Page 1: Ax4Sg Max
AX4SG Max DOC. NO.: AX4SGMAX-OL-E0307D...
Page 2: Table Of Contents
JP14 Clear CMOS Data ................................22 CPU Installation................................... 23 CPU Fan Installation ................................... 25 CPU Over-current Protection ..............................27 AOpen “Watch Dog ABS” ................................29 Full-range Adjustable CPU Core Voltage ............................ 30 CPU and System Fan Connector (with H/W Monitoring) ......................32...
Page 3 JP28 Keyboard/Mouse Wake-up Jumper............................ 33 DIMM Sockets ..................................... 34 AC Power Auto Recovery................................36 IDE and Floppy Connector ................................37 Serial ATA Supported .................................. 39 Connecting Serial ATA Disk................................. 40 Support RAID 0 and RAID 1................................ 43 Front Panel Connector ................................44 AGP (Accelerated Graphic Port) 8X Expansion Slot ........................
Page 4 Super 5.1 Channel Audio Effect ..............................57 Front Audio Connector ................................58 Die-Hard BIOS II ..................................59 JP15/JP16 Dr. Voice Language Select Jumpers......................... 60 JP2 Speaker Output Jumper ............................... 61 CD Audio Connector..................................62 AUX-IN Connector..................................63 Case Open Connector................................. 64 STBY LED (Standby LED)................................
Page 5 What are the RAID levels? ................................83 HDD Capacity of RAID Levels..............................86 Serial ATA RAID for Intel ICH5R..............................87 Serial ATA RAID for Silicon Image 3112A ........................... 89 Phoenix-AWARD BIOS ..........................94 How To Use Phoenix-Award™ BIOS Setup Program ......................... 95 How To Enter BIOS Setup................................
Page 6 Installing Silicon Image SiI3112A SATA Raid Driver........................126 Glossary ...............................133 AC97 CODEC ................................... 133 ACPI (Advanced Configuration & Power Interface)........................133 ACR (Advanced Communication Riser) ............................ 133 AGP (Accelerated Graphic Port) ............................... 134 AMR (Audio/Modem Riser) ............................... 134 ATA (AT Attachment) ................................. 134 BIOS (Basic Input/Output System)............................
Page 7 Flash ROM ....................................138 Hyper Threading..................................138 IEEE 1394 ....................................138 Parity Bit ....................................139 PCI (Peripheral Component Interface) Bus..........................139 PDF Format ....................................139 PnP (Plug and Play) .................................. 139 POST (Power-On Self Test) ..............................140 PSB (Processor System Bus) Clock ............................140 RDRAM (Rambus Dynamic Random Access Memory) ......................
Page 8 Troubleshooting ...........................143 Technical Support..........................147 Product Registration..........................151 How to Contact Us..........................152...
Page 9: You Must Notice
All of the specifications and information contained in this manual are subject to change without notice. AOpen reserves the right to revise this publication and to make reasonable changes. AOpen assumes no responsibility for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear in this manual, including the products and software described in it.
Page 10: Before You Start
This Online Manual will introduce to the user how this product is installed. All useful information will be described in later chapters. Please keep this manual carefully for future upgrades or system configuration changes. This Online Manual is saved in format, we recommend using Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 for online viewing, it is included in Bonus CD or you can get free download from Adobe web...
Page 11: Overview
Socket 478 motherboard (M/B) based on the ATX form ® factor featuring the Intel 865-G chipsets. As high performance chipset built in the M/B, AX4SG Max motherboard supports Intel Socket 478 ® Pentium 4 1.6GHz~3.06GHz. It supports 400/533/800MHz Front Side Bus (FSB) clock and...
Page 12: Feature Highlight
® ® Supports Intel Socket 478 Pentium 4 (Northwood) 1.6GHz~3.06GHz+ with 400/533/800MHz Front Side Bus (FSB) designed for Socket 478 technology. Chipset Intel 865 is a Graphics Memory Controller Hub (GMCH) designed for use with the Pentium 4 processor with 512-KB L2 cache on 0.13 micron processor.
Page 13: Expansion Slots
132MB/s. Of six PCI slots provided, all of them are master PCI slots with arbitration and decoding for all integrated functions and LPC bus. AX4SG Max motherboard includes one AGP expansion slot for a bus mastering AGP graphic card. The...
Page 14 IDE interface, while providing a lower pin count and higher performance. The ICH5R SATA interface supports data transfer rates up to 150MB/s.In this motherboard the SATA interfaces support RAID 0 and RAID 1 modes. On-board AC’97 Sound AX4SG Max uses RealTek AC97 CODEC RealTek ALC650 sound chip. This on-board audio includes a complete audio recording and playback system.
Page 15 Eight USB 2.0 Ports Provides six ports on the back panel and one USB 2.0 connector on the board, providing a total of eight USB 2.0 interface to connect devices such as mouse, keyboard, modem, scanner, etc. Dr. Voice II The Dr.
Page 16 SilentTek Combines “Hardware-Status Monitoring”, “Overheat Warning” and “Fan Speed Control” with user-friendly interfaces to provide a perfect balance among noises, system performance and stability. Enhanced ACPI ® Fully implement the ACPI standard for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP series compatibility, and supports Soft-Off, STR (Suspend to RAM, S3), STD (Suspend to Disk, S4) and S5 features.
Page 17: Quick Installation Procedure
This page gives you a quick procedure on how to install your system. Follow each step accordingly. Installing CPU and Fan Installing System Memory (DIMM) Connecting Front Panel Cable Connecting IDE and Floppy Cable Connecting ATX Power Cable Connecting Back Panel Cable Power-on and Load BIOS Setup Default Setting CPU Frequency Reboot...
Page 18: Motherboard Map
Motherboard Map AC’97 CODEC Colored Back Panel AUX-IN Connector JP28 Keyboard/Mouse CD-IN Connector Wakeup Jumper COM2 Connector FAN2 Connector Game Port Connector 32-bit PCI Expansion Slot x6 Low ESR Capacitors Resetable Fuse 4-pin 12V. ATX Power Connector IrDA Connector AGP 8x Expansion Slot supports ADD card Front Audio Connector 478-pin CPU socket (Northwood)
Page 19: Block Diagram
DDR400/333/266 Dual Channel RAM Up to 4GB 32-bit PCI Slot x6 DIMM Socket x4 PCI Bus SATA 1 4 Serial ATA Ports SATA 2 533/800MHz 150MB/s System Bus Socket 478 SATA 3 Intel Pentium 4 SATA 4 Intel AGP bus 865-G ATA 66/100 Primary...
Page 20: Hardware Installation
This chapter describes jumpers, connectors and hardware devices of this motherboard. Note: Electrostatic discharge (ESD) can damage your processor, disk drives, expansion boards, and other components. Always observe the following precautions before you install a system component. Do not remove a component from its protective packaging until you are ready to install it. Wear a wrist ground strap and attach it to a metal part of the system unit before handling a component.
Page 21: About "User Upgrade Optional" And "Manufacture Upgrade Optional
When you read this online manual and start to assemble your computer system, you may notice that some of the functions are marked as “User Upgrade Optional” or “Manufacture Upgrade Optional”. Although all of AOpen’s motherboards have included many amazing and powerful features, sometimes not every user is familiar with these powerful features.
Page 22: Jp14 Clear Cmos Data
You can clear CMOS to restore system default setting. To clear the CMOS, follow the procedure below. Turn off the system and unplug the AC power. Remove ATX power cable from connector PWR2. Locate JP14 and short pins 2-3 for a few seconds. Return JP14 to its normal setting by shorting pin1 &...
Page 23: Cpu Installation
® This motherboard supports Intel Pentium 4 Socket 478 series CPU (Northwood). Be careful of CPU orientation when you plug it into CPU socket. 2. Locate Pin 1 in the socket and look for mark on the CPU upper interface. 1.
Page 24 3. Press down the CPU socket lever and finish CPU installation. CPU cut edge Note: If you do not match the CPU socket Pin 1 and CPU cut edge well, you may damage the CPU. Note: This socket supports Micro-FC-PGA2 package CPU, which is the latest CPU package developed by Intel.
Page 25: Cpu Fan Installation
This motherboard comes with a retention module attached on the CPU socket when shipped, we strongly recommend you to install AOpen special designed CPU Fan as shown below on the retention module for better heat dissipation. Please install the CPU Fan correctly as the following pictures shown.
Page 26 CPU VID signal and SMbus clock generator provide CPU voltage auto-detection and allows the user to set the CPU frequency through the BIOS setup, therefore no jumpers or switches are used. The disadvantages of the Pentium based jumper-less designs are eliminated. There will be no worry of wrong CPU voltage detection.
Page 27: Cpu Over-Current Protection
Note: Although we have implemented protection circuit try to prevent any human operating mistake, there is still certain risk that CPU, memory, HDD, add-on cards installed on this motherboard may be damaged because of component failure, human operating error or unknown nature reason. AOpen cannot guaranty the protection circuit will always work perfectly.
Page 28 This Motherboard implements a Flash ROM and a special circuit that provide you no batter power consumption of current CPU and CMOS Setup configurations. 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 Flash ROM and the system will recover as usual.
Page 29: Aopen "Watch Dog Abs
“ ” “ ” AOpen provides a special and useful feature on this motherboard for overclockers. When you power-on the system, the BIOS will check last system POST status. If it succeeded, the BIOS will enable “Watch Dog ABS” function immediately, and set the CPU FSB frequency according to user’s settings stored in the BIOS.
Page 30: Full-Range Adjustable Cpu Core Voltage
This function is dedicated to overclockers and supports Adjustable CPU Core Voltage from 1.10V to 1.85V. However, this motherboard can also automatically detect CPU VID signal and generates proper CPU core voltage. BIOS Setup > Frequency/Voltage Control > CPU Bus Frequency This motherboard is CPU jumper-less design, you can set CPU frequency in BIOS;...
Page 31 CPU Core System Northwood CPU Ratio Frequency Clock Pentium 4 1.6G 1600MHz 100MHz 400MHz Pentium 4 1.6G 1600MHz 133MHz 533MHz Pentium 4 1.7G 1700MHz 133MHz 533MHz Note: Intel 865-G chipset don’t support Pentium 4 1.8G 1800MHz 100MHz 400MHz Willamette Celeron processors.
Page 32: Cpu And System Fan Connector (With H/W Monitoring)
Plug in the CPU fan cable to the 3-pin CPUFAN1 connector. If you have chassis fan, you can also plug it on SYSFAN2 or SYSFAN3 connector. +12V SENSOR SYSFAN3 Connector Note: Some CPU fans do not have CPUFAN1 Connector sensor pin, so that they cannot support hardware monitoring function.
Page 33: Jp28 Keyboard/Mouse Wake-Up Jumper
This motherboard provides PS2 keyboard / mouse wake-up function. You can use JP28 to enable or disable this function, which could resume your system from suspend mode with keyboard or mouse. The factory default setting is set to “Disable” (1-2), and you may enable this function by setting the jumper to 2-3.
Page 34: Dimm Sockets
This motherboard has four 184-pin DDR DIMM sockets that allow you to install 128-bit dual channel DDR400, DDR333 DDR266 memory up to 4GB. Only non-ECC DDR RAM is supported. Please install suitable modules; otherwise serious damage may occur on memory sockets or you RAM modules.
Page 35 Note: Please pay attention to Please follow the procedure as shown below to finish memory installation. the Blue slots. To run dual Make sure the DIMM module’s pin face down and match the socket’s size as depicted below. channel speed, you should insert the RAM in the slot of DIMM A1 and DIMM B1 or DIMM A2 and DIMM B2.
Page 36: Ac Power Auto Recovery
This motherboard comes with a 20-pin and 4-pin ATX power connector. Make sure you plug in the right direction. We strongly recommend you to connect the 4-pin 12V ATX connector before connecting the 20-pin ATX power connector and use standard power supply specially designed for Pentium 4 system.
Page 37: Ide And Floppy Connector
Connect 34-pin floppy cable and 40-pin IDE cable to floppy connector FDD and IDE connector. Be careful of the pin1 orientation. Wrong orientation may cause system damage. Secondary Secondary Slave (4th) Master (3rd) IDE 2 (Secondary) IDE 1 (Primary) Pin 1 Primary Primary Master (1st)
Page 38 IDE1 is also known as the primary channel and IDE2 as the secondary channel. Each channel supports two IDE devices that make a total of four devices. In order to work together, the two devices on each channel must be set differently to Master and Slave mode. Either one can be the hard disk or the CDROM.
Page 39: Serial Ata Supported
The traditional parallel ATA specification has defined the standard storage interface for PCs with its original speed of just 3 Mbytes/second since the protocol was introduced in the 1980s. And the latest generation of the interface, Ultra ATA-133, has been developed further with a burst data transfer rate of 133 Mbytes/second.
Page 40: Connecting Serial Ata Disk
To connect a Serial ATA disk, you have to have a 7-pin serial ATA cable. Connect two ends of the serial ATA cable to the serial ATA header on the motherboard and the disk. Like every other traditional disk, you also have to connect a power cable. Please be noted that it is a jumper free implement;...
Page 41 Except its original 2 sets of parallel IDE, this motherboard does come with the support for the latest Serial ATA hard disk. If you are unable to find your newly installed Serial ATA hard disks on your operating system after you have had installed them on, the problem mainly lies in the BIOS setting.
Page 42 If you intend to change the default setting, simply press Enter for a list of selection: Disabled: You may choose this item if you’re sure that only traditional IDE hard disks had been installed on your system. Disabling this item may also cancel the detection to Serial ATA hard disk during POST, which theoretically, could speed up your boot-up timing for a little bit;...
Page 43: Support Raid 0 And Raid 1
With Intel ICH5R chipset and Silicon Image Sil3112A onboard, this motherboard provides a cost-effective, high performance stripping (RAID 0) and mirroring (RAID 1) solution. With stripping, identical drives can read and write data in parallel to increase performance. Mirroring increase read performance through load balancing and elevator seeking while creating a complete backup of your files. When supporting RAID 0 or RAID 1, you should connect SATA hard driver disks to SATA Header 1and 2.
Page 44: Front Panel Connector
Attach the power LED, Keylock, speaker, power and reset switch connectors to the corresponding pins. If you enable “Suspend Mode” item in BIOS Setup, the ACPI & Power LED will keep flashing while the system is in suspend mode. Locate the power switch cable from your ATX housing. It is 2-pin female connector from the housing front panel.
Page 45: Agp (Accelerated Graphic Port) 8X Expansion Slot
AX4SG Max provides an 8x slot. The AGP 8X is a bus interface targeted for high-performance 3D graphic. AGP uses both rising and falling edge of the 66MHz clock, for 4X AGP, the data transfer rate is 66MHz x 4bytes x 4 = 1056MB/s. AGP is now moving to AGP 8x mode, which is 66MHz x 4bytes x 8 =2.1GB/s.
Page 46: Agp Protection Technology And Agp Led
With the outstanding R&D ability of AOpen and its specially developed circuit, this motherboard implements a blend new technology to protect your motherboard from being damaged by over-voltaging of AGP card. When AGP Protection Technology is implemented, this motherboard will automatically detect the voltage of AGP card and prevent your chipsets from being burnt out. Please note that if you install a AGP card with 3.3V, which is not supported by Intel 865 chipset, the AGP LED on the motherboard will light up to warn you the possible...
Page 47: Wol (Wake On Lan)
To use Wake on LAN function, you must have a network card with chipset that supports this feature, and connect a cable from LAN card to motherboard WOL connector. The system identification information (probably IP address) is stored on network card and because there is a lot of traffic on the Ethernet, you need to install network management software, such as ADM, for the checking of how to wake up the system.
Page 48 WOL Connector (Ethernet Card Side) WOL Connector (Motherboard Side) Note: This picture is for example only, it may not exactly be the same motherboard.
Page 49: Irda Connector
The IrDA connector can be configured to support wireless infrared module, with this module and application software such as Laplink or Windows 98 Direct Cable Connection, the user can transfer files to or from laptops, notebooks, PDA devices and printers. This connector supports HPSIR (115.2Kbps, 2 meters) and ASK-IR (56Kbps).
Page 50: Support 10/100/1000 Mbps Lan Onboard
On the strength of BCM5705, a fourth-generation triple-speed 10/100/100 base-T Ethernet LAN Controller solution for high-performance network applications, this motherboard provides 10/100/1000M bps Ethernet for office and home use. The Ethernet RJ45 connector is located on top of USB connectors. The right hand side LED indicates link mode, it lights in orange whenever linking to network. The left hand side LED indicates the transfer mode and it lights in green when data is transferring in 100Mbps (never lights while in 10Mbps), but lights in orange when transferring in Gigabit’s mode.
Page 51: Support Usb 2.0 Ports
This motherboard provides eight 2.0 ports to connect USB devices such as mouse, keyboard, modem, printer, etc. There is one USB connector on the board for you to connect two USB devices and six other ports on the back panel. You can use proper cables to connect USB devices from back panel or connect the front USB connector to the front panel of chassis.
Page 52: Ieee 1394 Connectors
With IEEE1394 MAC Embedded in Intel ICH5R (with AGERE FW323), the IEEE 1394 provides data transfer rate up to 400Mb/s, and USB 1.0/1.1 just has 12Mbps. Hence, the IEEE 1394 interface can connect with the devices that need high data transferring performance, such as digital camera, scanner or others IEEE 1394 devices.
Page 53: Com2 Connector
This motherboard provides two serial ports. One of them is on back panel connector, and the other is on the upper left of board. With proper cable, you can connect it to the back panel of chassis. Pin 1 DCD# SOUT DTR# DSR#...
Page 54: Game Port Bracket Supported
This motherboard comes with a game port (Joystick-Midi) for you to connect any midi devices or joysticks. To use this function you have to have a joystick module and connect it with a game port cable to this port on the motherboard. Pin1 Joystick Module (User Upgrade Optional)
Page 55: Color Coded Back Panel
The onboard I/O devices are PS/2 Keyboard, PS/2 Mouse, RJ-45 LAN Connector, COM1, VGA port, Printer, USB, AC97 sound and game ports. The view angle of drawing shown here is from the back panel of the housing. USB 2.0 SPP/EPP/ECP RJ-45 LAN PS/2 Mouse Ports...
Page 56: S/Pdif (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) Connector
S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) is a latest audio transfer file format that provides impressive quality through optical fiber and allows you to enjoy digital audio instead of analog. Normally there are two S/PDIF outputs as shown, one for RCA connector, the most common one used for consumer audio products, and the other for optical connector with a even better audio quality.
Page 57: Super 5.1 Channel Audio Effect
This motherboard comes with an ALC650E CODEC, which supports high quality of 5.1 Channel audio effects, bringing you a brand new audio experience. On the strength of the innovative design of ALC650, you're able to use standard line-jacks for surround audio output without connecting any external module.
Page 58: Front Audio Connector
If the housing has been designed with an audio port on the front panel, you’ll be able to connect onboard audio to front panel through this connector. By the way, please remove the jumper cap from the Front Audio Connector before you connect the cable. Do not remove this yellow jumper cap if your housing doesn’t have an audio port on the front panel.
Page 59: Die-Hard Bios Ii
Inherited DieHard BIOS, the steps of rescuing your crashed BIOS 1 back to life is the same. First step is to set JP24 to Pin2-3 to boot up the system with BIOS 2. After that, please set the JP24 back to Pin1-2, go to AOpen website to get your BIOS version suited for your motherboard, and have it downloaded.
Page 60: Jp15/Jp16 Dr. Voice Language Select Jumpers
Dr. Voice is a great feature of AX4SGMax, which can identify the problems you may encounter in the operating system. It can clearly “tell you” whether the problem is caused from components or improper installation such as CPU, memory module, VGA, PCI add-on card, FDD, HDD or keyboard.
Page 61: Jp2 Speaker Output Jumper
This motherboard comes with another considerate option that allows you to turn off the voice from buzzer and speaker. You can choose not to be bothered by the warning made from Dr. Voice when it detects any error in operating system. You may also set JP2 to choose sending out voices from buzzer or speaker.
Page 62: Cd Audio Connector
This connector is used to connect CD Audio cable from CDROM or DVD drive to onboard sound. Note: Though some of the latest versions of Windows CD-IN Connector support “Digital Audio” through IDE bus. However, in order to use Open Jukebox player, which is driven under BIOS, it is a MUST to connect audio cable to CD-IN connector on the motherboard.
Page 63: Aux-In Connector
This connector is used to connect MPEG Audio cable from MPEG card to onboard sound. AUX-IN Connector...
Page 64: Case Open Connector
The “CASE OPEN” header provides chassis intrusion-monitoring function. To make this function works, you have to enable it in the system BIOS, connect this header to a sensor somewhere on the chassis. So, whenever the sensor is triggered by lights or by the opening of the chassis, the system will beep to inform you.
Page 65: Stby Led (Standby Led)
STBY LED is AOpen’s considerate design that we aim at providing you friendly system information. The STBY LED will light up when power is provided to the motherboard. This is a convenient indication for you to check the system power status in many circumstances such as power on/off, stand-by mode and RAM power status during Suspend to RAM mode.
Page 66: Resetable Fuse
Traditional motherboard uses fuses to prevent Keyboard and USB port from over-current or shortage. These fuses are soldered onboard that when it is broken (function to protect motherboard), user cannot replace them and result in malfunction of motherboard. With expensive Resetable Fuse, the motherboard can be resumed back to normal function even after the fuse had done its protection job. Resetable Fuse...
Page 67: Enlarged Aluminum Heatsink
Cool down CPU and Chipset are important for system reliability. Enlarged aluminum heat sink provides better heat consumption especially when you are trying to over-clock the CPU.
Page 68: Low Esr Capacitor
CPU power. The idea of where to put these capacitors is another know-how that requires experience and detail calculation. Not only that, AX4SG Max implements 3300μF capacitors, which is much larger than normal capacitor (1000 & 1500μF) and it provides...
Page 69: V4 Power Engine
While the market are flooded with low quality, cost-down power materials on motherboard by treacherous manufacturers that subsequently cause the stability of your system, unknown system crashing, overheating of your motherboard, we, AOpen have decided to maintain our long-lasting reputation of refined manufacturer by keep providing solid materials on our products.
Page 70 Comprison Transient of 3-phase and 4-phase PWM As test report shows, while most of the motherboards on the market are powered by 3-phase PWM controller, this motherboard does comes with 4-phase PWM controller providing stronger power, and could lower down the temperature of motherboard from 15℃ to 30℃. phase Vcore tolerance of - 116 mv...
Page 71: The Noise Is Gone
Today, AOpen Motherboard is honored to bring you a new overall solution, SilentTek, to make your system quiet. To collocate...
Page 72 The first image you have here is the Voltage Status In “Temp/Fan/Case” page, you may get aware of the page. You can find current status of all voltages and set current temperature of CPU and the heat inside chassis. your expected margins of warning level. Also, you can check if fans are running properly.
Page 73 You may find that this setting fits you best. AOpen Recommend Setting: This setting is designed specifically for AOpen housing. A series of lab tests were conducted under the real world scenario to determine optimum fan speed to reduce noise level within CPU working condition and temperature.
Page 74: Ezclock
With brand-new and user-friendly EzClock that AOpen specially designs for his users, you can adjust those important values as you please and think of suitable. This tailor-made EzClock allows you to set...
Page 75 How You Adjust the Settings in EzClock Utility In EzClock utility, you can adjust CPU Front Side Bus (FSB), the voltage and frequency of VGA, AGP, PCI and DRAM. Besides, the CPU related information such as CPU voltage, temperature and CPUFAN rotation speed will also be displayed on this utility. On the left circle area shows Ratio, FSB and frequency information CPU Color Bars: The color bar will...
Page 76 On the bottom rectangular panel represents CPU fan speed, CPU voltage and CPU temperature. The three color bars on the right hand side will light on according to operation temperature. Please refer to the picture shown above. CPU Color Bars: CPU Fan, Voltage and Temperature: The color bars will light on representing CPU fan speed, CPU...
Page 77 How Your Boot Screen Looks Like After you finish setting BIOS, these setting values will be displayed on the boot screen like the shown picture here. Every time you boot your system, both default and current settings will pop up on the screen. Your personal settings that had been adjusted earlier will be highlighted;...
Page 78: Hyper Threading Technology
What is Hyper-Threading? Hyper-Threading technology is an innovative design from Intel that enables multi-threaded software applications to process threads in parallel within each processor resulting in increased utilization of processor execution resources. As a result, an average improvement of ~40% in CPU resource utilization yields higher processing throughput. How Hyper-Threading Works A form of simultaneous multi-threading technology (SMT), Hyper-Threading technology allows multiple threads of software applications to be run simultaneously on one processor by...
Page 79 For multiprocessor-capable software applications, the Hyper-Threading based processor is considered two separate logical processors on which the software applications can run without modification. Also, each logical processor responds interrupts independently. first logical processor track software thread, while the second logical processor tracks another...
Page 80: Aoconfig Utility
Moreover, AOConfig allows users to save information in *.BMP or *.TXT format which users may collect the system information in detail and send them to AOpen directly for technical support or for further diagnose of system problems. 1. The system page shows the...
Page 81 .bmp or .txt format. NOTE: AOConfig can be used under Windows 98SE/ME, NT4.0/2000, or Windows XP. Please also note that AOConfig can only be operated in a system equipped with an AOpen motherboard. Before running AOConfig, all applications must be closed.
Page 82: Raid Introduction
’ ’ Two major challenges facing the storage industry today are keeping pace with the increasing performance demands of computer systems by improving disk I/O throughput and providing data accessibility in the face of hard disk failures. The idea of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) was first introduced by David A. Patterson, Garth Gibson and Randy H. Katz at the University California at Berkeley in 1988.
Page 83: What Are The Raid Levels
RAID level 0, which is the fastest drive array you can have, is a performance-oriented disk mapping method. The data in this array gets written across a stripe or different disks for a faster transfer. This technique has striping but no redundancy of data. It offers the best performance but no fault-tolerance.
Page 84 Block 1 RAID level 1 uses at least two duplicate hard drives and store the exact same Block 2 blocks of information between them. This is the slowest form of fault Block 3 tolerance because the data has to be replicated onto two disks at the same time.
Page 85 As the name would suggest, RAID 0+1 is striping and mirroring combined. This RAID combines the best of both RAID 0 and RAID 1. It takes a Disk stripe using two disks, and mirrors it to another set of disks for fault tolerance. Data is stripped across several disks, each disk has partner with exactly the same data on it.
Page 86: Hdd Capacity Of Raid Levels
Striping Logical Drive Physical Disks Physical Disks 80 GB 40 GB 40 GB Physical Disks 40GB Physical Disks 40 GB Mirroring Logical Drive 80 GB Physical Disks 40GB Physical Disks 40 GB Logical Drive Physical Disks Physical Disks 40 GB 40 GB 40 GB Striping...
Page 87: Serial Ata Raid For Intel Ich5R
With the latest chipsets implemented, Intel ICH5R provides RAID 0, 1 function in Windows 2000/XP for the Serial ATA hard disks. You may follow the steps shown below to setup your disk array. After having properly installed your Serial ATA hard disks, you may directly get into the BIOS setting screen for adjustment. You may simply press “Integrated Peripherals On-Chip IDE Device On-Chip Serial ATA”...
Page 88 In order to make sure your system can recognize and operate Serial ATA RAID device smoothly, we have to enter RAID Configuration Utility to do some configuration. After finishing the BIOS setup and reboot, you will see [Press CTRL + I to enter configuration Utility] about half way through the boot up.
Page 89: Serial Ata Raid For Silicon Image 3112A
Silicon Image’s SATARaid provides Serial ATA Software RAID including Striping and Mirroring to enhance the industry’s first proven PCI-to-SATA host controller product. Standard with SATARaid software is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that provides easy-to-use configurations for the different RAID Sets supported.
Page 91 Creating and Deleting RAID Sets is a function set in the BIOS and please press <CRTL-S> or F4 to enter RAID utility during boot. Creating RAID Sets Select “Create RAID Set”. Choose either a “Striped” or “Mirrored” RAID Set. Select if you want the utility to Auto Configure the RAID Set or if you want to manually configure the RAID Set. For Striped Sets, you can change the chunk size.
Page 92 The creating and naming of partitions is something done within the Windows operating system. Windows XP/2000 and Windows NT both use the Disk Management window to start this work. And Windows 98/ME uses FDISK to realize this function. Windows XP/2000 SECTION 1: System listing of all formatted and available disks/RAID Sets.
Page 93 The SATARaid GUI offers the user the ability to easily monitor your RAID Set. To launch the GUI, simply double-click on the icon located in the bottom right hand corner of the Desktop.
Page 94: Phoenix-Award Bios
Most BIOS settings of AX4SG Max have been optimized by AOpen’s R&D engineering team. But, the default setting of BIOS still can’t fine-tune the chipset controlling entire system. Therefore, the rest of this chapter intends to guide you the process of configuring your system setup.
Page 95: How To Use Phoenix-Award™ Bios Setup Program
<Page Down> key to change setting values. You can press <Esc> key to quit Phoenix-Award™ BIOS setup program. The following table provides details about how to use keyboard in the Phoenix-Award™ BIOS setup program. Alternatively, it's strongly recommended to install AOpen’s newest WinBIOS Utility to get more detailed description, further powerful functions and advanced setting of BIOS.
Page 96: How To Enter Bios Setup
After you finish jumper settings and connect correct cables, power on and enter the BIOS Setup. Press <Del> during POST (Power-On Self Test) and choose "Load Setup Defaults" for recommended optimal performance. Warning: Please avoid of using "Load Turbo Defaults", unless you are sure your system components (CPU, DRAM, HDD, etc.) are good enough for turbo setting.
Page 97: Winbios Utility
POST (Power-On-Self-Test) screen to get into the BIOS, which is inconvenient and clumsy. From now on, AOpen provides an easier way to configure your BIOS. WinBIOS is a customized utility for running exclusively on AOpen motherboards, which allows you to setup your BIOS under Windows environment.
Page 98 For the latest WinBIOS profile and language pack modules, you may find them from AOpen official web site as shown below: (http://english.aopen.com.tw/tech/download/WinBIOS/default.htm) Note: Due to BIOS versions are updated in an extremely fast speed, it's strongly recommended to download the latest BIOS...
Page 99: Bios Upgrade Under Windows Environment
Windows 95/98, 98SE/ME, NT4.0/2000, or Windows XP. In the meanwhile, in order to provide a much more user-friendly operating environment, AOpen EzWinFlash is natively designed to have multi-language function to provide easier way for users’ usage in changing BIOS setting.
Page 100 1. Download the new version of BIOS package file from AOpen official web site. (ex: http://www.aopen.com) 2. Unzip the download BIOS package (ex: WSGMAX102.ZIP) with WinZip (http://www.winzip.com) in Windows environment. 3. Save the unzipped files into a folder, for example, WSGMAX102.EXE & WSGMAX102.BIN.
Page 101: Vivid Bios Technology
POST screen! Unlike earlier graphic POST screen which could occupy the whole screen and mask text information during POST, AOpen VividBIOS deals with graphics and texts separately, and makes them running simultaneously during POST. With this innovative design, VividBIOS now brings you a beautiful and sleek 256 colours screen without missing any important information shown on POST screen.
Page 102: Driver And Utility
There are motherboard drivers and utilities in AOpen Bonus CD. You don’t need to install all of them to boot your system. But after you finish the hardware installation, you have to install your operation system first (such as Windows XP) before you install any drivers or utilities.
Page 103: Installing Intel ® Chipset Software Installation Utility
® ® ® The Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility should be installed onto the target system and the Windows * INF files outline the operating system how the chipset components will be configured. It is recommended that the Intel ® Chipset Software Installation utility be installed onto the target system prior to the installation of other drivers.
Page 104: Installing Intel Extreme Graphic Driver
You can install Intel Extreme graphic driver to get the best graphics function of the chipset. You can find it in the Bonus Pack CD disc.
Page 105: Installing Onboard Sound Driver
This motherboard comes with AC97 CODEC. This audio driver supports Windows 98SE and upper Windows OS; you can find the audio driver from the Bonus Pack CD auto-run menu.
Page 106: Installing Intel Application Accelerator Raid Edition Driver In Windows 2000/Xp
The IAA RAID Edition is designed to provide functionality for the Intel ICH5R SATA RAID Controller. This product is available for use on Pentium (R) 4 processor-based systems with an ICH5R I/O Controller Hub and running Microsoft Windows 2000/XP. Software installation is flexible and fully automated for Windows 2000/XP. You can find it in the AOpen Bonus Pack.
Page 107: Installing Lan Driver In Windows 2000/Xp
This motherboard integrates BCM5705 Gigabit Ethernet Chip. You can find this driver from the Bonus Pack CD auto-run menu.
Page 108 Install LAN Driver in Windows 98SE/ME 1. Open the Device Manager and check if there is a "PCI Ethernet Controller" in "Other devices" 2. Insert the supplied "Bonus CD" Click "PCI Ethernet Controller " ->" Driver" -> "Update Driver" and Select "Install the software automatically (Recommended) " And then Click "Next".
Page 109 3. Then OS will request to insert the Bonus CD into CD-ROM Drive...
Page 110 4. Type the path of the BroadCom Ethernet driver and select "OK" Example: e:\Driver\Lan\BCM5705 Where is the designation of the “b57w2k.sys “on your Bonus CD. BroadCom Ethernet driver installation finish...
Page 111: Install Lan Driver In Windows Nt 4.0
Install LAN Driver in Windows NT 4.0 Verify that the Windows NT system is upgraded with Service Pack 4 or later. Start your Windows NT system and log in. You must have System Administrator privileges to install the driver software. Open the Control Panel.
Page 112 7. When the Select Network Adapter window opens, click "Have Disk"..8. When prompted, insert the driver installation media, or choose a location to install the driver from. Type the path to the driver, and click "OK". For example, to install the adapter driver software for Windows NT, type D:\Driver\Lan\BCM5705 in the Insert Disk location box (where is the designation of the LAN driver on Bonus CD) 9.
Page 113 The adapter files are installed, and then the Network window is displayed showing the newly installed adapter Click "Close", then the Microsoft TCP/IP Properties window appears. Configure the TCP/IP protocol and click "OK". When prompted to restart your computer, click "Yes".
Page 114: Installing Usb 2.0 Driver
* Windows 98SE Installation Guide *********************************************************** Installing Drivers during Windows 98SE Installation *********************************************************** The following details the installation of the USB 2.0 driver while installing Windows 98SE (with the USB 2.0 controller is enabled already). 1. After enabling the USB 2.0 controller, install Windows 98/98SE normally. 2.
Page 115 11. Press the "Next" button. A message informing you that Windows has found "Intel USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller" should appear. 12. Press "Next," then "Finish," then "Yes" when asked if you want to restart your computer.
Page 116 ***************************************************** Installing Drivers with Existing Windows 98SE ***************************************************** The following section details the installation of USB 2.0 driver on a system that has Windows 98SE already installed. 1. Enable the USB 2.0 controller and boot Windows. 2. The "Add New Hardware Wizard" will appear, informing you that it has found a "PCI Universal Serial Bus." 3.
Page 117 1. Choose "Settings" from the "Start" menu. 2. Choose "Control Panel," and then double-click on the "System" icon. 3. Choose the "Device Manager" tab, and then click the "+" in front of "Universal Serial Bus Controllers." "Intel USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller"...
Page 118 * Windows Me Installation Guide ******************************************************** Installing Drivers During Windows Me Installation ******************************************************** The following details the installation of the USB 2.0 driver while installing Windows Me (with the USB 2.0 controller is enabled already). 1. Install Windows Me fully. 2.
Page 119 12. Press "Next," then "Finish".
Page 120 ************************************************************ Installing Drivers with Existing Windows Me System ************************************************************ The following section details the installation of USB 2.0 driver on a system that has Windows Me already installed and running. 1. After installing the USB 2.0 controller, boot system. 2. The "Add New Hardware Wizard" will appear, informing you that it has found a "PCI Universal Serial Bus." 3.
Page 121 1. Choose "Settings" from the "Start" menu. 2. Choose "Control Panel," and then double-click on the "System" icon. 3. Choose the "Device Manager" tab, and then click the "+" in front of "Universal Serial Bus Controllers." "Intel USB2.0 Enhanced Host Controller"...
Page 122 * Windows 2000 Installation Guide ********************************************************** Installing Drivers during Windows 2000 Installation ********************************************************** The following details the installation of the USB 2.0 driver while installing Windows 2000 (with the USB 2.0 controller is enabled already). 1. After enabling the USB 2.0 controller, install Windows 2000 normally. 2.
Page 124 ********************************************************* Installing Driver in Existing Windows 2000 System ********************************************************* After enabling the USB 2.0 controller and rebooting your system, Windows 2000 setup will show a "New Hardware Found" dialog box. Under Windows 2000, "Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller" will be displayed. 1.
Page 125 2. Choose the "Hardware" tab, and then click the "Device Manager" tab. 3. Click the "+" in front of "Universal Serial Bus controllers". "Intel PCI to USB Enhanced Host Controller - ICH5R" should appear.
Page 126 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000/XP Fresh Installation --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Follow the instructions in this section if you are performing a new installation of Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000/XP, and you wish to boot from a device attached to the SiI 3112 controller. 1.
Page 127 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Adding the SiI RAID controller to an existing Windows NT 4.0 installation ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Follow the instructions in this section to install the Silicon Image SiI 3112 driver on a system already running Windows NT 4.0. 1. Power off the system. Connect the hard drives to the SiI 3112 controller and insert the controller into a PCI slot. Power up the system. 2.
Page 128 2. During OS boot up, Windows 2000 will display the 'Found New Hardware Wizard'. Click 'Next'. 3. Select 'Search for a suitable driver for my device (Recommended)' and Click 'Next'. 4. Under 'Optional search locations' insure that 'Floppy disk drives' is checked. 5.
Page 129 1. Double click on 'My Computer' icon, select 'Control Panel', click on 'SCSI Adapters' icon, 'Silicon Image SiI 3112 SATA Raid Controller' should displayed correctly under 'Device' and 'Driver' tab. 2. To view information about the devices attached to the controller, use the SiICfg Utility and click on the device from the list. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Update SiI RAID driver on Windows NT 4.0 with existing Silicon Image driver ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...
Page 130 With the Silicon Image controller already plugged in and the driver already installed. Follow the instructions to update SiI RAID driver. 1. Right click on 'My Computer' and select 'Properties'. Under the 'System Properties' section, click on 'Hardware' tab, and then on 'Device Manager' click 'SCSI and RAID Controller’...
Page 131 the system. 5. After the system reboot, right click on 'My Computer' and select 'Properties'. From the 'System Properties' , select 'Device Manager', right click on the '?PCI RAID controller' and select 'Properties' from the pop-up menu. 6. Click ‘Driver’,'Update Driver’ and select 'Automatic search for a better driver [Recommended]'. Insert the driver diskette into floppy drive. Click 'Next' and complete the driver installation.
Page 132 5. See instructions in section A to verify controller was installed correctly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9) Update SiI RAID driver on Windows 98SE/ME with existing Silicon Image driver ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With the Silicon Image controller already plugged in and the driver already installed. Follow the instructions to update SiI 3112 driver. 1.
Page 133: Glossary
Basically, AC97 CODEC is the standard structure of PCI sound card. As we know, computer is digital-based, but music is based on analog-based. Therefore, there must be a process to turn digital into analog during the last stage processing of sound in computer.
Page 134: Ata (At Attachment)
The main function of AGP simply put is to tell monitor what screen information had to be shown, a visual transmission device actually. With the rapid developing of AGP card, we can see that it had been developed from single colorful AGP card to 2D and 3D graphic.
Page 135: Bluetooth
DMA, data transfer rate is 16.6MHz/s Ultra DMA, data transfer rate is 16.6MHz x 2 = 33MB/s. ATA/66, data transfer rate is 16.6MHz x 4 = 66MB/s. ATA/100, data transfer rate is 16.6MHz x 6 = 100MB/s. ATA/133, data transfer rate is 16.6MHz x 8 = 133MB/s. (ATA/133 uses both rising edge and falling edge as ATA/66 but clock cycle time is reduced to 30ns.) BIOS, is a set of assembly routine/program that reside in EPROM...
Page 136 The CNR specification provides the PC industry the opportunity to deliver a flexible and cost reduced method of implementing LAN, home networking, DSL, USB, wireless, audio and modem subsystems widely used in today's "connected PCs". The CNR specification is an open industry specification and is supported by OEMs, IHV card manufacturers, silicon supplier and Microsoft. DDR RAM utilizes the existing SDRAM (For ex, PC-100, PC-133) infrastructure and technology while doubling the nominal...
Page 137 Traditional motherboard stores BIOS code in EPROM. EPROM can only be erased by ultra-violet (UV) light. If BIOS has to be upgraded, you need to remove EPROM from motherboard, clear by UV light, re-program, and then insert back. EV6 Bus is the technology of Alpha processor from Digital Equipment Corporation. EV6 bus uses both rising and falling clock edge to transfer data, similar as DDR RAM or ATA/66 IDE bus.
Page 138: Flash Rom
Flash ROM can be re-programmed by electronic signals. It is easier for BIOS to upgrade by a flash utility, but it is also easier to be infected by virus. Because of increase of new functions, BIOS size is increased from 64KB to 512KB (4M bit). Hyper-Threading technology is an innovative design from Intel that enables multi-threaded software applications to process threads in parallel within each processor resulting in increased utilization of processor execution resources.
Page 139: Parity Bit
The parity mode uses 1 parity bit for each byte, normally it is even parity mode, that is, each time the memory data is updated, parity bit will be adjusted to have even count "1" for each byte. When next time, if memory is read with odd number of "1", the parity error is occurred and this is called single bit error detection.
Page 140 The BIOS self-test procedure after power-on, sometimes, it is the first or the second screen shown on your monitor during system boot. PSB Clock means the external bus clock of CPU. CPU internal clock = CPU PSB Clock x CPU Clock Ratio A DRAM technology developed by Rambus Corporation*, to achieve high speed of memory through the use of multiple channels in parallel by 16-bits.
Page 141 The Serial ATA specification is designed to overcome speed limitations while enabling the storage interface to scale with the growing media rate demands of PC platforms. Serial ATA is to replace parallel with the compatibility with existing operating systems and drivers, adding performance headroom for years to come. It is developed with data transfer rate of 150 Mbytes/second, and 300M/bs, 600M/bs to come.
Page 142 NEC’s Virtual Channel Memory (VCM) is a new DRAM core architecture that dramatically improves the memory system’s ability to service multimedia requirements. VCM increases memory bus efficiency and performance of any DRAM technology by providing a set of fast static registers between the memory core and I/O pins. Using VCM technology results in reduced data access latency and reduced power consumption.
Page 143 If you encounter any trouble to boot you system, follow the procedures accordingly to resolve the problem. Start Turn off the power and unplug the AC power cable, then remove all of the add-on cards and cables, including VGA, IDE, FDD, COM1, COM2 and printer. Make sure if all jumper settings are correct.
Page 144 Continue Install the VGA card. Then connect your monitor and keyboard. Turn on the power and check if the power supply and CPU fan work properly. The problem is probably caused by power supply or motherboard failure. Next Please contact your reseller or local distributor for repairing.
Page 145 Continue Perhaps your VGA card Check if there is display? or monitor is defective. Press <Ctrl> and <Alt> key at the same time, hold them and then press <Del> to reboot the system. It is very possible that your Check if the system keyboard is defective.
Page 146 Continue During system rebooting, press <Del> to enter BIOS setup. Choose “Load Setup Default”. Turn off the system and re-connect IDE cable. The problem should be Check if the system can caused by the IDE cable reboot successfully? or HDD itself. Re-install the operating system such as Windows XP.
Page 147 Dear Customer, Thanks for choosing AOpen products. To provide the best and fastest service to our customer is our first priority. However, we receive numerous emails and phone-calls worldwide everyday, it is very hard for us to serve everyone on time. We recommend you follow the procedures below and seek help before contact us.
Page 148 AOpen eForum is provided to discuss our products with other users, in which your problem probably had been discussed before or will be answered. After log on, you may select your preferred language under “Multi-language”. http://club.aopen.com.tw/forum Contact Distributors/Resellers: We sell our products through resellers and integrators. They should know your system configuration very well and should be able to solve your problem efficiently and provide important reference for you.
Page 149 The Part Number and Serial number are printed on bar code label. You can find this bar code label on the outside packing, or on component side of PCB. For example: Part No. Serial No. P/N: 91.88110.201 is part number, S/N: 91949378KN73 is serial number.
Page 150 Model name and BIOS version can be found on upper left corner of first boot screen (POST screen). For example: AX4SG Max R1.00 Jun. 1. 2003 AOpen Inc. Phoenix-Award Plug and Play BIOS Extension v1.0A Copyright © 2003, Award Software, Inc. AX4SG Max is model name of motherboard, R1.00 is BIOS version.
Page 151: Product Registration
Be able to join the discussions of web-based news groups. AOpen makes sure that the information you provide is encrypted, so that it cannot be read or intercepted by other people or companies. Further, AOpen will not disclose any of information you submitted under any conditions. Please consult our...
Page 152 Please do not hesitate contact us if you have any problem about our products. Any opinion will be appreciated. Pacific Rim Europe America AOpen Inc. AOpen Computer b.v. AOpen America Inc. Tel: 886-2-3789-5888 Tel: 31-73-645-9516 Tel: 1-510-498-8928 Fax: 886-2-3789-5899 Email: Support@AOpen.NL...

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