UEFI Read The Manual

[terry.corbet]

I am not entirely a newbie on workstation builds. I have built my last two using ASUS boards with Legacy Bios. I am now several weeks into trying to get my first ASRock build working properly with UEFI, and not wanting to bother the forum, I know I should Read the Manual, but I can't find the manual! The DVD that ships with the mobo has some nice pdf files that provide far more legible graphics and text than the printed handbook, but there is no particularly helpful READ.ME.FIRST or other guide to the documentation.
Since the labels of the features to be set in UEFI are somewhat similar to, but eventually quite different from the old familiar labels of my Legacy Bios experience, I know that I need to do a lot of reading before asking for further help.
Can someone please provide some URLs that provide definitive answers concerning each of the hundreds of options? As I am most perplexed with getting ACPI properly configured, I would most appreciate pointers to that sub-set of options.

Thank you.

 

[Peter Martin]

you know you can set it for optimal defaults and go, right? mobo complete spec. for more help... there doesn't appear to be manuals, but there may be guides.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNAmTGfCIPo

 

[terry.corbet]

you know you can set it for optimal defaults and go, right? mobo complete spec. for more help

I'm sorry, Peter, I have no idea what you just so kindly and so quickly tried to tell me. The mother board is ASRock X370 Pro 4.

 

[Peter Martin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNAmTGfCIPo

watch that and it tells you about all the settings. your bios should be similar

 

[terry.corbet]

Thank you.

It was of interest to watch the video clip. I did learn some useful things, but, unfortunately, no clip of that sort could possibly cover what I am certain are more than 500 discrete labels with multiple options to be properly set in order to completely configure a system.

If someone can give me the URL of the folks who actually write/maintain the UEFI firmware, perhaps their site provides answers to what each item mean and what the implications of selecting each item will be.

Again, I am mostly interested in just getting their version of the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface [ACPI] working in concert with the Windows 10 power management settings so that I can control the setting and recovery from a sleeping state upon depressing my chassis power-on button.

 

[Peter Martin]

well, I looked for a url and didn't find. good luck

if i were you I would contact their support
https://www.asrock.com/support/index.asp

 

[Peter Martin]

update! good news, searching for your mobo I found this link to the manual for that board. I hope they cover it.
download the pdfs
https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/X370M%20Pro4/index.asp#Manual

your mobo user manual, yes they cover the uefi, hopefully to your needs.
http://asrock.pc.cdn.bitgravity.com/Manual/X370M%20Pro4.pdf

there are no manuals for just the uefi bios by the writers, lol. and, for what it's worth, you should already be able to, with optimal defaults do what you want. use hibernation and config the power button settings. i would never sleep though.

 

[terry.corbet]

A. I believe that most of the design/development of the EFI tools is the work of American Megatrends. While I am sure there is tweaking done by the engineering team in the mobo company, since this is a U/I to public standard, most of the guts of the logic and layout is dictated by the need to be in compliance with that standard.

B. So, no, the packet of materials from the mobo vendor does not even attempt to answer questions about what each and every option is all about unless you are someone wanting to push the limits of the circuits and devices as they have configured them.

C. In the case of merely wanting the Power On Switch to either be interpretted as a sleep request or a shutdown request, it seems the ACPI specifications are engineered to think through the range of power saving options pretty thoroughly and, like other OS features, what is required is a dance in which both partners -- the firmware and the operating system -- understand the music the same way.

D. Along the way of tracking most of this down, I found that the UEFI Built-In Shell features that the mobo companies are providing has a similar background. Most of the early work was done by our dear Linix friends, so that shell will be very familiar to command-line users of all sorts, and it has features exposing what is going on in the guts of the firmware to a very interesting degree. A User's Guide to that shell is available on the American Megatrends site as well as Intel and other open source initiatives.

Thanks for the good guidance.