Chapter 3 Award BIOS This chapter tells how to configure the system parameters. You may update your BIOS via AWARD Flash Utility. Important: Because the BIOS code is the most often changed part of the mainboard design, the BIOS information contained in this chapter (especially the Chipset Setup parameters) may be a little different compared to the actual BIOS that came with your mainboard. 3.1 Entering the Award BIOS Setup Menu The BIOS setup utility is a segment of codes/routines residing in the BIOS Flash ROM. This routine allows you to configure the system parameters and save the configuration into the 128 byte CMOS area, (normally in the RTC chip or directly in the main chipset). To enter the BIOS Setup, press during POST (Power-On Self Test). The BIOS Setup Main Menu appears as follows. 3-1 AWARD BIOS ROM PCI/ISA BIOS (XXXXXXXX) CMOS SETUP UTILITY AWARD SOFTWARE, INC. STANDARD CMOS SETUP BIOS FEATURES SETUP CHIPSET FEATURES SETUP POWER MANAGEMENT SETUP PNP/PCI CONFIGURATION SETUP LOAD SETUP DEFAULTS LOAD TURBO DEFAULTS ESC F10 : : Quit Save & Exit Setup INTEGRATED PERIPHRALS PASSWORD SETTING IDE HDD AUTO DETECTION SAVE & EXIT SETUP EXIT WITHOUT SAVING áâàß (Shift) F2 : : Select Item Change Color Description of each function Tip: Choose "Load Setup Defaults" for recommended optimal performance. Choose "Load Turbo Defaults" for best performance with light system loading. Refer to section 3.7. The section at the bottom of the screen tells how to control the screen. Use the arrow keys to move between items, to color scheme of the display, to exit, and to save the changes before exit. Another section at the bottom of the screen displays a brief description of the highlighted item. After selecting an item, press to select or enter a submenu. 3.2 Standard CMOS Setup The "Standard CMOS Setup" sets the basic system parameters such as the date, time, and the hard disk type. Use the arrow keys to highlight an item and or to select the value for each item. 3-2 AWARD BIOS ROM PCI/ISA BIOS (XXXXXXXX) STANDARD CMOS SETUP AWARD SOFTWARE, INC. Date (mm:dd:yy) Time (hh:mm:ss) HARD DISK Primary Master : Primary Slave : Secondary Master: Secondary Slave : TYPE Auto Auto Auto Auto : : Wed. Mar 00:00:00 SIZE 0 0 0 0 CYLS 0 0 0 0 6 1996 HEAD 0 0 0 0 PRECOMP 0 0 0 0 LANDZ 0 0 0 0 SECTORS 0 0 0 0 MODE AUTO AUTO AUTO AUTO Drive A : Drive B : Video : Halt On : ESC F10 : : 1.44M, 3.5 in None EGA/VGA All Errors Quit Save & Exit Setup Base Memory : 640 K Extended Memory: 15360 K Other Memory : 384 K Total Memory : 16384 K á â à ß : Select Item (Shift) F2 : Change Color Standard CMOS à Date To set the date, highlight the Date parameter. Press current date. The date format is month, date, and year. or to set the Standard CMOS à Time To set the time, highlight the Time parameter. Press or to set the current time in hour, minute, and second format. The time is based on the 24 hour military clock. 3-3 AWARD BIOS Standard CMOS à Primary Master à Type Standard CMOS à Primary Slave à Type Standard CMOS à Secondary Master à Type Standard CMOS à Secondary Slave à Type Type Auto User None 1 2 ... 45 This item lets you select the IDE hard disk parameters that your system supports. These parameters are Size, Number of Cylinder, Number of Head, Start Cylinder for Pre-compensation, Cylinder number of Head Landing Zone and Number of Sector per Track. The default setting is Auto, which enables BIOS to automatically detect the parameters of installed HDD at POST (Power-On Self Test). If you prefer to enter HDD parameters manually, select User. Select None if no HDD is connected to the system. The IDE CDROM is always automatically detected. Tip: For an IDE hard disk, we recommend that you use the "IDE HDD Auto Detection" to enter the drive specifications automatically. See the section "IDE HDD Auto Detection". Standard CMOS à Primary Master à Mode Standard CMOS à Primary Slave à Mode Standard CMOS à Secondary Master à Mode Standard CMOS à Secondary Slave à Mode Mode Auto Normal LBA Large The enhanced IDE feature allows the system to use a hard disk with a capacity of more than 528MB. This is made possible through the Logical Block Address (LBA) mode translation. The LBA is now considered as a standard feature of current IDE hard disk on the market because of its capability to support capacity larger than 528MB. Note that if HDD is formatted with LBA On, it will not be able to boot with LBA Off. 3-4 AWARD BIOS Standard CMOS à Drive A Standard CMOS à Drive B Drive A None 360KB 5.25" 1.2MB 5.25" 720KB 3.5" 1.44MB 3.5" 2.88MB 3.5" These items select floppy drive type. The available settings and types supported by the mainboard are listed on the left. Standard CMOS à Video Video EGA/VGA CGA40 CGA80 Mono This item specifies the type of video card in use. The default setting is VGA/EGA. Since current PCs use VGA only, this function is almost useless and may be disregarded in the future. Standard CMOS à Halt On Halt On No Errors All Errors All, But Keyboard All, But Diskette All, But Disk/Key This parameter enables you to control the system stops in case of Power-On Self Test (POST) error. 3-5 AWARD BIOS 3.3 BIOS Features Setup This screen appears when you select the option "BIOS Features Setup" from the main menu. ROM PCI/ISA BIOS (XXXXXXXX) BIOS FEATURES SETUP AWARD SOFTWARE, INC. Virus Warning External Cache Quick Power On Self Test Boot Sequence Swap Floppy Drive Boot Up Floppy Seek Boot Up NumLock Status Boot Up System Speed Typematic Rate Setting Typematic Rate (Chars/Sec) Typematic Delay (Msec) Security Option PCI/VGA Palette Snoop OS Select for DRAM > 64MB : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Disabled Enabled Enabled A,C,SCSI Disabled Disabled ON High Disabled 6 250 Setup Disabled Non-OS/2 Video BIOS Shadow C8000-CBFFF Shadow CC000-CFFFF Shadow D0000-D3FFF Shadow D4000-D7FFF Shadow D8000-DBFFF Shadow DC000-DFFFF Shadow : : : : : : : Enabled Disabled Disabled Disabled Disabled Disabled Disabled ESC: F1 : F5 : F6 : F7 : áâàß : Select Item Quit Help PU/PD/+/- : Modify Old Values (Shift) F2 : Color Load Setup Defaults Load Turbo Defaults BIOS Features à Virus Warning Virus Warning Enabled Disabled Set this parameter to Enabled to activate the warning message. This feature protects the boot sector and partition table of your hard disk from virus intrusion. Any attempt during boot up to write to the boot sector of the hard disk drive stops the system and the following warning message appears on the screen. Run an anti-virus program to locate the problem. ! WARNING ! Disk Boot Sector is to be modified Type "Y" to accept write, or "N" to abort write Award Software, Inc. 3-6 AWARD BIOS BIOS Features à External Cache External Cache Enabled Disabled Enabling this parameter activates the secondary cache (currently, PBSRAM cache). Disabling the parameter slows down the system. Therefore, we recommend that you leave it enabled unless you are troubleshooting a problem. BIOS Features à Power-On Self-Test Quick Power-on Self-test Enable Disabled This parameter speeds up POST by skipping some items that are normally checked. BIOS Features à Boot Sequence Boot Sequence A,C,SCSI C,A,SCSI C,CDROM,A CDROM,C,A D,A,SCSI E,A,SCSI F,A,SCSI SCSI,A,C SCSI,C,A C only This parameter allows you to specify the system boot up search sequence. The hard disk ID are listed below: C: Primary master D: Primary slave E: Secondary master F: Secondary slave BIOS Features à Swap Floppy Drive Swap Floppy Drive Enabled Disabled This item allows you to swap floppy drives. For example, if you have two floppy drives (A and B), you can assign the first drive as drive B and the second drive as drive A or viceversa. BIOS Features à Boot-up Floppy Seek 3-7 AWARD BIOS Boot-up Floppy Seek Enabled Disabled When enabled, the BIOS issues the seek command to the floppy drive during POST to move floppy drive head forward and backward. BIOS Features à Boot-up NumLock Status Boot-up NumLock Status On Off Setting this parameter to On enables the numeric function of the numeric keypad. Set this parameter to Off to disregard the function. Disabling the numeric function allows you to use the numeric keypad for cursor control. BIOS Features à Boot-up System Speed Boot-up System Speed High Low Select High or Low system speed after boot. BIOS Features à Typematic Rate Setting Typematic Rate Setting Enabled Disabled Set this parameter to Enable/Disable the keyboard repeat function. When enabled, continually holding down a key on the keyboard will generate repeatedly keystrokes. BIOS Features à Typematic Rate Typematic Rate 6 8 10 12 15 20 24 30 This item allows you to control the speed of repeated keystrokes. The default is 30 characters/sec. 3-8 AWARD BIOS BIOS Features à Typematic Delay Typematic Delay 250 500 750 1000 This parameter allows you to control the delay time between the first and the second keystroke (where the repeated keystrokes begin). The typematic delay settings are 250, 500, 750, and 1000 msec. BIOS Features à Security Option Security Option Setup System The System option limits access to both the System boot and BIOS setup. A prompt asking you to enter your password appears on the screen every time you boot the system. The Setup option limits access only to BIOS setup. To disable the security option, select Password Setting from the main menu, don't type anything and just press . BIOS Features à PCI/VGA Palette Snoop PCI/VGA Palette Snoop Enabled Disabled Enabling this item informs the PCI VGA card to keep silent (and to prevent conflict) when palette register is updated (i.e., accepts data without responding any communication signals). This is useful only when two display cards use the same palette address and plugged in the PCI bus at the same time (such as MPEQ or Video capture). In such case, PCI VGA is silent while MPEQ/Video capture is set to function normally. BIOS Features à OS Select for DRAM > 64MB OS Select for DRAM > 64MB OS/2 Non-OS/2 Set to OS/2 if your system is utilizing an OS/2 operating system and has a memory size of more than 64 MB. 3-9 AWARD BIOS BIOS Features à Video BIOS Shadow Video BIOS Shadow Enabled Disabled VGA BIOS Shadowing means to copy video display card BIOS into the DRAM area. This enhances system performance because DRAM access time is faster than ROM. BIOS Features à C800-CBFF Shadow BIOS Features à CC00-CFFF Shadow BIOS Features à D000-D3FF Shadow BIOS Features à D400-D7FF Shadow BIOS Features à D800-DBFF Shadow BIOS Features à DC00-DFFF Shadow C8000-CBFFF Shadow Enabled Disabled These six items are for shadowing ROM code on other expansion cards. Before you set these parameters, you need to know the specific addresses of that ROM code. If you do not know this information, enable all the ROM shadow settings. Note: The F000 and E000 segments are always shadowed because BIOS code occupies these areas. 3-10 AWARD BIOS 3.4 Chipset Features Setup The "Chipset Features Setup" includes settings for the chipset dependent features. These features are related to system performance. ROM PCI/ISA BIOS (XXXXXXXX) CHIPSET FEATURES SETUP AWARD SOFTWARE, INC. Auto Configuration DRAM Timing DRAM Leadoff Timing DRAM Read Burst (EDO/FP) DRAM Write Burst Timing Fast EDO Lead Off Refresh RAS# Assertion DRAM Page Idle Timer DRAM Enhanced Paging Fast MA to RAS# Delay SDRAM(CAS Lat/RAS-to-CAS) SDRAM Speculative Read System BIOS Cacheable Video BIOS Cacheable 8 Bit I/O Recovery Time 16 Bit I/O Recovery Time Memory Hole At 15M-16M PCI Passive Release PCI Delayed Transaction Mem. Drive Str.(MA/RAS) : Enabled : 60 ns : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 10/6/3/3 x222/x333 x222 Disabled 5 Clks 2 Clks Enabled 2 Clks 3/3 Disabled Enabled Enabled ESC: F1 : F5 : F6 : F7 : áâàß : Select Item Quit Help PU/PD/+/- : Modify Old Values (Shift) F2 : Color Load Setup Defaults Load Turbo Defaults 4 1 Disabled Disabled : Disabled : 16mA/16mA Caution: Make sure you fully understand the items contained in this menu before you try to change anything. You may change the parameter settings to improve system performance . However, it may cause system unstable if the setting are not correct for your system configuration. 3-11 AWARD BIOS 3-12 AWARD BIOS Chipset Features à Auto Configuration Auto Configuration Enabled Disabled When Enabled, the DRAM and cache related timing are set to pre-defined value according to CPU type and clock. Select Disable if you want to specify your own DRAM timing. Chipset Features à DRAM Timing DRAM Timing 60 ns 70 ns There to sets of DRAM timing parameters can be automatically set by BIOS, 60ns and 70ns. Warning: The default memory timing setting is 60ns to get the optimal performance. Because the specification limitation of INTEL TX chipset , 70ns SIMM can only be used with CPU external clock 60MHz. To use 70ns SIMM with 66MHz CPU external clock may result in unstable system behavior. C ...