Intel AP440FX PCI IDE Support, PCI Auto-Configuration, Primary Cable, Secondary Cable

AP440FX Motherboard Technical Product Specification

The disk-based Flash upgrade utility, FMUP.EXE, has three options for BIOS upgrades:

∙The Flash BIOS can be updated from a file on a disk.

∙The current BIOS code can be copied from the Flash EEPROM to a disk file as a backup in the event that an upgrade cannot be successfully completed.

∙The BIOS in the Flash device can be compared with a file to ensure the computer has the correct version.

The upgrade utility ensures the upgrade BIOS extension matches the target computer to prevent accidentally installing a BIOS for a different type of computer.

3.4 PCI IDE Support

The two local bus IDE connectors with independent I/O channel support are setup up automatically by the BIOS if the user selects “Autoconfiguration” in Setup. The IDE interface supports PIO Mode 3, and Mode 4 hard drives and recognition of ATAPI CD-ROMs, tape drives, and any other ATAPI devices. The BIOS determines the capabilities of each drive and configures them to optimize capacity and performance. For the high capacity hard drives typically available, the drive is automatically configured for Logical Block Addressing (LBA) for maximum capacity and to PIO Mode 3 or 4 depending on the capability of the drive. The user can override the auto- configuration options by using the manual mode setting. The ATAPI Specification Revision 2.5 recommends that an ATAPI device be configured as shown in Table 34.

Table 34. Recommendations for Configuring an ATAPI Device

Primary Cable

Drive 0

ATA

ATA

ATA

ATA

Drive 1

ATAPI

Secondary Cable

Drive 0 Drive 1

ATAPI

ATAPI ATAPI

Normal, no ATAPI

Disk and CD-ROM for enhanced IDE systems

Legacy IDE System with only one cable

Enhanced IDE with CD-ROM and a tape or two CD-ROMs

3.5 PCI Auto-Configuration

The PCI auto-configuration utility operates in conjunction with the Setup utility to allow the insertion and removal of PCI cards without user intervention (Plug and Play). When the computer is turned on after adding a PCI add-in card, the BIOS automatically configures interrupts, I/O space, and other parameters. PCI interrupts are distributed to available ISA interrupts that have not been assigned to an ISA card, or other resources. Those interrupts left set to “available” in Setup are considered free for PCI add-in card use.

The PCI Auto-Configuration function complies with version 2.10 of the PCI BIOS specification. Configuration information is stored in ESCD format. The ESCD data may be cleared (i.e., “write protection” is removed) by setting the CMOS clear jumper to the DOWN (CLR) position.

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