Appendix B Frequently Asked Question Note: FAQ may be updated without notice. If you cannot find the information that you need in this appendix, visit our WWW home page, (address: http://www.aopen.com.tw) and check the FAQ area and other new information. Q: How can I identify the mainboard BIOS version? A: The AOpen mainboard BIOS version appears on the upper-left corner of the POST (Power-On Self Test) screen. Normally, it starts with R and is found in between the model name and the date.
Frequently Asked Questions Q: Why do AOpen MBs use many Electrolytic Capacitors instead Tantalum Capacitor? of A: The quality of Electrolytic capacitor has huge difference depends on model and vendor. Normally, Tantalum capacitor is better than Electrolytic capacitor, but good quality and high price Electrolytic capacitor is even better than Tantalum capacitor.
Frequently Asked Questions Q: What is MMX? A: MMX is the new single-line multiple-instruction technology of the new Intel Pentium PP/MT (P55C) CPU. A new Pentium Pro CPU (Klamath) with MMX technology is also expected to be released soon. The MMX instructions are specifically useful for multimedia applications (such as 3D video, 3D sound, video conference). The performance can be improved if applications use these instructions.
Frequently Asked Questions A: The DoC is new certification standard of FCC regulations. This new standard allows DIY component (such as mainboard) to apply DoC label separately without a shielding of housing. The rule to test mainboard for DoC is to remove housing and test it with regulation 47 CFR 15.31. The DoC test of mainboard is more difficult than traditional FCC test. If the mainboard passes DoC test, that means it has very low EMI radiation and you can use any kind of housing (even paper housing).
Frequently Asked Questions with SDRAM DIMM. AOpen is the first company to support dual-SDRAM DIMMs onboard (AP5V), from Q1 1996. Q: Can SDRAM DIMM work together with FPM/EDO SIMM? A: The FPM/EDO operate at 5V while SDRAM operates at 3.3V. The current MB design provides different power to DIMM and SIMM but connects the data bus together. If you combine SIMM and DIMM, the system will still work fine; however, only temporarily. After a few months, the SDRAM 3.
Frequently Asked Questions Q: What is the Ultra DMA/33? A: This is the new specification to improve IDE HDD data transfer rate. Unlike traditional PIO mode, which only uses the rising edge of IDE command signal to transfer data, the DMA/33 uses both rising edge and falling edge. Hence, the data transfer rate is double of the PIO mode 4 or DMA mode 2. (16.6MB/s x2 = 33MB/s). The following table lists the transfer rate of IDE PIO and DMA modes. The IDE bus is 16-bit, which means every transfer is two bytes.
Frequently Asked Questions Model OS/Driver Mode Winbench97 Disk Winmark (Business) Winbench97 Disk Winmark (High End) Quantum Fireball 1.2G Windows 95 OSR2 PIO mode 4 717 2150 Quantum Fireball 1.2G Windows 95 OSR2 + INTEL PIIX4 driver DMA mode 2 822 3050 Quantum ST1.6A Windows 95 OSR2 PIO mode 4 853 2630 Quantum ST1.
Frequently Asked Questions A: The Soft Power On of the ATX specification means to provide a standby current for special circuit to wait for wakeup event when main power is off. For example, Infrared wakeup, modem wakeup, or voice wakeup. Currently, the most simple usage is to provide standby current for power switch circuit so that power switch can turn on/off the main power through soft power control pin. The ATX power specification does not mention anything about the power switch type.
Frequently Asked Questions P5 Chipset Intel 430FX Intel 430VX Intel 430HX Intel 430TX SIS 5571 SIS 5582 Model AP5C/P AP5VM/ AP5V AP53/ AP5K/ AX53 AP5T/ AX5T AP57 AP58/ AX58 PBSRAM 3-1-1-1 3-1-1-1 FPM 7-3-3-3 6-3-3-3 EDO 7-2-2-2 6-2-2-2 SDRAM NA 6-1-1-1 3-1-1-1 6-3-3-3 5-2-2-2 NA 3-1-1-1 6-3-3-3 5-2-2-2 5-1-1-1 3-1-1-1 3-1-1-1 5-3-3-3 5-3-3-3 4/5-2-2-2 4/5-2-2-2 (6/7-1-1-1) 6/7-1-1-1 Q: What is the memory performance improvement of TX chipset? A: Following is the compare table of TX+SDRAM,
Frequently Asked Questions switch is now used as Suspend switch. However, some MBs still support Turbo/Deturbo function via keyboard. You can set the system to Deturbo by pressing <->. To back to Turbo mode, press <+>. Note that the Deturbo mode has been removed in new MBs since these require more code space in Flash ROM. Q: Power Management Icon does not appear in the Windows 95 Control Panel even though the APM under BIOS Setup is enabled.
Frequently Asked Questions -Other Devices ? PCI Bridge ? PCI Card (or PCI Universal Serial Devices) -Hard Disk Controllers Standard Dual PCI IDE Controller Primary IDE Controller Secondary IDE Controller PCI Bridge: This device stands for the "ACPI" feature which implemented within PIIX4(82371AB) chipset. This new feature is expected to be fully utilized under Windows'97(Memphis). Please look for more details on ACPI from FAQ "What is ACPI?".
Frequently Asked Questions If you are Win'95 OSR 2.1 user, only TX.EXE installation is necessary. If you are Win'95 retail(.950 or .950A, shows "PCI Card") user, there is no direct upgrade path available from Microsoft at this moment. All of above are expected to be implemented under Windows'97. Standard Dual PCI IDE Controller: The IDE controller chipset -- PIIX4 -- will be fully recognized under Windows'97 also. In the mean while, you may download the driver for Win'95 from AOpen homepage at "http://www.
Frequently Asked Questions If you are running OSR 2.1, you may tell it from by checking "USB Supplement to OSR2" in the list of installed program of Add/Remove program tool under Control Panel, and checking for version 4.03.1212 of the Ntkern.vxd file in the Windows\System\Vmm32 folder. Q: What is the performance improvement of AMD K6 and Cyrix M2? A: Following is the compare table of the new generation CPU.
Frequently Asked Questions jumper setting information is stored in CMOS, if the battery is lost or BIOS setup is accidentally changed, end user (or distributor) may need to open the housing and check the CPU again. Most of all, you need a start voltage to boot CPU and go into BIOS for jumperless setting. 2.85V may be OK for P55C and K6-166, but minimum voltage of K6-233MHz is 3.1V, it can not boot if user plugs K6-233 onto current jumperless mainboard.
Frequently Asked Questions Q: What is LDCM (LAN Desktop Client Manager)? A: This is a software of Intel. The major goal is to provide an easy way for corporate network administrator to monitor the status of all the clients (workstation). You need at least DMI BIOS for LDCM. AOpen BIOS is also DMI ready but unfortunately, Intel LDCM needs Intel network card to work properly. It is obviously not suitable for home user to pay LDCM extra cost.
Frequently Asked Questions Q: Does AOpen mainboard support Fan/Voltage/Thermal monitoring and protection? A: Yes, please check following table. Features AP5T-3 AX6F-1 AX5T-3 AX5T-3.1 Synchronous Switching Regulator Yes Yes Yes Yes 3.