Glossary 157
Glossary

Terms in this Glossary are provided for

informational purposes only and may or may not

describe features included with your particular

computer.

A

AC — alternating current — The form of electricity that
powers your computer when you plug the AC adapter
power cable in to an electrical outlet.
ACPI — advanced configuration and power interface —
A power management specification that enables
Microsoft® Windows ® operating systems to put a
computer in standby or hibernate mode to conserve the
amount of electrical power allocated to each device
attached to the computer.
AGP — accelerated graphics port — A dedicated graphics
port that allows system memory to be used for video-
related tasks. AGP delivers a smooth, true-color video
image because of the faster interface between the video
circuitry and the computer memory.
AHCI — Advanced Host Controller Interface — An
interface for a SATA hard drive Host Controller which
allows the storage driver to enable technologies such as
Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and hot plug.
ALS — ambient light sensor — A feature that helps to
control display brightness.
antivirus software — A program designed to identify,
quarantine, and/or delete viruses from your computer.
ASF — alert standards format — A standard to define a
mechanism for reporting hardware and software alerts to a
management console. ASF is designed to be platform- and
operating system-independent.

B

battery life span — The length of time (years) during
which a portable computer battery is able to be depleted
and recharged.
battery operating time — The length of time (minutes or
hours) that a portable computer battery powers the
computer.
BIOS — basic input/output system — A program (or
utility) that serves as an interface between the computer
hardware and the operating system. Unless you
understand what effect these settings have on the
computer, do not change them. Also referred to as system
setup.
bit — The smallest unit of data interpreted by your
computer.
Blu-ray Disc™ (BD)— An optical storage technology
offering storage capacity of up to 50 GB, full 1080p video
resolution (HDTV required), and as many as 7.1 channels
of native, uncompressed surround sound.
Bluetooth® wireless technology — A wireless technology
standard for short-range (9 m [29 feet]) networking
devices that allows for enabled devices to automatically
recognize each ot her.
boot sequence — Specifies the order of the devices from
which the computer attempts to boot.
bootable media — A CD, DVD, or floppy disk that you
can use to start your computer. In case your hard drive is
damaged or your computer has a virus, ensure that you
always have a bootable CD, DVD, or floppy disk available.
You r Drivers and Utilities media is an example of bootable
media.
bps — bits per second — The standard unit for measuring
data transmission speed.
BTU — British thermal unit — A measurement of heat
output.
bus — A communication pathway between the
components in your computer.
bus speed — The speed, given in MHz, that indicates how
fast a bus can transfer information.