Chapter 1 Overview MX6B EZ is a new generation Pentium II / Pentium III based system board that utilizes Intel 82440ZX/BX AGPset on Micro ATX PCI/ISA platform. This AGPset is designed for the Pentium II / Pentium III / Celeron CPU, and supports new architectures such as a high speed AGP graphics port, SDRAM, Ultra DMA/33, Bus master IDE and USB ports. It has three Dual in-line Memory Module (DIMM) slots that allow to install SDRAM memory and expand up to a maximum of 512MB. Since the cache is on the CPU card (connector SLOT1), there is no secondary level cache onboard. Also, MX6B EZ uses a 2M bit Flash ROM BIOS to reserve for future new functions. In addition to the above features, MX6B EZ also implements plenty of special features as follows. Jumper-less Design Pentium II / Pentium III / Celeron VID signal and SMbus clock generator provide CPU voltage auto-detection and allows the user to set the CPU frequency through the CMOS setup, therefore no jumpers or switches are used. The correct CPU information is saved into the EEPROM. With these technologies, the disadvantages of the Pentium based jumper-less designs are eliminated. There will be no worry of wrong CPU voltage detection and no need to re-open the housing in case of CMOS battery loss. The only jumper left is to clear the CMOS, which is a safety hook if you forget the password. Full-range CPU Core Voltage This motherboard supports a CPU core voltage from 1.3V to 3.5V, that can be applied to various CPU types in future. Battery-less Motherboard This motherboard implements EEPROM and a special circuit (patent applied) that allows you to save your current CPU and CMOS Setup configurations without the need of a battery. The RTC (real time clock) can also keep running as long as the power cord is plugged. If you lose your CMOS data by accident, you can just reload the CMOS configurations from EEPROM and the system will recover as usual. APM Suspend To Hard Drive "Immediately" turns on system and goes back to the original screen before power down. You can resume your original work directly from hard disk without go through the Win95 booting process and run 1-1 Overview your application again. Suspend to Hard Drive saves your current work (system status, memory image) into hard disk. Note that you have to use VESA compatible PCI VGA, Sound Blaster compatible sound card with APM driver, for Suspend to Hard Drive to work properly. ACPI Suspend to Hard Drive The conventional "Suspend to Hard Drive" function is a private design of AOpen motherboards, the requirement to run it is a BIOS revision and correct chipset that supports this function. However, nowadays "Suspend to Hard Drive" has been become widely known as the "S4 - Hibernation" state defined in the ACPI specification; in this case not only the BIOS itself but also the operation system (i.e. Windows98) and even the display card are involved in the execution of this function. With regard to how to implement this function, please refer to section "1.4 ACPI Suspend to Hard Drive". 0V Wake On Modem In conjunction with ATX soft power On/Off, it is possible to have the system totally power off and wakeup to automatically answer a phone call to serve as an answering machine or to send/receive a fax. The most important break through is not only an externally cased modem but also an internal modem card can be used to support Wake On Modem. The MX6B EZ and MP56 internal modem card implement a special circuit (patent applied) to make sure the modem card works properly without any power. Wake On LAN This feature is very similar as the Wake On Modem feature, but it is through a local area network. To use the Wake On LAN function, you must have a network card that supports this feature and have installed proper network management software. Wake On RTC Timer The Wake Up Timer is more like an alarm, which wakes up and powers on your system at a pre-defined time for a specific application. It can be set to wake up everyday or on specific date within a month. The date/time is accurate to within a second. Wake On Keyboard This function allows you to power on your system by clicking the hot key that you specified. Besides, you also may disable the function of power button and let the system can only be powered on through the preset keys (like a password). Wake On Mouse This function allows you power on the system by clicking a specified mouse button twice successively. High Efficiency Synchronous Switching Regulator Most of the current switching designs are Asynchronous mode, which from a technical point of view, still consumes very high power and generates heat. This motherboard implements a high efficient synchronous switching design so that the temperature of MOS FET is far less than the Schottky diode of the asynchronous design. CPU and Housing Fan Monitoring The MX6B EZ has one more "fan monitoring" function to prevent system overheat. There are two fan connectors. 1-2 Overview One is for the CPU and the other can be an extra housing fan. The system will report an alarm fan malfunction through utility software such as Hardware Monitoring Utility. CPU Thermal Protection The MX6B EZ has a special thermal detection circuit to provide warning through application software when the temperature is higher than a predefined value. System Voltage Monitoring Further more, the MX6B EZ implements a voltage monitoring system, As you turn on your system, this smart design will continue to monitor your system's working voltage. If any of the system's voltage is over the component's standard an alarm will be sounded through utility software such as a Hardware Monitoring Utility for a warning to user. AC Power Auto Recovery A traditional ATX system should remain at power off stage when AC power resumes from power failure. This design is inconvenient for a network server or workstation, without an UPS, that needs to keep power-on. This motherboard implements an AC Power Auto Recovery function to solve this problem. In BIOS Setup settings if this item is set to "Enabled" the system will automatically power-on after AC power resumes. PC99 Ready For user's convenience in installing the PC system, AOpen adopts the recommended PC99 color scheme in all connectors that mount on this motherboard. FCC DoC Certificate The MX6B EZ has passed the FCC DoC test. The radiation is very low, you can use any kind of housing. Powerful Utility Software AOpen Bonus Pack CD disc contains many useful utilities, such as Norton Antivirus, AOchip, Hardware Monitoring Utility, etc. Note: This motherboard is battery-less, that means the RTC (real time clock) can continue running without a battery as long as the power cord is plugged. But in case of power failure or the power cord being unplugged, you will need to reset the date and time from the "Standard CMOS Setup" section of the BIOS Setup. For more information, please see "Chapter 3 BIOS Setup". 1-3 Overview 1.1 Specifications Micro ATX 244 mm x 220 mm Intel Pentium II / Pentium III / Celeron Processor SDRAM, 168-pin DIMM x3, maximum 512MB. On the CPU card (Slot1 connector) Intel 82440ZX/BX AGPset ESS Solo-1 ISA x1, PCI x 3 and AGP x1 Two serial ports UART 16C550 compatible, and the 3rd UART for IR function. One parallel port supports standard parallel port (SPP), enhanced parallel port (EPP) or extended capabilities port (ECP). Floppy interface supports 3.5 inches drives with 720KB, 1.44MB or 2.88MB format or 5.25 inches drives with 360KB, 1.2MB format Dual-channel IDE interface support maximum 4 IDE hard disks or CDROM, mode 4 , bus master hard disk drives and Ultra DMA/33 mode hard drives are also supported. Two USB ports supported by USB bracket, the BIOS also supports USB driver to simulate legacy keyboard. Mini-Din PS/2 mouse connector onboard. Mini-Din PS/2 keyboard connector onboard. RTC within Intel PIIX4E chipset. Lithium (CR-2032) battery is an option, no battery is needed if power cord is plugged. AWARD Plug-and-Play, 2M bit Flash ROM BIOS. Multi-language versions supported. Form Factor Board Size CPU System Memory Second-level Cache Chipset Onboard Audio Expansion Slots Serial Port Parallel Port Floppy Interface IDE Interface USB Interface PS/2 Mouse Keyboard RTC and Battery BIOS 1-4 Overview 1.2 APM Suspend to Hard Drive Suspend to Hard Drive saves your current work (system status, memory and screen image) into hard disk, and then the system can be totally power off. Next time, when power is on, you can resume your original work directly from hard disk within few seconds without go through the Win95 booting process and run your application again. If your memory is 16MB, normally, you need to reserve at least 16MB HDD space to save your memory image. Note that you have to use VESA compatible PCI VGA (AOpen PV70/PT70), Sound Blaster compatible sound card and sound driver that supports APM (AOpen AW32/AW35) for Suspend to Hard Drive to work properly. Of course, we recommend choosing AOpen products for best compatibility. To use Suspend to Hard Drive: 1. Go into BIOS setup, Power Management à Suspend Mode Option, select "Suspend to Disk". 2. Go into BIOS setup, PNP/PCI Configuration à PnP OS Installed, select "No". This can give BIOS the capability to allocate system resources for Suspend to Hard Drive. 3. Boot up your system into DOS command prompt. If you are Win'95 user, Please restart your Windows 95 under "Command Prompt" by pressing "F8" while system shows "Windows 95 Starting ...". Choose "Safe Mode Command Prompt Only" from selection so that system will start in DOS command prompt. 4. Copy AOZVHDD.EXE to the root directory of your C: drive. 5. Option 1: Use /file switch (applied to FAT16 file system): Please use following command to create a hidden file in the root directory of your hard disk for Suspend to Hard Drive to save the system status and memory image. C:>AOZVHDD /c /file Please make sure that you have enough continuous HDD space for creating this hidden file. For example, if you have 32MB of system memory and 4MB of VGA memory, you need at least 36MB (32MB + 4MB) of continuous HDD space. If AOZVHDD failed to allocate the HDD space, you may run "DEFRAG" Utility or "Disk Defragmenter" which come with MSDOS or Win'95 to free HDD space. 1-5 Overview Option2: Use /partition switch (applied to FAT16/FAT32 file system): To create a separate partition for Suspend to Hard Drive, please make sure you have reserved a free partition. We suggest you reserve the free partition which space is appropriate for your future memory expansion. For example, if you have 32MB of system memory and 4MB of VGA memory currently, but you plan to upgrade system memory to 64MB in the near future, then you may reserve a 68MB (64MB+4MB) space by using a disk utility (such as fdisk). Next, use following command to create a suspend partition: C:>AOZVHDD /c /partition If there is no extra free partition and you don't want your data lost, please do not use this partition method. 6. After creating above partition or hidden file, please reboot your system. 7. Push suspend switch (momentary mode) or use Win95 Suspend icon to force system goes into Suspend to Hard Drive mode and then turn system power off by power switch of your power supply. 8. Next time when you turn on your system, it will resume to your original work automatically. Warning: Note that Intel Bus Master and Ultra DMA/33 IDE driver are not fully compatible with Suspend to Hard Drive function, installing these drivers may cause the system unstable. Under this situation, please uninstall the drivers. Warning: This function does not support SCSI hard disks. 1-6 Overview Tip: The following VGA cards have been tested & recognized as VESA compatible VGA device. AOpen PV90 (Trident 9680) AOpen PT60 (S3 Virge/BIOS R1.00-01) AOpen PV60 (S3 Tiro64V+) AOpen PT70 (S3 Virge/DX) ProLink Trident GD-5440 ProLink Cirrus GD-5430 ProLink Cirrus GD-5446 ATI Mach 64 GX ATI 3D RAGE II Diamond Stealth64D (S3 868) Diamond Stealth64V (S3 968) KuoWei ET-6000 ATI 3D RAGE PRO 2x (AGP) PLOTECH 3D IMAGE 9850 (AGP) CARDEX S3 Virge/GX (AGP) Tip: The following sound cards have been tested OK for Suspend to Hard Drive. AOpen AW32 AOpen AW35 AOpen MP32 Creative SB 16 Value PnP Creative SB AWE32 PnP ESS 1868 PnP If your sound card can not work after resume from Suspend to Hard Drive, check your sound card vendor see if there is driver to support APM, and install it again. Note: The USB function has not been tested for Suspend to Hard Drive. If you find any unstable problem, please go into BIOS, Integrated Peripherals à USB Legacy Support. Disable the USB Legacy function. 1-7 Overview 1.3 ACPI Suspend to Hard Drive For a detailed installation procedure please refer to the following procedure to enable ACPI Suspend to Hard Drive on the AOpen MX6B EZ motherboard. First please check if your system meets the following requirements, then follow the procedure step by step. System Requirement 1. AOZVHDD.EXE ...