Bios settings

[ArnoG]

I’ve built a handful of systems but still wonder today what to enable in bios without going into expert territory.

 

The basics for me is simply enabling XMP/EXPO profiles for ram and tuning fan curves. 
 

But recently I also saw options like “fast boot” etc. So my question is first, what does this fast boot represent. And secondly what else do you do in bios, on a beginner level so not modifying any voltages etc manually.

[leclod]

The manual might answer some questions

Edited August 7, 2025 by leclod

[YoungBlade]

Fast Boot skips some checks for things like RAM. It assumes that the previous settings will be stable, which is usually a safe assumption, but if your stability is borderline, the system could fail to boot at some point. This is unlikely if you've just enabled EXPO and haven't been tweaking other things, but could happen, so the default settings aren't going to enable Fast Boot.

 

If you intend to use virtual machines, you'd want to make sure "AMD-V" is enabled. It may also be called "Hardware Virtualization" or "SVM" (Secure Virtual Machine). But depending on your motherboard, this might be enabled by default.

 

I'd imagine all of the settings for Windows 11 like Secure Boot and TPM are enabled by default since you're on an AM5 platform. For older platforms, you might need to enable those to install Windows 11.

 

Otherwise, there's not much to do in the BIOS on most systems if things are working.

[ArnoG]

30 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

Fast Boot skips some checks for things like RAM. It assumes that the previous settings will be stable, which is usually a safe assumption, but if your stability is borderline, the system could fail to boot at some point. This is unlikely if you've just enabled EXPO and haven't been tweaking other things, but could happen, so the default settings aren't going to enable Fast Boot.

 

If you intend to use virtual machines, you'd want to make sure "AMD-V" is enabled. It may also be called "Hardware Virtualization" or "SVM" (Secure Virtual Machine). But depending on your motherboard, this might be enabled by default.

 

I'd imagine all of the settings for Windows 11 like Secure Boot and TPM are enabled by default since you're on an AM5 platform. For older platforms, you might need to enable those to install Windows 11.

 

Otherwise, there's not much to do in the BIOS on most systems if things are working.

Alrighty thanks! Good explanation for fast boot, because I tried to google it once but the answer I got was far from being this clear.

 

As for the virtual machines, thank you for the reminder. I do use those but have yet to install them on my new build, I did forget to enable virtualization up until now.

 

And for secure boot/TPM is already something I had to mess with when upgrading my dad to windows 11.

[Mumintroll]

If you have an Asus motherboard then disable that Armoury crate auto install in bios.

Avoid that app, uninstall it if it's already installed.