Technical FAQ--Mainboard

Why does the BIOS detect the ATA 66 hard drive as an Ultra ATA/33 on the ATA 66 port rather than an Ultra ATA/66 even though you have put an ATA 66 hard drive into the ATA 66 port
-If you have this situation, we suggest you put the hard drive on the traditional IDE port and have the utility from the hard drive manufacturer to adjust the hard drive to ATA 66 mode. It will be detected normally next time when you put it on the ATA 66 port.

-In order to protect your CPU, the voltage adjustment range will depend on which CPU you have. For example, The maximum adjustment range of PII CPUs with 66Mhz FSB must be 3.2V and the maximum adjustment range of Celeron/ PII and PIII CPUs with 100Mhz FSB must be 2.3V . We don't recommend our customers to adjust the default voltage.

-Some engineer team has worked long and hard to figure a simple solution for the end-user confronted with different architectures and CPUs. The SlotKETTM is a card that inserts into the Slot 1 of a Slot 1 motherboard. It allows you to use the newer Socket 370 CPUs from IntelR even though you don't have the 370 socket on your Slot1 motherboard. The SlotKETTM uses the same high quality engineering that you would expect from the makers of some of the most famous motherboards in the world. With this winning combination from ABIT you can purchase among Slot 1 PentiumR II and PentiumR III CPU's, Slot 1 CeleronR CPU's and PPGA CeleronR CPU's. Now you can buy an ABITR motherboard with confidence knowing that you can definitely use the widest variety of CPU's on the market!

The SlotKETTM now ships with the LX6,AH6 and LM6 but you can also buy them separately, check with your vendor for availability.

-The BX6 Rev.2 and BH6 are currently ABIT's flagship BX chipset motherboards. Both have their strong points. For the BX6 Rev.2 it is memory. With 4 DIMM slots and the 6 chip data buffer set you assured the most powerful memory and RAM stability. The BH6 is a smaller board with only 3 DIMM slots and therefore no data buffer set and is a more affordable board. Both boards have 5 PCI. The BX6 (rev.1) was the predecessor to the current BX6 Rev.2. It was a larger board with 3 ISA slots and did not include some BIOS features now present in the BH6 and the BX6 Rev.2.

-This is the list of our products that support UltraDMA/66 (ATA/66):

The others can not support Ultra DMA/66 due to chipset hardware limitation and can not be implemented by future BIOS or driver upgrading.

-IF BIOS EEPROM can still be flashed.

Please find a working PC.

Download BIOS flash utility (aflash21.exe is recommended) and BIOS image file for your motherboard from ASUS web site, save them into a bootable floppy disk without autoexec.bat & config.sys files.

Boot the system into DOS mode with the floppy disk.

CAREFULLY take out the BIOS EEPROM from the motherboard.

Plug the faulty BIOS EEPROM into the socket.

Proceed with bios flashing procedure.

After the BIOS is successfully flashed into the EEPROM, take it out and put the original EEPROM back.

-If you didn't change any hardware configuration before the error message, there might be something wrong with the BIOS flash chip. Please load the setup default and see if it helps. If the error message still exists, please ask your local dealer to check the problem for you.

"Notice: Boot Block is different." appears before I start to program BIOS. Can I continue?

-Please make sure your BIOS model is correct. If so, you can ignore the message and continue to flash the BIOS.

-Don't turn off the power or restart your system at this time! Please try to flash the new BIOS for more times and see if it can flash successfully. If the error message still exists, please ask your local dealer to check the problem for you.

-Please follow the steps below:

Goto www.fic.com.tw or ftp.fica.com and download the proper BIOS for your board. Make sure the BIOS matches your PCB number. This number is usually printed on the corner of the board, along the last ISA slot.

If the file you download is a zip file, then unzip it to a bootable floppy. Otherwise, just copy it to a bootable floppy.

You should have 2 files on the bootable floppy. 1 flash utility (i.e. flash560.exe) and a BIOS file (i.e. JE1533.awd)

Boot-up with the floppy

At the "A:\>" prompt enter the name of the flash file, follow by the name of the BIOS file.

For example: "A:\>flash560 JE1533.awd"

When asked if you want to save the old BIOS answer NO

Answer YES to continue program process

For more detailed info. on the flash procedure please visit www.fic.com.tw and read the BIOS update procedure.

-Go into BIOS setup and choose "Load Setup Default," this will reset the BIOS. If you continue to have this error message, then your motherboard's battery probably needs replacement. You can purchase it from any local computer store.

-This could be related to a bad BIOS or hard drive. Here are a few things you can do:

First, make sure you properly partitioned, and formatted your hard drive. If you can not boot to a floppy to format your hard drive, then test with another hard drive.

Power down the system and remove the battery. Ground out the terminals by touching the positive and negative end of the battery socket with a metal object. Replace the battery and reboot your system.

-Please hold the power button for 4 sec. to turn off the system and it is a default setting in the BIOS which is called Soft-off by PWR-BTTN under Power Management in BIOS, or Go to bios and assign IRQ for VGA.

-Try to clear the BIOS setting by using jumper or dip-switch on the motherboard. If you don't have the Clear CMOS jumper, you have to remove the battery and short the positive and negative pin on the battery socket to reset the BIOS.

-Please clear the CMOS setting by using the jumper on the board to boot up the system again. The frequency setting is for overclocking the CPU bus, so it may not work and the new BIOS will not implement this feature.

-Please check your UDMA66 cable connection; blue connector to the motherboard, black connector to the Master drive and grey connector to the Slave drive.

-Select your CD-ROM in Device Manager and uncheck the DMA option.

How can I prevent Windows 95 from displaying a ghost drive when I install a LS 120 drive?

-Install IDE Bus Mastering ver. 2.1.31 or later versions, available at www.viatech.com

In Windows 95, I have a yellow question mark for PCI Bridge under device manager, how can I correct this?

-Install VIA PCI Bridge patch program, available at www.viatech.com

Goto Device Manager , select the PCI Bridge with the question mark, click the Remove button and, then click the Refresh button.

In Windows 95, I have a yellow question mark for PCI IDE controller under device manager, how can I correct this?

-Click the Start button on the task bar

Select Run, and type in "regedit" in the Open option, then click OK

In the left column, double click on the following folder: \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentContolSet\Services\VxD

If you see "NO IDE" in the right column, delete it and then restart your system

Why do I get error messages when I install Win95 OSR2, OSR2.1, and OSR2.5 with AMD K6-2 350 and above?

-When you are starting Windows 95 OSR2, OSR2.1, or OSR2.5 on a computer with an AMD-K6-2 processor running at speeds of 350 MHz and above, you may receive one of the following error messages:

Device IOS failed to initialize.

Windows Protection Error.

You must reboot your computer.

You need to install the patch provided by AMD. To learn more about this issue visit AMD at: www.amd.com/products/cpg/k623d/win95_update_k6.html

-Please try the supplement from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/contents/WURecommended/S_WUFeatured/Win98SE/Default.asp

-USB was designed as a convenient method to connect a variety of different peripherals to a system, The USB is a 12Mbit/sec (1.5MByte/sec) data rate interface and the bus can supports up to 127 devices. It uses a tiered star topology built on expansion hubs or simply connects to the others in a chain-like arrangement. Some of the USB peripherals include modems, telephones, joysticks, keyboards, & pointing devices.

-At this time you may try three main things:

1) Check the clear CMOS to be set at Normal

2) Check all the jumper settings, including CPU,CPU voltage and Dimm voltage

3) Try different CPU, Memory, VGA card and make sure they are all

-1) The system is looking for a "Power Management System Controller." For SIS or VIA boards, run setup in "VGA" folder, appropriate model folder or "AGPVXD" folder.For Intel chipset mainboards, run setup in the "8237lab" folder in "IDE" folder.

2) For mainboards with VIA chipset, a PCI Bridge Patch may require installation. If the system has found a new device called PCI Bridge or PCI Card, cancel the process and install the VIAPCI Bridge Patch. This will resolve the PCI Bridge/PCI Card problem.

-Because some joystick such as Microsoft Siderwinder Pro joystick using the midi port as the control interface, you need to enable the "MPU-401 MIDI- in functions " through the MPU-401 MIDI Device

Setting of SoundPro Audio Rack application, which will let the joystick work fine.

Note 1: If your CD version is V1.4 or earlier, you need to download the latest Sound driver to ensure the MPU-401 MIDI Device being supported.

Note 2: Some of the joystick can only use within Windows 95.

Why my Monitor after 15 mins will blank screen on Win98 and it doesn't occur on Win95?

-It is not a mainboard problem. It is Win 98 default function. Please setup on your Win98>control panel>power management>change the Turn off monitor from After 15 to NEVER.

When I shut down the system with the option to "Restart to MS-DOS mode", the system will either freeze up or blank screen ?

-We saw this problem happens on smalll portion of our products with SiS 530 or SiS620 chipset. To retify ths problem, when you start up the system, hit Del key to go to CMOS setting. Then go to "PCI Plug and Play Setup" and choose the option of "Allocate IRQ to VGA", change the default from "No" to "Yes". Hit Esc back to the CMOS main menu, and press F10 to save and exist.

Why some of the Mainboards with LAN on board cannot load window driver?

-Sometimes, while using the mainboards with Davicom LAN chip on board, under the Device Manager's Network Device, it shows a yellow exclamation mark (!) in front of the Davicom 9102 Fast Ethernet Adapter. Even if it is removed and reinstalls the driver repeatedly, the system will keep searching for Net9102.inf driver and nowhere it can find this driver.

To rectify this problem:

1. Under the Device Manager, go to the driver of Davicom 9102 Fast Ethernet Adapter. Then highlight this driver and go to the properties.

2. Under the General Folder, click on the Update Driver. When the system ask to load which driver, select "Install one of the other drivers" and "Display list of the drivers in a specify location, so you can select the driver you want".

3. Specify the location of the LAN Driver under the CD-Driver\Lan \Davicom_9102 and then \Win98 or \Win95 or any other operating system as desired. The system will find the "DAVICOM9102 PCI Ethernet Adapter. Click NEXT to restart the system.

4. After the installation , the driver should not show any yellow exclamation mark.