Alienware MJ-12 X2 User Manual
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Alienware MJ-12 X2 User Manual

Alienware MJ-12 X2 User Manual

Alienware mj-12 x2: supplementary guide
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Summary of Contents for Alienware MJ-12 X2

  • Page 1 Alienware X2 motherboard User’s Manual...

  • Page 2: Table Of Contents

    Chapter 1: General specifications ... 4 1.1 Specifications summary... 5 1.2 Motherboard features ... 7 Chapter 2: Hardware information ... 9 2.1 Board overview... 10 2.1.1 The board... 10 2.1.2 MB diagram... 11 2.1.3 Ports and connectors ... 12 2.1.4 Onboard LED ... 12 2.1.5 Jumper/Header configurations...
  • Page 3 5.2 Create RAID ... 55 5.3 Delete RAID... 59 5.4 Format a disk... 61 5.5 Verify Disk integrity... 63 Chapter 6: SoundMAX Control Panel ... 65 6.1 Starting up ... 66 6.2 Sound configuration... 67 6.2.1 Speaker Setup ... 67 6.2.2 Virtual Theater Surround...

  • Page 4: Chapter 1: General Specifications

    Chapter 1: General specifications...

  • Page 5: Specifications Summary

    1.1 Specifications summary Support for Dual Intel ® Xeon processor on 604 Socket 800 MHz System Bus Supports Intel ® EMT64 Technology Supports Enhanced Intel ® SpeedStep Technology Supports Intel ® Hyper-Threading Technology Supports SIMD Extensions 3 (SSE3) Complies with VRM 10.1 voltage requirements CPU power Dual EVRD Support FMB 1.5...
  • Page 6 TI TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394 controller Two internal pin headers for front panel IEEE-1394 ports IEEE-1394 One external IEEE-1394 port at the back panel Two IDE connectors with support for UltraDMA 33/ATA66/ATA100 IDE drives and ATAPI compliant devices One Floppy connector for up to two drives One UART 16550 9-pin header Internal I/O One Smbus connector...

  • Page 7: Motherboard Features

    PCI Express graphics This motherboard features the next generation graphics interface which supports the latest PCI Express video cards with a 4.0 GB bandwidth. The Alienware X2 motherboard offers two SLI-capable PCI Express slots. Dual DDR2 400 memory channels DDR2 memory provides a fast data transfer rate, acquiring a maximum memory bandwidth of 3.2 GB per second.
  • Page 8 S/PDIF This motherboard facilitates connectivity to the most advanced stereo components through the S/PDIF port, giving high quality audio.

  • Page 9: Chapter 2: Hardware Information

    Chapter 2: Hardware information...

  • Page 10: Board Overview

    2.1 Board overview 2.1.1 The board...

  • Page 11: Mb Diagram

    2.1.2 MB diagram...

  • Page 12: Ports And Connectors

    2.1.3 Ports and connectors 2.1.4 Onboard LED 2.1.5 Jumper/Header configurations CMOS jumper [JP1] This jumper allows the clearing of information stored on the system CMOS RAM memory. This memory contains information about the system’s setup configuration and time settings configured through the BIOS setup utility. Once the information is cleared, the default configuration can be loaded.
  • Page 13 2. Unplug the power cable on the back of the computer 3. Remove the CMOS battery 4. Move CMOS jumper so that it covers pins 2 and 3 (see image below) and leave it there for 5 seconds 5. Move the CMOS jumper back to pins 1 and 2 (see image below) 6.
  • Page 14 FSB jumper [JP3, JP3A] These jumpers define the type of memory that the system will be using. In order to support 800MHz DDR2, the jumpers JP3 and JP3A (shown on the image below) need to be covering pins 2 and 3. Case open pin header [J42] This jumper when enabled will detect when the system’s case (chassis) has been opened.
  • Page 15 To enable to front panel audio, these connectors need to be plugged into the pin headers as follows: Front panel connector...

  • Page 16: Hardware Information

    2.2 Hardware information 2.2.1 Supported processors The X2 motherboard has two Intel ® 604 sockets. Each of these sockets can support an Intel ® Xeon CPU that runs on an 800 MHz Front Side Bus. The following list shows the supported processors both on dual and single CPU configurations: Single CPU Intel®...

  • Page 17: Chapter 3: Bios Setup

    Chapter 3: BIOS setup...

  • Page 18: Main

    This motherboard comes installed with an American Megatrends Inc. BIOS. This utility will allow modification and monitoring of hardware settings on the motherboard. In order to enter the BIOS, press DEL during the POST screen. 3.1 Main In the Main screen the system time and date can be set. This screen will also show the information recollected form the CPU and the amount of recognized system memory.

  • Page 19: Cpu Configuration

    3.2.1 CPU Configuration Max CPUID Value Limit Legacy operating systems do not support CPUs with extended CPUID functions. In order for these operating systems to boot up, this setting needs to be enabled. [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’] Hardware Prefetcher Enables or disables the hardware prefecther feature.

  • Page 20: Ide Configuration

    3.2.2 IDE Configuration IDE Configuration This setting allows the configuration of ATA devices and the two SATA ports controlled by the 6300 ESB Southbridge (SATA1 and SATA2). Configurations are explained as follows: Disabled: P-ATA Only: S-ATA Only: P-ATA & S-ATA: Combined Mode Option This option will only appear when using P-ATA &...

  • Page 21: Floppy Configuration

    S-ATA Ports Definition The third and fourth IDE Master that are displayed under the IDE configuration screen represent the two SATA ports SATA1 and SATA2. This setting indicates which SATA is third and which is fourth. [Options are: ‘P0-3rd./P1-4th.’ and ‘P0-4th./P1-3rd.’] Configure S-ATA as RAID Enables or disables RAID on SATA1 and SATA2 through the Adaptec RAID utility.

  • Page 22: Superi/O Configuration

    3.2.4 SuperI/O Configuration Onboard Floppy Controller Enables or disables the floppy controller. [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’] Serial Port1 Address Selects the base address to use for the Serial Port1. [Options are: ‘3F8/IRQ4’, ‘3E8/IRQ4’, and ‘2E8/IRQ3’] Serial Port2 Address Selects the base address to use for the Serial Port2. [Options are: ‘2F8/IRQ3’, ‘3E8/IRQ4’, and ‘2E8/IRQ3’] Serial Port2 Mode Selects the mode in which Serial Port2 will function.
  • Page 23 Parallel Port Mode Selects which mode the parallel mode will function. [Options are: ‘Normal’, ‘Bi-Directional’, ‘EPP’, and ‘ECP’] EPP Version This setting only appears when Parallel Port Mode is set to EPP. Selects the EPP version for the Parallel Port. [Options are: ‘1.9’...

  • Page 24: Hardware Health Configuration

    3.2.5 Hardware Health Configuration This screen shows real-time information collected from the temperature, fan speed and voltage sensors on the motherboard. 3.2.6 ACPI Configuration...
  • Page 25 3.2.6.1 General ACPI Configuration Suspend mode Selects the ACPI state that is used when the system goes to sleep. [Options are: ‘S1 (POS) only’ and ‘S1 & S3 (STR)’] 3.2.6.2 Advanced ACPI Configuration ACPI 2.0 Features Enables RSDP Pointers to 64-bit Fixed System Description Tables. [Options are: ‘No’...

  • Page 26: Mps Configuration

    ACPI APIC support Include the ACPI APIC table pointer to the RSDT pointer list. [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’] AMI OEMB table Include IEMB table pointer to R(X)SDT pointer lists. [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’] Headless mode Enables or disables headless operation mode through ACPI. [Options are: ‘Enabled’...

  • Page 27: Pci Express Configuration

    MPS Revision Selects the MPS revision. [Options are: ‘1.4’ and ‘1.1’] 3.2.8 PCI Express Configuration Active State Power-Management Activates or disables the PCI Express L0s and L1 link power states. [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’] PCI Express Port 2 Allows to enable or disable PCI-Express_2 slot. Display device will not be recognized when set to disable.

  • Page 28: Remote Access Configuration

    3.2.9 Remote Access Configuration Remote Access Selects remote Access type. When enabled, parameters appear for configuration. [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’] Serial port number Selects the serial port to be used for console redirection. [Options are: ‘COM1’ and ‘COM2’] Serial port mode Selects the Serial port settings.

  • Page 29: Usb Configuration

    VT-UTF8 Combo Key Support Only shows up when the terminal type is ANSI or VT-100. It will enable VT-UTF8 combination key support for ANSI and VT-100 terminals. [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’] 3.2.10 USB Configuration USB Function Enables or disables internal USB controller headers. The USB ports on the back are not modified with this setting.

  • Page 30: Onboard Device Configuration

    Hotplug USB FDD Support Creates a dummy FDD device at bootup that will be associated with a FDD that is hot- plugged later. When set to Auto, the dummy FDD will be created only if there is no USB FDD present. [Options are: ‘Enabled’, ‘Disabled’...

  • Page 31: Performance Setting

    3.2.12 Performance Setting DDR2 Working Voltage Selects the value for the voltage applied on DDR2 modules. [Options are: ‘1.80V’, ‘1.85V’, ‘1.90V’, and ‘1.95V’] OverClock Memory overclocking; can be set to values in range from 200 to 255. Cas# Latency Modifies the Cas Latency of the memory modules; lower is better. However, the memory modules need to support this feature.

  • Page 32: Pcipnp

    3.3 PCIPnP Plug & Play O/S When set to yes, a Plug and Play OS can configure PnP devices not required for boot up. When set to no, the BIOS will configure all devices for the system. [Options are: ‘Yes’ and ‘No’] PCI Latency Timer Value in units of PCI clocks for PCI device latency timer register.

  • Page 33: Boot

    PCI IDE BusMaster When enabled the BIOS uses PCI busmastering foreading/writing to IDE devices. This setting increases performance when running DOS programs such as Norton Ghost or Partition Magic. Windows has its own IDE busmastering software, and is not affected by changing this BIOS setting.

  • Page 34: Boot Settings Configuration

    3.4.1 Boot Settings Configuration Quick Boot When enabled, the BIOS will skip some tests so that the computer boots up faster. [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’] Quiet Boot When enabled, the OEM logo is displayed instead of the POST messages. [Options are: ‘Enabled’...

  • Page 35: Boot Device Priority

    Interrupt 19 Capture Allows for option ROMs to trap the Interrupt 19 [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’] 3.4.2 Boot Device Priority The boot devices are listed in order of importance. The system will look for a bootable device in this order and go down the list until it finds one or it will prompt that no boot device was found.

  • Page 36: Hard Disk Drives

    3.4.3 Hard Disk Drives Shows list of detected hard drives. The first one on the list will be considered for the boot device priority list. 3.4.4 Removable Drives Shows list of detected removable drives. The first one on the list will be considered for the boot device priority list.

  • Page 37: Cd/Dvd Drives

    3.4.5 CD/DVD Drives Shows list of detected optical drives. The first one on the list will be considered for the boot device priority list. 3.5 Security Change Supervisor Password Installs or changes a supervisor password.

  • Page 38: Chipset

    User Access Level This option is only enabled when the supervisor password is installed. Defines access of users to the BIOS utility as follows: No Access: Prevents user access to the setup utility View Only: Allows user to access the setup utility; fields cannot be changed Limited: Allows only limited fields to be changed such as Date and Time Full Access:...

  • Page 39: Northbridge Configuration

    3.6.1 NorthBridge Configuration Memory Remap Feature Allows for the remapping of overlapped PCI memory above the total physical memory. [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’] 3.6.2 SouthBridge Configuration OnBoard AC’97 Audio Enables/disables onboard sound controller. [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’]...

  • Page 40: Power

    3.7 Power Power Management/APM Enables or disables the Advanced Power Management. When enabled, configuration settings become available on this same menu. [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’] Video Power Down Mode This will power down video in suspend or standby mode. Only available when Power Management/APM is enabled [Options are: ‘Disabled’, ‘Standby’, and ‘Suspend’] Hard Disk Power Down Mode...
  • Page 41 Throttle Slow Clock Ratio Selects the Duty Cycle in Throttle mode. Only available when Power Management/APM is enabled [Options are: ‘12.5%’, ‘25%’, ‘37.5%‘, ‘50%‘, ’62.5%’, ’75.0%’ and ’87.5%’] Keyboard & PS/2 Mouse Monitors the keyboard and mouse PS2 ports Only available when Power Management/APM is enabled [Options are: ‘IGNORE’...

  • Page 42: Exit

    Resume On PME#/LAN Enables or disables PME to generate a wake event. [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’] Resume On RTC Alarm Enables or disables RTC to generate a wake event. [Options are: ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’] RTC Alarm Date (Days) Sets the day schedule for an alarm to be generated [Options are chosen using ‘+’...
  • Page 43 Load Failsafe Defaults This option will load the failsafe default values for all options. This can also be performed by pressing F8.

  • Page 44: Chapter 4: Silicon Image Raid Utility

    Chapter 4: Silicon Image RAID Utility...

  • Page 45: Introduction

    4.1 Introduction The Silicon Image RAID controller supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10 and spare drive configuration. Some other functions that can performed are a low level format, rebuild malfunctioning RAID 1 arrays and resolve conflicts. The RAID utility can be accessed by pressing CTR+S or F4 when prompted during the POST.

  • Page 46: Create Raid 0

    4.3 Create RAID 0 1. Select the Create RAID set option and choose the type RAID 0. 2. Select the number of drives that will be part of the RAID. 3. Select Auto or Manual Configuration. Auto Configuration will automatically create the RAID 0 with the first drive detected as 0 and the second one as 1, and a stripe size of 64K.
  • Page 48 4. Press Y at the prompt “Are you sure (Y/N)?” 5. Once the RAID has been created, it will show up on the bottom right corner of the screen.

  • Page 49: Create Raid 1

    4.4 Create RAID 1 When a RAID 1 is configured, two identical hard drives need to be installed in the system. The Silicon Image RAID utility can create a blank RAID or copy the contents of one hard drive into a mirror drive. 1.
  • Page 50 Manual configuration allows the possibility of choosing either creating a new blank RAID or mirroring a new drive from an already existing one. 3. Press Y at the prompt “Are you sure (Y/N)?”...

  • Page 51: Delete Raid

    4. Once the RAID has been created, it will show up on the bottom right corner of the screen. 4.5 Delete RAID 1. Select the Delete RAID set option and press enter. 2. Select the RAID item that will be deleted.

  • Page 52: Low Level Format

    3. Press Y to confirm when prompted. 4.6 Low Level Format 1. Select the Low Level Format option 2. Select the drive that will be formated. 3. Press Y to confirm when prompted.

  • Page 53: Chapter 5: Adaptec Raid Utility

    Chapter 5: Adaptec RAID Utility...

  • Page 54: Introduction

    Adaptec RAID utility, it has to be enabled on BIOS (see section 3.2.2). If there are Hard Drives connected to either of the SATA connectors, the system during POST will prompt or key combination Ctrl-A to enter. NOTE: Alienware recommends installing RAID only on the Silicon Image RAID controller.

  • Page 55: Create Raid

    Once inside the utility, navigation is performed with Up and Down keys on the menus, ENTER to select, ESC for previous menu, TAB to go to next option and Shift-TAB to go to previous option. 5.2 Create RAID 1. Enter the Array Configuration Utility 2.
  • Page 56 4. Select the RAID type. Options are RAID 0 (Stripe) and RAID 1(Mirror). 5. Choose a label for the RAID. This is the name that will identify the logical drive after the RAID is created.
  • Page 57 6. Select the strip size. Options are 16KB, 32KB and 64KB. The last one is recommended. 7. Select way in which RAID will be created. There are different methods for creating a RAID0 and RAID1 with the Adaptec Controller. The following table will explain each method: RAID Create RAID via RAID0...

  • Page 59: Delete Raid

    8. Enter to create RAID 5.3 Delete RAID 1. Enter the Array Configuration Utility 2. Select the Manage Arrays option from the menu. This will list the arrays detected.
  • Page 60 3. Once the array that will be erased is highlighted, press DEL to delete it. 4. Use arrow keys to highlight the Delete option and press Enter. 5. Press Y to confirm elimination.

  • Page 61: Format A Disk

    5.4 Format a disk 1. Select disk utilities 2. Select the drive that will be formatted...
  • Page 62 3. Select format drive option 4. Highlight option Yes and press enter to confirm the format process.

  • Page 63: Verify Disk Integrity

    5.5 Verify Disk integrity 1. Select disk utilities 2. Select the drive that needs to be checked...
  • Page 64 3. Select the Verify Disk Media option 4. Highlight option Yes and press Enter to confirm verification...

  • Page 65: Chapter 6: Soundmax Control Panel

    Chapter 6: SoundMAX Control Panel...

  • Page 66: Starting Up

    6.1 Starting up The Alienware X2 motherboard features onboard Intel Audio with support for 5.1 speaker configuration. This speaker configuration and other advanced sound settings can be configured through the SoundMAX Control Panel. This chapter will explain how to use this control panel.

  • Page 67: Sound Configuration

    6.2 Sound configuration 6.2.1 Speaker Setup The speaker setup can be configured under the Listening Environment tab as shown below:...

  • Page 68: Virtual Theater Surround

    As can be seen in the image above, there are four speaker settings: Stereo headphones: Only left and right channels are used. Stereo speakers: Uses left and right channels. When this mode is selected the Front Speaker Location can be toggled between Close Together and Far Apart. Close Together is optimized for two speakers that are close to the monitor.

  • Page 69: Virtual Ear

    Hallway, Stone corridor, Alley, Forest, City, Mountains, Quarry, Plain, Parking lot, Sewer pipe, and Underwater. 6.2.4 Virtual Ear This feature will customize the ear model so that it is tailored to a specific listener: it will simulate the ear of the listener. Three generic Virtual Ears are provided: Standard, Adult, and Child.
  • Page 70 The test noise refers to a static noise that will come through the specified speaker. The test music loop is a prerecorded sound file that outputs through the specified speaker. The amount of speakers being tested depends on the speaker configuration that was last applied.

  • Page 71: Spdif

    6.2.6 SPDIF When clicking on the SPDIF setup button located on the center bottom of the window, the Advanced Controls for Volume Control window is opened. In this screen it can be selected if the system will support AC3 and/or PCM SPDIF formats. 6.3 MIDI Music Synthesizer The SoundMAX Control Panel features MIDI playback.

  • Page 72: Dls Loader

    6.4 DLS loader DLS stands for DownLoadable Sounds. This feature allows downloading custom sound sets in to the SoundMAX synthesizer and playing these files using the Windows Media Player. Simply browse for the MIDI or .RMI file, open it, and run it on the Media Player.

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