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, 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 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 Standard CMOS à Standard CMOS à Standard CMOS à Type Auto User None 1 2 ... 45 Primary Master à Type Primary Slave à Type Secondary Master à Type Secondary Slave à Type 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 (PowerOn 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 Standard CMOS à Standard CMOS à Standard CMOS à Mode Auto Normal LBA Large Primary Master à Mode Primary Slave à Mode Secondary Master à Mode Secondary Slave à Mode 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. 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 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 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 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 drive 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. 3-7 AWARD BIOS 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 (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. 3-8 AWARD BIOS 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. 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. 3-9 AWARD BIOS BIOS Features à BIOS Features à BIOS Features à BIOS Features à BIOS Features à BIOS Features à C8000-CBFFF Shadow Enabled Disabled C800-CBFF Shadow CC00-CFFF Shadow D000-D3FF Shadow D400-D7FF Shadow D800-DBFF Shadow DC00-DFFF Shadow 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. 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 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. Chipset Features à DRAM Leadoff Timing DRAM Leadoff Timing 11/7/3/4 10/6/3/3 11/7/4/4 10/6/4/3 The Leadoff means the timing of first memory cycle in the burst read or write. Actually, this item controls only page miss read/write leadoff timing and the clocks of RAS precharge and RAS to CAS delay. The four digital represent Read Leadoff/ Write Leadoff/ RAS Precharge/ RAS to CAS delay. For example, default is 10/6/3/3, which means you have 10-x-x-x DRAM page miss read and 6-x-x-x DRAM write, with 3 clocks RAS precharge and 3 clocks RAS to CAS delay. 3-12 AWARD BIOS Chipset Features à DRAM Read Burst (EDO/FP) DRAM Read Burst (EDO/FP) x444/x444 x333/x444 x222/x333 Read Burst means to read four continuous memory cycles on four predefined addresses from the DRAM. The default value is x222/x333 for 60ns EDO or FPM (Fast Page Mode) DRAM. Which means the 2nd,3rd and 4th memory cycles are 2 CPU clocks for EDO and 3 clocks for FPM. The value of x is the timing of first memory cycle and depends on the "DRAM Leadoff Timing" setting. Chipset Features à DRAM Write Burst Timing DRAM Write Burst Timing x444 x333 x222 Write Burst means to write four continuous memory cycles on four predefined addresses to the DRAM. This item sets the DRAM write timing of the 2nd,3rd and 4th memory cycles. There is no difference of EDO and FPM DRAM on the write burst timing. The value of x depends on the "DRAM Leadoff Timing" setting. Chipset Features à Fast EDO Lead Off Fast EDO Lead Off Enabled Disabled This item enables fast EDO read timing, results 1 clock pull-in for read leadoff latency of EDO read cycles. It must be Disabled, if any FPM DRAM is installed. Chipset Features à Refresh RAS# Assertion Refresh RAS# Assertion 5 Clks 4 Clks This item controls the number of clocks RAS is asserted for refresh cycle. 3-13 AWARD BIOS Chipset Features à DRAM Page Idle Timer DRAM Page Idle Timer 2 Clks 4 Clks 6 Clks 8 Clks This item determines the amount of time in CPU clocks that DRAM page will be close after CPU becomes idle. Chipset Features à DRAM Enhance Paging DRAM Enhance Paging Enabled Disabled When Enabled, TX chipset will keep DRAM page open as long as possible according to enhanced method. Chipset Features à SDRAM (CAS Lat/RAS-to-CAS) SDRAM(CAS Lat/RAS-to-CAS) 2/2 3/3 These are timing of SDRAM CAS Latency and RAS to CAS Delay, calculated by clocks. They are important parameters affects SDRAM performance, default is 2 clocks. If your SDRAM has unstable problem, change 2/2 to 3/3. Chipset Features à SDRAM Speculative Read SDRAM Speculative Read Enabled Disabled Enable this item reduce one clock of SDRAM read leadoff timing by presenting the SDRAM read request before the controller chip decodes the final memory target. This Item must be Disabled if more than one DIMM is installed in the system. Chipset Features à System BIOS Cacheable System ...