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 AWARD BIOS 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. 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, F9 to change language, ESC to exit, and F10 to save the changes before exiting. Another section at the bottom of the screen displays a brief description of the highlighted item. After selecting an item, press Enter to select or enter a submenu. 3-2 AWARD BIOS 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. 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 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 Precompensation, 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 (Hard Disk Drive) 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 a standard feature of current IDE hard disk on the market because of its capability to support capacity larger than 528MB. Note that if a 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 the floppy drive type. The available settings and types supported by the mainboard are listed to 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. 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 CPU L2 Cache ECC Checking CPU L2 Cache ECC Checking Enabled Disabled This item lets you enable or disable L2 Cache ECC checking. BIOS Features à Processor Number Feature Processor Number Feature Enabled Disabled This item is used to enable or disable Pentium III CPU Number Feature. BIOS Features à Quick 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 From LAN First Boot From LAN First Enable Disabled This item is used to boot the system from a network server. 3-7 AWARD BIOS BIOS Features à Boot Sequence Boot Sequence A,C,SCSI C,A,SCSI C,CDROM,A CDROM,C,A CDROM,A,C D,A,SCSI E,A,SCSI F,A,SCSI SCSI,A,C SCSI,C,A C only LS/ZIP,C 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 LS: LS120 Zip: IOMEGA ZIP Drive 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 vice-versa. 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. 3-8 AWARD BIOS 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 (Chars/Sec) 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. BIOS Features à Typematic Delay (Msec) 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 . 3-9 AWARD BIOS 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. BIOS Features à Show Logo On Screen Show Logo On Screen Enabled Disabled This item lets you show or hide AOpen logo on the POST screen. 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. 3-10 AWARD BIOS 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. 3-11 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. 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 your system to be unstable if the setting is not correct for your system configuration. 3-12 AWARD BIOS Chipset Features à SDRAM CAS Latency Chipset Features à SDRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay SDRAM CAS Latency 2T 3T Auto These are timing of SDRAM CAS Latency and RAS to CAS Delay, calculated by clocks. They are important parameters affects SDRAM performance, default is Auto. If you install DIMMs with SPD and set this item to Auto, BIOS will automatically detect your DIMMs and then set to a appropriate timing; If you use DIMMs without SPD and set this item to Auto, BIOS will set it to 3/3.To make sure all of these settings in BIOS are correct, it is recommended to use DIMMs with SPD. Chipset Features à SDRAM RAS# Precharge SDRAM RAS# precharge 2T 3T Auto The RAS Precharge means the timing to inactive RAS and the timing for DRAM to do precharge before next RAS can be issued. RAS is the address latch control signal of DRAM row address. The default setting is Auto. Chipset Features à System BIOS Cacheable System BIOS Cacheable Enabled Disabled Enabling this item allows you to cache the system BIOS to further enhance system performance. Chipset Features à Video BIOS Cacheable Video BIOS Cacheable Enabled Disabled This item lets you cache Video RAM C000. Chipset Features à Video RAM Cacheable Video RAM Cacheable Enabled Disabled This item lets you cache Video RAM A000 and B000. 3-13 AWARD BIOS Chipset Features à 8 Bit I/O Recovery Time 8 Bit I/O Recovery Time 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 NA For some old I/O chips, after the execution of an I/O command, the device requires a certain amount of time (recovery time) before the execution of the next I/O command. Because of new generation CPU and mainboard chipset, the assertion of I/O command is faster, and sometimes shorter than specified I/O recovery time of old I/O devices. This item lets you specify the delay of 8-bit I/O command by count of ISA bus clock. If you find any unstable 8-bit I/O card, you may try to extend the I/O recovery time via this item. The BIOS default value is 4 ISA clock. If set to NA, the chipset will insert 3.5 system clocks. Chipset Features à 16 Bit I/O Recovery Time 16 Bit I/O Recovery Time 1 2 3 4 NA The same as 16-bit I/O recovery time. This item lets you specify the recovery time for the execution of 16bit I/O commands by count of ISA bus clock. If you find any of the installed 16-bit I/O cards unstable, try extending the I/O recovery time via this item. The BIOS default value is 1 ISA clocks. If set to NA, the chipset will automatically insert 3.5 system clocks. Chipset Features à Memory Hole At 15M-16M Memory Hole At 15M-16M Enabled Disabled This option lets you reserve system memory area for special ISA cards. The chipset accesses code/data of these areas from the ISA bus directly. Normally, these areas are reserved for memory mapped I/O card. Chipset Features à Passive Release Passive Release Enabled Disabled This item lets you control the Passive Release function of the PIIX4E chipset (Intel PCI to ISA brid ...