The dell laptop bios is basically a software program imbedded into your motherboard.  It manages basic peripherals and options.  It can also help you diagnose basic problems like battery or adapter issues.  You can enter into your Dell laptop bios by pressing F2 during startup.  You only have a few seconds to enter, so make sure you press it quickly once the Dell splash logo appears.  Once in, you will notice things like; system info, processor info, drives, on board devices, Security, power management, etc…  The dell laptop bios can actually be upgraded to a newer revision, if available.  Upgrading your bios is very important, as most common driver issues can be resolved by updating it.  If, for example, your battery is not charging you can scroll over to power management and check the status of your battery.   Below the battery meter you can also see if your adapter is being detected or not.  This is a basic step in determining whether you have a defective ac adapter.  You can also adjust performance settings,  and even add a password that would prevent others from accessing the operating system on your laptop.  Another good feature is the maintenance section, in most laptops, here you can perform diagnostic tests on your devices like; motherboard, video card, processor and even the fans.  With this test you can check to see whether or not your onboard devices are in good working order.  On some other Dell models, you can access diagnostic testing during startup without entering into the bios.  Consult your owner’s manual for more information.  If you want to boot from another device like the optical drive, for example, you can change the boot sequence settings.  This would be useful when installing a new operating system or when starting a DOS .exe file from a cd or dvd disc.  As you can see the dell laptop bios is very useful in more ways than one.  Try entering into your bios today and go “behind the scenes”, so to speak, and learn something new.