Hard-Disk Drive Options
The hard-disk drive bracket is located next to the drive bays at the front of the system unit. The system unit can contain up to two, one-inch-high, hard-disk drives or one, 1.6-inch-high, half-height and one, one-inch-high, hard-disk drive.
Enhanced Dual-Interface EIDE Subsystem
The enhanced dual-interface EIDE subsystem supports two EIDE interfaces (primary and secondary), each of which can support up to two EIDE devices. The EIDE controller resides on the high-speed PCI local bus.
•The primary EIDE interface (IDE1) provides support for up to two high- performance EIDE devices. The system’s boot drive should be connected to the primary EIDE interface.
•The secondary EIDE interface (IDE2) also provides support for up to two high-performance EIDE devices, typically EIDE tape drives or CD-ROM drives.
NOTE: The externally accessible drive bays at the front of the system unit are normally used for diskette drives, CD-ROM drives, and/or tape drives. Hard- disk drives should be installed in the internal hard-disk drive bracket described in the previous subsection, “Hard-Disk Drive Options.” For detailed information about the data storage subsystem, see Chapter 9, “Installing Drives,” in the User’s Guide.
Audio Controller
The system board has a built-in 16-bit Creative Labs ViBRA 16 audio controller chip and connectors on the back panel for connecting the system unit to external audio devices (speakers, microphone). The controller supports all the sound functions found on the Sound Blaster expansion card from Creative Laborato- ries, Inc.
Chapter 6, “Using the Integrated Audio Controller,” in the User’s Guide pro- vides instructions for connecting the system to external audio devices and configuring the integrated audio controller to avoid resource conflicts.
PCI Video Card
The video subsystem consists of a high-speed, high-resolution video adapter card installed in one of the bottom two PCI expansion-card connectors (PCI1 or PCI2). Because the video adapter card connects to the PCI local bus rather than to the ISA-compatible system bus, communication between the video subsystem and the microprocessor is much faster. The PCI local bus operates at a frequency of 30 or 33 MHz as opposed to the 8-MHz operating frequency of the ISA bus.
NOTE: Some users may use an ISA video adapter card.