p>
96 </note>
97 </li>
98 <li>
99 <p><b outputclass="bold">Hardware Clock in UTC Time:</b>
100 If selected, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> will report the system time in
101 UTC format to the guest instead of the local (host) time.
102 This affects how the virtual real-time clock (RTC) operates
103 and may be useful for UNIX-like guest OSes, which typically
104 expect the hardware clock to be set to UTC.
105 </p>
106 </li>
107 <li>
108 <p><b outputclass="bold">Enable EFI:</b> Enables
109 Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI), which replaces the
110 legacy BIOS and may be useful for certain advanced use
111 cases. See <xref href="efi.dita#efi"/>.
112 </p>
113 </li>
114 <li>
115 <p><b outputclass="bold">Enable Secure Boot:</b> Enables
116 Secure Boot, to provide a secure environment for starting
117 the guest OS.
118 </p>
119 </li>
120 </ul>
121 <p>In addition, you can turn off the <b outputclass="bold">Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)</b>
122 which <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> presents to the guest OS by default. </p>
123 <p>ACPI is the current industry standard to allow OSes to recognize hardware, configure motherboards and other
124 devices and manage power. As most computers contain this feature and Windows and Linux support ACPI, it is also
125 enabled by default in <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>. ACPI can only be turned off using the
126 command line. See <xref href="vboxmanage-modifyvm.dita"/>. </p>
127 <note>
128 <p>All Windows OSes install different kernels, depending on whether ACPI is available. This means that ACPI
129 <i>must not be turned off</i> after installation of a Windows guest OS. However, turning it on after
130 installation will have no effect. </p>
131 </note>
132 </body>
133
134</topic>
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