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Troubleshooting and Information

Sections
General Troubleshooting Tips Newsgroup Posting Tips
Temperature Alarm and Errors No POST
Benchmarking with SiSoft Sandra Lockups
Random Reboots Sound Cards (SB Live)
OpenGL and Diamond TNT2 Freeing Up IRQ's
Winbond Temperature Monitoring USB Issues
DMA and PIO Modes Clock Generator
Making a Temperature Probe Installing a Slotket
Beep Codes  

General Troubleshooting Tips

Go through the manual carefully. There are a lot of good notes and tips throughout and a troubleshooting guide at the end. Download it from Abit if needed.

Visit the "Tips from the Abit Newsgroup" link in "Troubleshooting". I add to it when I see useful tips but can't be there all the time. Nor can I always recognize good advice. :) Help me out by sending me an e-mail if you find a good one, especially if it solved a problem for you.

Try disabling all power management functions in the BIOS, jumpers 1 & 2, and Control Panel to see if it helps. Changing the Control Panel/Power Management function "Turn off monitor" to "Never" fixed display, lockup, and shutdown problems for me. Now to find out why.

From: M. Joel Guerra

The symptom you see may have an unexpected cause. The board won't boot, but it might be a metal post underneath the board that's shorting it, or a screw with a head too big that's doing the same thing. One guy returned two motherboards before sheepishly admitting he discovered he had a bad video card. One unusual symptom I had was Windows not recognizing the mouse at startup on one computer after I changed to a Kenwood CDROM drive. I now have to remove any CD before shutting the computer down to avoid the problem.

Another example is overclocking. In a LAN with seven systems, two Maxtor HDs and 5 Western Digital drives, the Maxtor-based systems cannot be overclocked more than 3% without reducing the UDMA settings. The WD-based systems all run 12% or higher. (Hint: It's not the motherboard's fault.)

Newsgroup Posting Tips

From: Stargazer
You are about to beat your head into the wall. Or maybe it's too late, and you are looking for bandages. I know it's frustrating, but before you post your question or complaint, please consider the following:

Have you looked at a FAQ for your motherboard? Here are a few:

BE6:http://members.xoom.com/abit_be6/
BE6-II/BF6:http://home.earthlink.net/~strayman/index.html
BH6:http://www.anomaly.org.au/bh6faq/
BP6:http://www.bp6.com
KA7:http://go.to/ka7faq
MS Knowledge Base:http://support.microsoft.com

Next, do a search through the newsgroup headers with keywords that match your problem, like "boot" or "POST" if you have booting problems, or "ACPI", "SCSI", "IDE", "floppy", "temp" or "temperature". Keep trying related terms, like "HPT", "Highpoint", "366" and "POS". Then read what others have said about the same or similar problems.

Okay, so you've read the FAQ and searched the newsgroup posts, but you didn't find the answer to your question. Here are some suggestions to help you get fast responses, and maybe even help. For your computer problem, anyway.

Know and follow netiquette. See http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/rfc1855.html , especially section 3.1 and 3.1.3 -- or do a search of "netiquette" on the Web. Go easy on the crossposting; keep a crosspost relevant to the newsgroups (e.g., the mobo and video card newgroups for a mobo/video card problem) and mention that you are crossposting. Crossposting abuse will get you slammed by very cross posters.

Choose a useful subject for your post. Don't say "Help!" or some variation on that theme; instead, ALWAYS include the type of motherboard (if mobo-related) and a couple of words about the problem. Examples: "KA7 and Linux -- LILO, SCHMILO", "BE6-II EMU10K BSOD" (we'll know what you mean), "My Beer-holder Broke!" (a la Homer S.).

In the body of your post, give a synopsis of your problem, and please, please, PLEASE include some detail about what your system has in it and what you've done to address the problem. You'll save time because we won't have to ask you what cards are in what slot, etc. This will also give us a clue that you have a clue.

If you see a post on the same problem you have, you can reply to it and state your similar situation. DON'T include unrelated questions -- submit those in separate posts. Prove to us that you can pass the Turing test.

Great! You've posted to a newsgroup! Now, please be patient. Only post the question once, and wait up to two days to see it appear -- some news servers are funky that way, and probably smell funky, too, if you know what I mean. If you don't see answers after a couple of days, you might try rephrasing and reposting. By keeping each post to a single issue, you increase the likelihood of a response.

Post your replies to a post in the SAME thread you started. Don't change the subject, or people will reply to the original post because they don't know you already have a solution. In your replies, please quote the relevant material of the post you are answering to give the rest of us some context, unless you have simply a line of thanks.

(The above also applies to those who would help. Many posters set "watches" on threads, and a subject change is considered a separate thread by some newsreaders.)

Give us feedback on our replies! Did it work or not work? Did you discover something new? Feedback is wonderful. And you don't need to gush; we know we're good. Well, some of us, anyway. Um, some of the time.

And if you keep getting the BSOD or POST failures, or "tidal" problems (those that seem to come and go), know that we've all been there, and know the frustration. Don't take yours out on the person trying to help, even if the suggestions don't work. (Thanks to Rusty Keeney)

--Joel

Temperature Alarm and Errors

From: Jesse Perry
Technical Supervisor
NATA Computer Technologies
WWW.NATACOMPUTERS.COM

Hello all,
I figured it was time to post this info since I have noticed everyone is experiencing the same problems with these damned thermal alarms going off. My company builds at least 300 systems based on Abit boards a month and here is what I have found:

Don't blame your chip.. blame your cooling fan and Abit for putting the resistors too close to the CPU slot! Retail CPU's work great.. why? because it doesn't have a retention mechanism sticking out of the back of the chip like a lot of the aftermarket CPU fans do. And THIS is what is causing the problem! Granted, you still get a false reading from these boards.. but no alarms with Retail CPU's or with slot converters.

We solved our alarm problems by using a CPU fan with a flat retention mechanism made of plastic (the Globalwin VGS08) whenever we put our generic cooler on, the metal plate in the back would sit on the row of resistors in the back of the CPU slot and wham.. damned alarm! For those of you having problems.. check your retention mechanism and I can pretty much assure you that it is sitting directly on top of those resistors. NOTE: this is just a temporary fix, this is hardware related and will not be resolved with a BIOS flash (unless it kills PC health) The resistors need to be moved or replaced on future boards to correct this problem completely.
I hope this was of some help.
There was a compatability problem in past BIOS and certain processors. I read at the newsgroup that turning the shutdown temperature up or flashing to the latest BIOS work. Use the temp cable to double-check the processor. Stick the end as close to the hot spot as you can. Of course when you first start it up and it's 400F you kind of know something's amiss. :)
From: M. Joel Guerra

Mr. Perry, Mr. Metz, Mr. Gehrke:

A plastic alternative to the metal clip worked for me. Thanks for passing on the observations, Mr. Perry.

I wish I could post to the Abit newsgroup instead of this personal email. But I have to report my experiences recently re: the faulty temperature readings with the BE6 II and Intel OEM (non-retail) CPUs. I am an EE by degree and was an electronics tech before that, just to establish a basis for the following. The next two paragraphs are background on the problem; skip them to save time.

I have several PCs in a network at home, and three of them have Abit motherboards, 2 BH6s and a BE6-II. I put the new low-cost OEM PIII 500 cartridge with Aavid heatsink/fan into the BE6-II, and started right off with an intermittent siren alarm. I knew it was a temperature alarm, so the first step was to check out the actual temp. The BIOS PC Health Status section reported an idle CPU temp of 61 degrees C. Motherboard Monitor 4.13 (by Alex van Kaam) in Windows 98SE reported about 66 degrees, but serious CPU-intensive applications would trip the 70-degree warning setting instantly. The CPU heatsink wasn't that hot, but I saw a thick thermal pad between the CPU and the heatsink. That had to go. A little thermal paste later, I'd lowered the CPU idle temp over 10 degrees. But the applications still set off the alarm.

I raised the alarm settings, but this worried me enough to try to get answers. The Abit website recommended the newsgroup, where I discovered I wasn't alone. Everyone with a OEM PIII-500 Katmai CPU seemed to have the same problem. What's worse, many were reporting system lock-ups after hearing noises, lock-ups that were probably due to the BIOS reacting to a measured temperature in excess of the Shutdown temperature setting. My frustration kicked in when I tried to email these individuals to offer suggestions, only to have the email bounce, probably due to their natural fear of spammers.

Oh, well. I could live with the fake bios readings by setting the trip points high enough. But then I read Mr. Perry's post. I checked my system; the metal clip wasn't touching the capacitors. I wondered about fields, and what kind of impact on the thermal diode's characteristics we'd see if the heatsink were electrically charged. With the subsequent newsgroup discussion, I decided to try out Mr. Perry's suggestion and report back.

The first thing I noticed this time was the intense pressure on the silicon bottom of the chip, caused by the metal retaining clip. If folks aren't careful removing it, they might break the silicon due to unequal stress. But I removed the clip, smeared more thermal paste on the chip, and then carefully fastened the heatsink back to the cartridge with eight nylon cable ties: four pushed through the heatsink holes into the cartridge holes, and the other four's clips attached to the first four to evenly clamp the heatsink to the cartridge. I had a cable-tie tightener tool to gently apply pressure to each in turn until the heatsink did not move, keeping it aligned all the time as I did so. The end result is like plastic rivets, no wraparounds. The Intel PIII datasheet (PIII-Specs24445205.pdf, available at Intel's website) says that the force should not exceed 20 lbf (pound-feet? Shouldn't that be lbs/sq.ft.?). The force from the plastic rivets is far less than the force due to the metal clip.

Results with PIII-500 (original at 500 MHz, others overclocked to 560 MHz):

BIOS, idle, PC Health Status, System Temp 1 = 27 degrees C: Original: 61 degrees C Replacement of thermal pad with thermal paste: 51 C Plastic clips: 43 C

Windows, idle, reported by Motherboard Monitor 4.13 (no compensation):
Original: 66 degrees C
Thermal paste: 56 C
Plastic clips: 46 C

Windows, peak, CPU-intensive app (MBM 4.13 one-second samples):
Original: >75 degrees C (didn't leave it running long enough to find peak :-)
Thermal paste: 75 C (i.e. 75 C BIOS warning triggered occasionally)
Plastic clips: 56 C

That's a 20 degree C improvement even after overclocking vs. the original non-overclocked OEM package, and a greater improvement in the case of the CPU-intensive application. The measured temperatures are much closer to reality, according to the touch test.

According to the PIII datasheet, the PIII-500 is rated at 28 watts, so even with a heatsink you'll see a pretty good temperature rise above ambient anyway. I'm happy now.

I don't see how a BIOS fix would be anything but a workaround. Why did it work? I honestly don't know. Mechanical stress reduction? Elimination of capacitive coupling? Maybe there's a Hall effect as a consequence of the board layout and the metal clip, or metal clip with fan's magnetic field, that changed the characteristics of the thermal diode on the chip. Eliminate one factor, and make a big difference. Also, don't forget that some of the improvement came from the replacement of that blasted thermal pad.

I've copied you, Jeff, for the possible sake of the FAQ for the BE6-II. Thanks for attempting to produce one. I wish you well in getting the posters to read it -- many don't seem to be searching the previous newsgroup posts for possible answers to their problems.

Best regards to you all, and thanks again! --M. Joel Guerra
From: Timothy Metz

DIMM design was interesting, thanks for the info. I tried moving them around and even then just keeping one in the furthest slot, all to no avail. I know the Asus P2B series and at least one of the Gigabyte BX series do NOT use the internal P2/3 thermal sensor. I wonder if this is any indication of it being problematic. With the Asus you must buy/construct a sensor yourself and Gigabyte has one mounted on a post next to the cpu slot that sits right under the heatsink. Do you use motherboard monitor (win32)? Referring to my original post, the temp readings are correct in Linux, where I have to configure the sensors as thermal diode, or one of two thermal resistors with different betas. I can also choose to monitor through the isa bus or some other bus -- i2c or smbus? (I'm in windows right now so I can't check). Motherboard monitor reads correctly as long as I set sensor2 to P2 thermal diode, if I just leave it at winbond2 I get the same approx 30 Celsius too high.

> MBM is probably directly reading the registers, while the monitoring chip
> is generating an interrupt when the set temperature is exceeded. I'm
> finding it hard to believe that the real temperature could briefly spike
> like that.

agreed

> How do you know Linux is showing the _real_ temperature? I assume you mean
> it's showing the temperature as indicated in the BIOS. My highest
> temperature readings come from a CPU-intensive application, but as soon as
> I exit the app, MBM says everything is pretty normal. I have to go and
> look at the up/down list to see the peak.

I put the thermal sensor in a space between the cpu and heatsink and although not an exact measurement I imagine it is fairly close. There is some interesting reading in the Linux package. If you get bored search for lmsensors or lm_sensors and read the docs, it's quite technical and you may enjoy it (or maybe not... that life thing) ;-)

> I'm thinking about adding more capacitance to the D+ line, just as a test.
> I'm also moving the system to a chassis with a 300-watt supply (vs. 250)
> and much more cooling support. (Sometimes I remember that I used to have a
> life.) I'll keep you posted.

Life??? I thought this was life (to the determent of my wife) ;-)

Thanks to all who patiently followed this (especially Jesse) maybe it will be worth a revisit later

Tim
From: M. Joel Guerra
Subject: Update

Hi, again. I'm the guy with the OEM 500 and the plastic "rivets". Here's an update on the "BE6-II and OEM PIII processor temperature" problem.

New theory: The thermal diode measures temperature, with an offset that varies according to the mechanical stress on the silicon die. Large swings in temperature are normal.

Item: While replacing the thermal pad with thermal grease does improve heat transfer somewhat (remember that the thermal pad is a heat conductor too), it also eliminates the pad's thickness, with a corresponding drop in retaining clip pressure.

Item: Using nylon "rivets" reduces the pressure of the heatsink on the die still further, which does not improve thermal conductivity, yet my temperature readings dropped even more.

Item: Gently grasping the heatsink and CPU cartridge between my fingers and thumb on the side nearest the power supply did not affect the temperature, but squeezing it a bit resulted in an immediate rise of about 7 degrees C (according to MBM 4.13), and releasing it resulted in an instant return to normal. NOTE: This is dangerous and can crack the silicon, and may have no effect if the metal clip is still in place.

Some speculation: Shear forces on the heatsink/cartridge pair might alter the distribution of the pressure on the die, which might make matters better or worse. The clips themselves might vary in the pressure that they apply. (The OEM Coppermine I bought had a VISIBLE gap between the thermal pad and part of the chip!) So some with clips might not have a problem, while others see 95 degrees C. Intel in their retail units are more likely to adhere to their pressure spec.

More speculation: It's not magnetic fields, or there shouldn't have been that great an improvement just removing the pad and keeping the fan. It's not the Abit BE6-II motherboard, or Asus would not be having EXACTLY the same problem on their P3B-F and P3V4X boards (check out alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus). It's interesting that the MSI BXMaster board uses the same W83782D chip, but they use a thermistor probe underneath the processor for the CPU temp. I suspect the newest Abit and Asus BIOSes filter and integrate the readings, because it's normal for the CPU die to rapidly change temperature briefly. We just didn't know that it did, because the use of the CPU's on-board thermal diode is a new thing.

And any OEM chip, including the new Coppermines, can have this problem. The Coppermines have the advantage that they run cooler (.18 micron vs. .25), so they are less likely to trip the temp alarm.

Regards.

--Joel

P.S. People who say the heatsink is barely warm are right about the heatsink. The thermal contact between the really hot processor and the "barely warm" heatsink might be very poor.

P.P.S. I've discovered that lbf means "pounds (of) force", not pounds per sq.ft.

UPDATE 5/1/2000:

This is an update on the OEM CPU temperature issue. I've concluded that the high temperature reading is due to both poor thermal conductivity with the default pad (replacing it with some thermal paste/grease results in a 10-degree C improvement) _AND_ due to a large unequal stress on the processor by the OEM heatsink clip. This latter can make a small or big difference, depending on the amount of stress.

If you look at the SECC-2 cartridge, OEM version, you will note a plastic back with a stylistic slope in the middle of this back, sloping down to the recessed Intel hologram decal on the right. The Aavid heatsink, a very common OEM solution, uses a single bent metal clip whose springy center fits right into this slope. The result due to the slope is that the spring is tilted so that there is much more pressure on the left side of the cartridge (still looking at the back) than on the right.

I had fixed the problem by eliminating the spring clip with a hack of plastic wire ties, but I hated the lack of reliability the plastic provided. So I reduced the pressure of the original clip by carefully flexing the spring, making it less springy. I made sure to keep it evenly balanced. When I reinserted the clip through the cartridge and heatsink holes, I noticed that the heatsink was now tilted, closer to the right side of the board (looking now from the front). That's when I discovered the slope issue.

The clip with its original spring tension was bending the circuit board, but definitely putting more stress on the side of the processor closest to the power supply. If you look at my earlier message, you'll see that squeezing the heatsink/cartridge combination on this side resulted in a rise in temperature. The original clip's uneven tension makes this the default condition! You can see this by removing the heatsink and observing how the clip fits against the plastic back -- either way, there is an obvious tilt.

The problem doesn't occur with the Cooler Master heatsink and clip, and it's obvious to see why: the metal-and-plastic clip's tension is more evenly distributed. Jesse Perry's solution involved the Globalwin VGS08 with a flat plastic retention mechanism. So either replace the heatsink that has the bad kind of clip, or insure that the pressure is evenly distributed (and reducing the pressure a bit if possible; that's part of the problem, too*). People are already doing this; now we know why it works.

And just fiddling with the BIOS temperature trip points is a Kaopectate solution, treating a symptom rather than the cause -- the problem is still there!

Regards. --M. Joel Guerra

*The pressure is often great enough to bend the circuit board. In some cases the case's plastic tabs can push on the top of the heatsink so that it leaves a V-shaped gap between heatsink and processor.

No POST

A bad new motherboard is rare. A computer not POSTing is usually due to something else.

Make sure the power supply is healthy. Today's computers are power hungry! If you need a new one get a 300 watt high quality unit.

Mine did not POST when first built due to using an older (about 2 years) memory stick. PC100 fixed it right up.

Make sure the keyboard is not plugged into the mouse port.

Check that the motherboard is not touching the case anywhere and shorting out, like underneath and around the edges. Remove metal mounts that are not needed for screwing it down. The motherboard mounting hole rings are OK to be grounded as long as the mounts/screws do not touch adjacent parts.

Mis-seated processors, memory, power supply connector and video cards are major culprits. They have to be seated quite firmly. Check that card mounting screws are not lifting the card out of the slot.

Try it with a PCI video card.

Check if the fans are running. Is it plugged in? :)

Jeff

Benchmarking with SiSoft Sandra

Best regards
Jan Fredrik Lund
jflund@c2i.net
Norway

Ok, How to make SiSoft test your brand new UDMA66 disk the way it should be tested. Open disc bench, click options, disable "Use Cache" then run your test. What SiSoft is doing with Cache enabled is that she creates a Cache file on your disc (about 80mb). this has no effect what so ever. Disable it. And when you that, you will see that SiSoft reports about the same as HDTach.

Here is my results with the following system.

Abit BE6-2
Western Digital 13.6Gb UDMA66 7200rpm.
128Mb 133MHz RAM
P3-500mhz
The disc is attached to UDMA66 and working fine.

SiSoft Sandra: As you can see, this is UDMA66

Okay, and what about HDTach ?

HDTach: Conclusion:
Disable "Use Cache" in SiSoft.

Good Luck...

Lockups

One of the most common reasons for a lockup on a new machine has to do with the UDMA-66 setup. I assume if you are on IDE 3 the cable is the 80 conducter variety with the right ends used and the HDD is enabled for ATA66.

On mine if the HPT drivers that put "SCSI Controllers" in Device Manager (HPT v1.22 are current as I write this) are installed while on IDE 1 all sorts of troubles occur. To fix this after the drivers install and it reboots go into the BIOS and disable the "Ultra DMA-66 IDE Controller".

If the OS HDD is on IDE 3 make sure the controller is enabled, and change the "Second Boot Device" to "UDMA66". Save and exit then enter the HPT BIOS with ctrl/h and set it to UDMA 4. Mine defaulted to the right one.
From: M. Joel Guerra

If the lockup is preceded by a siren-like sound, your system is shutting down to protect the processor from overheating.

Another lockup possibility comes from RAM problems, especially if one is overclocking. Try resetting all the memory RAS/CAS settings to 3 instead of 2, and set the SDRAM Leadoff Command value to 4 instead of 3. (Those using the QJ BIOS don't have this option because the leadoff is already forced to 4 for increased compatibility with the many kinds of SDRAM.) This does slow down your memory access a bit, although many applications will benefit from the faster bus and processor to overcome this. Otherwise, you might look into (good) PC133 RAM.

Lockups or registry errors may also occur if you add additional RAM sticks to your system. More sticks mean more "loading" on the address and data lines, with slower rise times and increased propagation delays as a result, even though the individual RAM sticks work just fine by themselves. Changing the settings to more tolerant values may fix the problem. Or registered memory might work, by throwing in yet another wait state. Another user recommends upping your chipset voltage [+3.3v] to 3.4v as well -- or even 3.5v or 3.6v if you have a GeForce 256 board -- since the additional memory is drawing more power.

If you are using Windows 98 and your system's RAM is greater than 128MB, Windows 98 is reportedly (see Symantec's support for Norton Diagnostics) not very good at managing cache memory when more than 128MB of RAM is available. You can try adding the following lines below [VCACHE] in SYSTEM.INI if you have more than 128MB:

MinFileCache=5120
MaxFileCache=131072

Random Reboots

From: anonymous
Subject: Re: ARRGGGGHHHHH..... Random reboots driving me crazier.

This just happened to me last weekend, after 1 year of no problems. In the middle of just about anything (no pattern), the screen would go black and the computer would shut off. It turned out to be a loose fitting power trunk, that is, where the power cable from the ATX power supply snaps into the mother board. Good luck... hopes it's this easy for you, too.

Sound Cards (SB Live)

Please note that the latest drivers from Creative seem to fix most SB Live troubles.

Subject: Re: SB Live X-GAMER - unable to boot Win98
From: Fulldogg

I disabled com2 in the bios and everything worked fine. Card and com2 using same memory address.
From: M. Joel Guerra

If you are running a Coppermine processor (500/550/600/533 E/EB/B, or anything above 600 MHz) and you have a SoundBlaster Live-based card, you might be seeing EMUxxxx.VXD blue-screen errors. Then get the patch from Creative Labs, currently at http://www.soundblaster.com/drivers/.
From: Jager

Here is a tip for installing SBlive! on BE6 II with Win98se :)

I purchased yesterday the famous BE6 II and Celeron 433, and replaced my trusty MS6163 and Celeron 366 :) But, during booting the soundcard didn`t want to initialize ... I got the window which says: "Multimedia PCI device found", but it could not find the dang drivers !!! I pointed with "Browse" to the directory with the drivers on the SBLive CD, but win could not find them !! It said: "The location specified does not contain the drivers for your hardware", or something like that !!! I removed the soundcard from the SYSTEM in control panel, but after reboot the same thing happened :(

Here is the solution:

It is necessary to MANUALLY specify that you want to install a soundcard in "Add new hardware", and point to the drivers dir on CD. After that Win should say that those drivers are not designed for your hardware, but you must ignore that ! After installing the drivers on this way, everything worked fine :)

P.S. On win2000 the card worked perfectly from the first bootup :) .... interesting :)

OpenGL and Diamond TNT2

NOTE: The latest TNT2 Diamond drivers run OpenGL fine for me.

Jeff

A fix from Diamond's web site, although I found the value to be 400000 already and not where indicated in the registry:

Problem
I've installed the Viper V770 and my OpenGL performance is very slow (like a slideshow).

Resolution
To resolve the issue with the Viper V770 and slow OpenGL performance, please try the following:

1. Open the Registry Editor
2. Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\NVIDIA CORPORATION\RIVA TNT\OpenGL
3. Double click on 'TexStagingBufferSize'
4. Change the value to '400000'
5. Close the registry editor

*Note - This only applies if you are suffering from extremely slow (less than 5 frames per second) OpenGL performance.

Also, please do not attempt this fix if you are not comfortable with editing the registry. Even if you are comfortable with this process, we recommend exporting a backup copy of the registry before making any modifications.
Product Line
Viper
Date Created
05/18/1999 08:42:14

Freeing Up IRQ's

From: M. Joel Guerra

If you need to free up IRQs, start with devices that you don't use. For example, you can reclaim an IRQ for each serial port you don't use. Just set the corresponding Onboard Serial Port to Disabled in the BIOS under Integrated Peripherals.

Winbond Temperature Monitoring

From: M Joel Guerra:

HW Doctor doesn't work in Win2K.

Motherboard Monitor (MBM) is a great freeware program that works with the Be6-II or BF6 motherboards, on Win 95/98/NT/2000. Get it from:

http://members.brabant.chello.nl/~a.vankaam/mbm/

The Winbond 2 port on the BE6-II/BF6 monitors the on-chip PII/PIII Thermal Diode (CPU). It doesn't matter which sensor in MBM you use for it, but be sure to use "Winbond 2 - P2 thermal diode".

Configuration suggestion:

Sensor 1: Winbond 2 - P2 thermal diode
Sensor 2: Winbond 1 (optional TSYS2 thermistor)
Sensor 3: Winbond 3 (case)

In the Names section of the Visual tab, you can then assign "CPU" to Sensor 1, "Video" (or wherever you've placed the thermistor) to Sensor 2, and "System" to Sensor 3, if you want.

USB Issues

From: M Joel Guerra

Go to the following link, to download updated drivers made by Intel for the 440BX. These drivers also included updated USB drivers.

http://developer.intel.com/design/software/drivers/platform/inf.htm

DMA and PIO Modes

From: M Joel Guerra


This is from Adrian Wong's BIOS Optimization Guide:

PIO Data Transfer Mode Maximum Throughput (MB/s)
PIO Mode 0 3.3
PIO Mode 1 5.2
PIO Mode 2 8.3
PIO Mode 3 11.1
PIO Mode 4 16.6


DMA Data Transfer Mode Maximum Throughput (MB/s)
DMA Mode 0 4.16
DMA Mode 1 13.3
DMA Mode 2 16.6
UDMA 2 (UltraDMA 33) 33.3
UDMA 4 (UltraDMA 66) 66.7


Multiword DMA Maximum Throughput (MB/s)
MWDMA 0 4.2
MWDMA 1 13.3
MWDMA 2 16.6


From: Nickels:

UDMA1 = Ultra25 (never used)
UDMA2 = Ultra33
UDMA3 = Ultra50 (never used)
UDMA4 = Ultra66

Recent addition: UDMA5, 99.9 MB/s

Clock Generator

From: M. Joel Guerra

The clock generator for the BE6-II/BF6 is the Realtek RTM520-39D.

H. Oda's SoftFSB may not work with this clock generator.

Try CpuBoost from the manufacturer of the clock generator:

http://www.realtek.com.tw/

(Thanks to TONE for the CpuBoost info.)

Making a Temperature Probe

From: Chelsea Oilman

Go to Radio Shack and buy a 10k ohm Thermistor part# 271-110A and plug it into a spare cd audio cable if you have one. Then plug the cable into the TSYS2 header and your all set.

Installing a Slotket

From: Adam Zilinskas

Adam Zilinskas
SolutionsIQ
aez at msn.com

Beep Codes

The following was taken from Abit's FAQ/Common Questions and M. Joel Guerra. Thanks Joel!
Despite the beep codes listed on Abit's site, the main beep code in the Award BIOS is one long beep followed by two short beeps, which indicates a problem initializing or accessing the video card. Other errors will likely be shown on the display.

The siren sound and the occasional "bip" or "be-boop" while running indicate an over-temp condition. In the latter case, the system is exceeding the trip temp setting in BIOS only momentarily.

Joel
1-DRAM refresh is not working.

2-Parity circuit is not working or parity status bits are not cleared when parity is disabled.

3-First 64k memory test failure. Address line test (A0..A15) failure.

4-System timer is not counting properly.

5-Processor register/flag test failure.

6-8042 keyboard controller gate-A20 error.

7-Processor exception error encountered.

8-Display memory R/W test failure (NON-FATAL)

9-ROM-BIOS checksum error.

10-OS Shutdown Register R/W error.
Created by Jeff Davidson
Boca Raton, Florida, USA
© Febuary 10, 2000