Intel SE7501WV2 User Manual

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Intel® Server Board SE7501WV2 TPS 
BIOS 
Revision 1.0 
 
 
Intel reference number C25653-001 
79
6.12.2 Advanced 
Configuration 
and Power Interface (ACPI) 
The primary role of the ACPI BIOS is to supply the ACPI Tables. POST creates the ACPI 
Tables and locates them above 1 MB in extended memory. The location of these tables is 
conveyed to the ACPI-aware operating system through a series of tables located throughout 
memory. The format and location of these tables is documented in the publicly available ACPI 
specification. To prevent conflicts with a non-ACPI-aware operating system, the memory used 
for the ACPI Tables is marked as “reserved” in the INT 15h, function E820h.  
As described in the ACPI specification, an ACPI-aware operating system generates an SMI to 
request that the system be switched into ACPI mode. The BIOS responds by setting up all 
system (chipset) specific configuration required to support ACPI, issues the appropriate 
command to the BMC to enable ACPI mode and sets the SCI_EN bit as defined by the ACPI 
specification. The system automatically returns to legacy mode on hard reset or power-on reset. 
There are three runtime components to ACPI: 
• 
ACPI Tables: These tables describe the interfaces to the hardware. ACPI Tables can 
make use of a p-code type of language, the interpretation of which is performed by the 
operating system. The operating system contains and uses an AML (ACPI Machine 
Language) interpreter that executes procedures encoded in AML and stored in the ACPI 
Tables; ACPI Machine Language is a compact, tokenized, abstract machine language. 
The tables contain information about power management capabilities of the system, 
APICs, and the bus structure. The tables also describe control methods that the 
operating system uses to change PCI interrupt routing, control legacy devices in Super 
I/O, and find the cause of wake events.  
• 
ACPI Registers: ACPI registers are the constrained part of the hardware interface, 
described (at least in location) by the ACPI Tables.  
• 
ACPI BIOS: This code boots the machine and implements interfaces for sleep, wake, 
and some restart operations. The ACPI BIOS also provides the ACPI Description 
Tables.  
All IA-32 server platforms support S0, S4, and S5 states. The SE7501WV2 server board also 
supports the S1 state. S1 and S4 are considered sleep states. The ACPI specification defines 
the sleep states and requires the system to support at least one of them.  
While entering the S4 state, the operating system saves the context to the disk and most of the 
system is powered off. The system can wake from such a state on various inputs depending on 
the hardware. The SE7501WV2 platform will wake on a power button press, or a signal received 
from a wake-on-LAN compliant LAN card (or on-board LAN), modem ring, PCI power 
management interrupt, or RTC alarm. The BIOS performs a complete POST upon a wake from 
S4 and initializes the platform. S4BIOS is not supported.  
The SE7501WV2 server board can wake from the S1 state using a PS/2 keyboard, mouse, and 
USB device in addition to the sources described above.  
The wake sources are enabled by the ACPI operating systems with co-operation from the 
drivers; the BIOS has no direct control over the wake sources when an ACPI operating system 
is loaded. The role of the BIOS is limited to describing the wake sources to the operating 
system and controlling secondary control/status bits via a Differentiated System Description 
Table (DSDT).