BIOS and Security

The BIOS is extremely basic but covers everything you need to configure the Aurora m9700.

In the main screen we have a summary of the CPU and memory information, in addition to the BIOS version the m9700 is running. You can configure your hard drives and optical drive in this menu as well.

Alienware Aurora m9700 Notebook with SLI and RAID - Mobile 78

Under advanced, you can enable/disable RAID, configure how the system boots, specify USB and wireless states.

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Alienware Aurora m9700 Notebook with SLI and RAID - Mobile 80

For security, you have two passwords: administrator and user. Both passwords protect the BIOS from being tampered and/or prevents the system from being booted. Unlike Asus passwords which give you finer control over what access is allowed by a User, the Alienware BIOS is very simple and the password is just a prompt.

Alienware Aurora m9700 Notebook with SLI and RAID - Mobile 81

Finally under the Boot screen you can specify the order which the m9700 boots.

Alienware Aurora m9700 Notebook with SLI and RAID - Mobile 82

As you can see, compared to the Dell and Asus BIOS’ we’ve reviewed here in the past, the Alienware Aurora BIOS is downright simple! I personally did not find anything missing in terms of BIOS features, but some users may want more options in terms of security and hardware configuration.

Security

Security on the Aurora m9700 is pretty much a user-dependent activity. Since there isn’t any firewall or virus scanner included with the m9700, it’s up to the user to install the relevant pieces to shore up defences against malicious network traffic and software. For an experienced user this isn’t an issue, but for a novice it’s something to be concerned about.

A Kensington lock port, and a BIOS password is pretty much all the built-in security there is on the Aurora m9700.

Data integrity is offered through the form of the onboard RAID (assuming you get the RAID 1 option for the m9700). This gives you extra insurance for your data in the event one of your hard drives gets corrupted or fails.

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