AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro ........................................................................................................................ 1
What’s in this manual......................................................................................................................................................2
You Must Notice..............................................................................................................................................................8
Before You Start..............................................................................................................................................................9
Hard war e Ins tal lat ion ......................................................................................................................19
Clear CMOS Data .........................................................................................................................................................20
CPU Installation ............................................................................................................................................................21
CPU Jumper-less Design ..............................................................................................................................................25
CPU and Housing Fan Connector (with H/W Monito ring) ..............................................................................................31
System and RAM Power Indicate LED ..........................................................................................................................35
Front Panel Connector..................................................................................................................................................36
ATX Power Connector ...................................................................................................................................................37
AC Power Auto Recovery .............................................................................................................................................. 38
WOM (Zero Voltage Wake on Modem) Connector.........................................................................................................43
WOL (Wake on LAN).....................................................................................................................................................46
AGP (Accelerated Graphic Port) Expans ion Slot...........................................................................................................48
CNR (Communication and Network Riser) Exp ansion Slot............................................................................................49
PC99 Color Coded Back Panel .....................................................................................................................................50
Support 2nd & 3rd USB Port ............................................................................................................................................51
CD Audio Connector .....................................................................................................................................................53
Front Audio ...................................................................................................................................................................56
Die-Hard BIOS (100% Virus Protection, Upgrad e Optional) ..........................................................................................57
Dr. LED Connector (Upgrade Optional).........................................................................................................................60
Battery-less and Long Life Design ................................................................................................................................62
Year 2000 (Y2K)............................................................................................................................................................66
Pure Aluminum Heatsink...............................................................................................................................................71
Driver and Utility .............................................................................................................................72
Auto-run Menu from Bonus CD Disc .............................................................................................................................73
Installing Windows 95 ...................................................................................................................................................74
Installing Windows 98 ...................................................................................................................................................75
Installing Windows® 98 SE, Windows® ME & Wi n dow s®2000 ........................................................................................ 76
Installing VIA 4 in 1 Driver .............................................................................................................................................77
Install Onboard IDE RAID Driver (AX37D Plus only).....................................................................................................79
Install FastCheck™ Monitorin g Utility (AX37 D Plus only)..............................................................................................79
Installing Hardware Monitorin g Utility............................................................................................................................80
ACPI Suspend to Hard Drive......................................................................................................................................... 81
ACPI Suspend to RAM (STR)........................................................................................................................................85
AWARD BIOS ....................................................................................................................................88
How To Use Award™ BIOS Setu p P rogra m ..................................................................................................................89
How To Enter BIOS Set up.............................................................................................................................................91
VGA Card & Hard Disk ..................................................................................................................................................95
ACPI (Advanced Configuratio n & Power Interfac e) .......................................................................................................96
AMR (Audio/Modem Riser)............................................................................................................................................97
APM (Advanced Power Management) ...........................................................................................................................97
ATA (AT Attachment).....................................................................................................................................................97
Bus Master IDE (DMA mode)........................................................................................................................................98
CNR (Communication and Networki ng Riser)................................................................................................................98
CODEC (Coding and Decoding)....................................................................................................................................99
DDR (Double Data Rate) SDRAM.................................................................................................................................99
DIMM (Dual In Line Memory Module)............................................................................................................................ 9 9
ECC (Error Checking and Correction) ......................................................................................................................... 1 00
EDO (Extended Data Output) Memory ........................................................................................................................ 100
EEPROM (Electronic Erasable Programmab le ROM) .................................................................................................. 100
EPROM (Erasable Programmabl e ROM) .................................................................................................................... 100
FSB (Front Side Bus) Clock ........................................................................................................................................102
I2C Bus ........................................................................................................................................................................ 102
Parity Bit .....................................................................................................................................................................102
PBSRAM (Pipelined Burst S RAM)...............................................................................................................................103
PC-1600 or PC-2100 DDR SDRAM.............................................................................................................................103
PCI (Peripheral Component Interface) Bus .................................................................................................................103
PDF Format ................................................................................................................................................................104
PnP (Plug and Play)....................................................................................................................................................104
POST (Power-On Self Test)........................................................................................................................................104
SIMM (Single In Li ne M emory Mod ule) ....................................................................................................................... 105
SPD (Serial Presence Detect ).....................................................................................................................................106
USB (Universal Serial B us) .........................................................................................................................................107
ZIP file ........................................................................................................................................................................107
Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat is trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
AMD, the AMD logo, Athlon and Duron are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Celeron, Pentium II, Pentium III are trademarks of Intel Corporation.
Microsoft, Windows, and Windows logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United
States and/or other countries.
All product and brand names used on this manual are used for identification purposes only and may be the registered trademarks
of their respective owners.
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.
This documentation is protected by copyright law. All rights are reserved.
No part of this document may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval
system with ou t p r ior written permissi o n fr om AOpen Corporatio n.
Copyright
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 PDF format
we recommend using Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 for online viewing, it is included in Bonus CD disc
from Adobe web site
Although this Online Manual is optimized for screen viewing, it is still capable for hardcopy printing, you can print it by A4 paper
size and set 2 pages per A4 sheet on your printer. To do so, choose File > Page Setup and follow the instruction of your printer
driver.
Thank you for choosing AOpen AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro. The AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro is Intel® Socket 370 motherboard (M/B)
based on the ATX form factor featuring the VIA Apollo Pro266 chipset
Plus / AX37D Pro can support Intel
FSB (Front Side Bus)
spilt-transaction long burst transfer up to 1066MB/sec. With high bandwidth 266MB/s 8-bit V-Link Host Controller, PC1600
PC2100
addition, it has still added two 168-pin SDRAM
sockets that allow you to install PC100 or PC133
memory up to 2 GB either. The on-board IDE
controller supports Ultra DMA
the transfer rate up to 100MB/s. AX37D Plus with a
Promise
that provides high performance and fault tolerance.
Further flexibility can be achieved by taking
advantage of the Communication and Network
Riser (CNR) card option that allows audio and
modem configuration on a single baseboard design.
Besides, the AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro has an AD
1885 AC97
high performance and magic surround stereo sound
to let people enjoy working with it. Now, enjoy all
features from AOpen AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro.
DDR SDRAM can be applied to the AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro and the maximum memory size can be up to 2GB. In
®
®
Socket 370 series Pentium III® & Celeron™ 533MHz~1GHz+ processor and 66/100/133MHz
. In the AGP performance, it has one AGP slot and supports AGP 1X/2X/4X mode and pipelined
33/66/100 mode and
FastTrak™ 100 Lite IDE RAID controller
CODEC chipset onboard for provides
. As high performance chipset built in the M/B, the AX37D
Supports Intel® Socket 370 Pentium III® & Celeron™ 533MHz~1GHz+ with 66/100/133MHz FSB (Front Side Bus) designed for
Socket technology.
Chipset
The VIA Apollo Pro266 consists of the VT8633 V-Link DDR Host system controller and the VT8233 highly integrated V-Link Client
PCI/LPC controller. The Host system controller provides superior performance between the CPU, SDRAM, AGP bus, and V-Link
interface with pipelined, burst, and concurrent operation. The VT8233 V-Link Client controller is a highly integrated PCI/LPC
controller. Its internal bus structure is based on 66MHz PCI bus that provides 2x bandwidth compare to previous generation
PCI/ISA bridge chips. The VT8233 integrated Client V-Link controller with 266MB/s bandwidth between Host/Client V-Link interface,
provides a V-Link-PCI and V-Link-LPC controller. Of six PCI slots provided, AX37D Plus supports four master PCI slots with
arbitration and decoding for all integrated functions and LPC bus, and two slave PCI slots; while AX37D Pro supports five master
PCI slots with arbitration and decoding functions also and one slave PCI slot.
Expansion Slots
Including six 32-bit/33MHz PCI, one CNR and one AGP 4X slots. The PCI local bus throughput can be up to 132MB/s. The
Communication & Nectworking Riser (CNR)
Modem/Audio card. The Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP)
speed. The AGP video cards support data transfer rate up to 1066MB/s. As AX37D Plus / A X37D Pro includes one AGP expansion
slot for a bus mastering AGP graphic card, For AD and SBA signaling, AX37D P lus / A X37D Pro can support 133MHz 2 X/4X mode.
slot provided from AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro can support CNR interface for a
specification provides a new level of video display sophistication and
With VIA Apollo Pro266 chipset, the AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro can support Double-Data-Rate (DDR) SDRAM. The DDR SDRAM
interface allows zero wait state bursting between the SDRAM and the data buffers at 66/100/133MHz. The four banks of DDR
SDRAM can be composed of an arbitrary mixture of 1M/2M4M/8M/16M/32M/64MxN SDRAM and maximum up to 2GB. In addition,
the AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro has still added two 168-pin SDRAM sockets that allow you to install PC100 or PC133 memory up to 2
GB either. The AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro allows SDRAM to run at either synchronous or pseudo-synchronous mode with the host
CPU bus frequency (66/100/133MHz).
Ultra DMA 33/66/100 Bus Mater IDE
Comes with an on-board PCI Bus Master IDE controller with two connectors that supports four IDE devices in two channels,
supports Ultra DMA
33/66/100, PIO Modes 3 and 4 and Bus Master IDE DMA Mode 4, and supports Enhanced IDE devices.
On-board ATA/100 IDE RAID (AX37D Plus Only)
1. Supports data striping (RAID 0) and mirroring (RAID 1). Provides dramatic increase in drive performance and/or fault tolerant
options. Offers performance customization and data rebuilds from the BIOS menu. Mirroring supports automatic background
rebuilds. Fault tolerance can be restored automatically without rebooting.
2. Supports up to four IDE drives which capacities are more than 8.4GB on the two IDE RAID connectors while still supporting
four IDE devices on the motherboard. The burst data transfer rates can up to 100MB/s from ATA/100 drives to boast overall
system performance.
3. Supports IDE Bus Master operation allows multi-tasking during disk drives transfer which increase CPU efficiency, then the
CPU is free to process task during IDE data transfer through PCI bus interface to/from system memory.
AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro uses the AD 1885 AC97 CODEC chip. This on-board audio includes a complete audio recording and
playback system.
Six USB Connectors
Provides three ports, six USB connectors for USB interface devices, such as mouse, keyboard, m odem, scanner, etc. The onboard
USB Host controller is fully compliant with USB UHCI 1.1 specification that can fully compatible with low power mode and wake-up
specifi cation.
1MHz Stepping Frequency Adjustment
Provides “1MHz Stepping Frequency Adjustment” function in the BIOS. This magic function allows you adjust CPU FSB frequency
from 66~248 by 1MHz stepping, and lets your system can get maximum performance.
Watch Dog Timer
Includes AOpen “Watch Dog Timer” function that can auto-reset system in 4.8 seconds when you fail to system overclocking.
Die-Hard BIOS with external controller (Upgrade Optional)
The Die-Hard BIOS technology is a very effective hardware protection method that doesn’t involve any software or BIOS coding.
Hence, it is 100% virus free.
The Dr. LED has 8 LEDs on the AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro can easily show what kind of problem you may encounter.
Power Management/Plug and Play
The AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro supports the power management function that confirms to t he power-saving standards of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Energy Star program. It also offers Plug-and-Play
configuration problems, thus making the system much more user-friendly.
, which helps save users from
Hardware Monitoring Management
Supports CPU or system fans status, temperature and voltage monitoring and alert, through the on-board hardware monitor module
and Aopen Hardware Monitoring Utility
.
Enhanced ACPI
Fully implement the ACPI standard for Windows® 95/98/ME/NT/2000 series compatibility, and supports Soft-Off, STR (Suspend to
RAM, S 3), STD (Suspend to Disk, S4), WOM (Wak e On Mo dem ) , W OL (Wake O n LA N) f eat ur es.
Super Multi-I/O
The AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro provides two high-speed UART compatible serial ports and one parallel port with EPP and ECP
capabilities. UART2 can also be directed from COM2 to the Infrared Module for the wireless connections.
This chapter describes jumpers, connectors and hardware devices of this motherboard.
Note: El ectrostatic discharge (ESD) can damage your processor, disk drives, expansion boards, and
other components. Always observe the following precautions before you install a system component.
1. Do not remove a component from its protective packaging until you are ready to install it.
2. Wear a wrist ground strap and attach it to a metal part of the system unit before handling a
component. If a wrist strap is not available, maintain contact with the system unit throughout any
This motherboard supports Intel® Pentium III® and Celeron Socket 370 series CPU. Be careful of CPU orientation when you plug
it into CPU socket.
1. Pull up the CPU socket lever and
up to 90-degree angle.
2. Locate Pin 1 in the socket and look for a black dot or cut edge on the
CPU upper interface. Match Pin 1 and cut edge, then insert the CPU into
the socket.
This jumper is used to specify the relationship of PCI and FSB clock. Generally speaking, if you are not overclockers, we
recommend you to set at the default setting. By the way, this motherboard also provides “1MHz Stepping Adjustment” feature for
overclockers. You can adjust CPU FSB frequency via BIOS setup program. Based on the CPU type, the adjustment range has
three level: 66~90 (FSB=66MHz, such as Celeron™ 533), 100~127 (FSB=100, such as Pentium
such as P entium
range will be changed and following your JP23 setting.
®
III 800EB) MHz for your choosing. If you fix the CPU FSB frequency by JP23, the “1MHz Stepping Adjustment”
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
designs are eliminated. There will be no worry of wrong CPU voltage detection.
CPU VID signal
, therefore no jumpers or switches are used. The disadvantages of the Pentium based jumper-less
This function is dedicated to overclockers, AOpen works together with Fairchild to develop a speci al chip F M3540 that supports
Adjustable CPU Core Voltage from 1.3V to 3.5 by 0.05 stepping. But this motherboard can also automatically detect CPU VID
signal and generates proper CPU core voltage.
BIOS Setup > Frequency/Voltage Control > CPU Voltage Setting
Warning: Higher CPU core voltage may be
able to increase CPU speed for overclocking,
but you may damage the CPU or reduce the
CPU lifecycle
Warning: VIA® Apollo Pro 266 chipset supports
maximum 133MHz FSB and 66MHz AGP clock,
higher clock setting may cause serious system
damage.
Tip: If your syst em hangs or fails to boot because
of overclocking, simply use <Home> key to
Home
restore the default setting (433MHz) or you can
wait the AOpen “Watch Dog Timer” reset the
system after five seconds and system will
auto-detect hardware again.
With this motherboard, AOpen provides a very special, useful feature for overclockers. When you power-on the system, the BIOS
will check last system POST
FSB
frequency by user’s setting that stored in the BIOS. If system failed in BIOS POST, the “Watch Dog Timer” will reset the
system to reboot in five seconds. Then, BIOS will detect the CPU’s default frequency and POST again. With this special feature,
you can easily overclock your system to get higher system performance, and without removing the cover of system housing to set
the jumper to clear CMOS data when your system hanged.
AOpen
Watch Dog
Timer
status. If it succeeded, the BIOS will enable “Watch Dog Timer” function immediately, and set the CPU
Plug in th e CPU f an ca ble to t he 3- pin CP U FAN connector. If you have chassis fan, you can also plug it on FAN2 or FAN3 (without
H/W moni toring) connector.
GND
+12V
SENSE
CPU Fan Connector
Note: Some CPU fans do not have
sensor pin, so that cannot support fan
monitoring.
The DDR SDRAM interface allows zero wait state bursting between the SDRAM and the data buffers at 100 or 133MHz. The two
184-pin sockets, four banks of DDR SDRAM can be composed of an arbitrary mixture of 1M/2M4M/8M/16M/32M/64MxN SDRAM
with maximum up to 2GB. Besides, this motherboard has added two 168-pin SDRAM sockets that allow you to install PC100 or
PC133 memory up to 2 GB either.
Warning: The AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro
supports both DDR SDRAM and SDRAM,
please do not install the SDRAM on the
DDR SDRAM sockets and vice versa.
Otherwise, it will cause serious damage
on memor
The function of this DDR Terminator is to terminate the electronic data on DDR SDRAM DIMM from flowing into the SDRAM DIMM.
Therefore, you must insert this DDR terminator module if you want to use your DDR SDRAM, which could otherwise cause serious
damage to both SDRAM. It serves as the function of preventing you from inserting extra RAM modules on SDRAM DIMM while you
have had already inserted RAM Modules on DDR SDRAM. The correct installation of the terminator module is to insert it on the
first SDRAM DIMM socket as shown below.
1. Make sure the module’s pin face down and matc h the socket’s size as depicted below.
Pin 1
2. Insert the module straight down to the first SDRAM DIMM slot with both hands and press down firmly until the DIMM module is
securely in place.
r
Key
Warning: You must insert this DDR terminator
module if you had installed RAM module on your
DDR SDRAM. Please also remember to remove
this terminator module if you want to use your
SDRAM module.
This LED indicates there is power applies to motherboard and memory. If you connect power to the motherboard, this LED will be
lighting. It is useful to check the system power status when power on/off and stand-by mode or RAM power status during Suspend
to RAM mode.
System
Power LE D
Warning: Do not install or remove the
DIMM module or others devices when
the LED is li ght in g.
Attach the power LED, EMPI, speaker, power and reset switch connectors to th
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. Plug this connector to the soft-power
switch connector marked SPWR.
Suspend Type ACPI L E D
Power on Suspend (S1) Flashing for every second
Suspend to RAM (S3) or Suspend to Disk (S4) The LED will be turned off
A traditional ATX system should remain at power off stage when AC power resumes from power failure. This design is inconvenient
for a network server or workstation, without an UPS, that needs to keep power-on. This motherboard implements an AC Power
Auto Recovery function to solve this problem.
8 KKeeyybbooaarrddWWaakkee--uupp
JJPP228
This motherboard provides keyboard wake-up function. You can use the JP28 to enable or disable this function.
Connect 34-pin floppy cable and 40-pin IDE cable to floppy connector FDC and IDE/IDE RAID (AX37D Plus only) connector. Be
careful of the pin1 orientation. Wrong orientation may cause system damage.
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. The setting as master or slave mode depends on the jumper on your IDE
device, so please refer to your hard disk and CDROM manual accordingly.
This motherboard supports ATA33
modes. The IDE bus is 16-bit, which means every transfer is two bytes.
Mode Clock Period Clock
PIO mode 0 30ns 20 600ns (1/600ns) x 2byte = 3.3MB/s
PIO mode 1 30ns 13 383ns (1/383ns) x 2byte = 5.2MB/s
PIO mode 2 30ns 8 240ns (1/240ns) x 2byte = 8.3MB/s
PIO mode 3 30ns 6 180ns (1/180ns) x 2byte = 11.1MB/s
PIO mode 4 30ns 4 120ns (1/120ns) x 2byte = 16.6MB/s
DMA mode 0 30ns 16 480ns (1/480ns) x 2byte = 4.16MB/s
DMA mode 1 30ns 5 150ns (1/150ns) x 2byte = 13.3MB/s
DMA mode 2 30ns 4 120ns (1/120ns) x 2byte = 16.6MB/s
UDMA 33 30ns 4 120ns (1/120ns) x 2byte x2 = 33MB/s
UDMA 66 30ns 2 60ns (1/60ns) x 2byte x2 = 66MB/s
UDMA100 20ns 2 40ns (1/40ns) x 2byte x2 = 100MB/s
Warning: Th e sp ec ific at io n of the I DE c abl e is a max imu m of 46c m (1 8 inc hes ) ;
make sure your cable does not exceed this length.
, ATA66 or ATA100 IDE devices. Following table lists the transfer rate of IDE PIO and DMA
Count
Cycle Time Data Transfer Rate
Tip:
1. For better signal quality,
it is recommended to set
the far end side device
to master mode and
follow the suggested
sequence to install your
new device. Please refer
to above diagram
2. To achieve the best
performance of Ultra
DMA 66/100 hard disks,
a special 80-wires IDE cable for Ultra DMA
The JP35 is used to enable or disable onboard PROMISE® FastTrak 100 Lite IDE RAID controller. If you want to disable this
controller, please turn off the system power first, and short pin 2 and pin 3 of JP35 by jumper.
The IrDA connector can be configured to support wireless infrared module, with this module and application software such as
Laplink or Windows 95 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).
Install the infrared module onto the IrDA connector and enable the infrared function from BIOS Setup, UART2 Mode
have the correct orientation when you plug in the IrDA connector.
This motherboard implements special circuit to support Wake On Modem, both Internal modem card and external box modem are
supported. Since Internal modem card consumes no power when system power is off, it is recommended to use an internal modem.
To use internal modem, connect 4-pin cable from RING connector of modem card t o the WOM connector on the motherboard.
Traditional Green PC suspend mode does not really turn off the system power supply, it uses external box modem to trigger MB
COM port and resume back to active.
Note: This picture is for example only, it may not exactly be the same motherboard.
With the help of the ATX soft power On/Off, it is possible to have a system totally power off, and wakeup to automatically answer a
phone call as an answering machine or to send/receive a fax. You may identify whether or not your system is in true power off
mode by checking to see if the fan of your power supply is off. Both an external box modem and an internal modem card c an be
used to support Modem Wake Up, but if you use an external modem, you have to leave your box modem on.
WOM Connector
(Motherboard Side)
WOM Connector
(Modem Card Side)
Note: This picture is for example only, it
may not exactly be the same
motherboard.
This feature is very similar as Wake On Modem, but it goes through local area network. 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. Note
that, at least 600mA ATX standby current is required to support the LAN card for this function.
The AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro provides an AGP 4x slot. The AGP 4x is a bus interface targeted for high-performance 3D
graphic. AGP supports only memory read/write operation and single-master single-slave one-to-one only. AGP uses both rising and
falling edge of the 66MHz clock, for 2X AGP, the data transfer rate is 66MHz x 4bytes x 2 = 528MB/s. AGP is now moving to AGP
4x mode, 66MHz x 4bytes x 4 = 1056MB/s.
CNR is the latest riser card specification to replace the AMR (Audio/Modem Riser) that supports V.90 analog modem,
multi-channel audio, and a variety of networking with Ethernet LAN, DSL, USB, wireless, or phone-line based home
networking added. Owing to CPU computing power getting stronger, the digital processing job can be integrated into main chipset
and share CPU power. However, the analogy conversion (CODEC
put on the lower cost and flexible CNR card. Though this motherboard implements audio CODEC on board (can be disabled by
BIOS), it reserves CNR slot for the option of other functions, which means that you can still use your favourite PCI modem/LAN
card depends on your preferences.
) circuit requires a different and separate circuit design, which is
The onboard I/O devices are PS/2 Keyboard, PS/2 Mouse, serial ports COM1 and COM2, Printer, six USB, AC97 sound and game
port. The view angle of drawing shown here is the back panel of the housing.
PS/2 Keyboard: For standard keyboard, which is using a PS/2 plug.
PS/2 Mo us e: For PC- Mo us e, wh ic h is usi ng a P S/ 2 pl ug.
USB Por t : Available for connecting USB devices.
Parallel Port: To connect with SPP/E CP/ EPP p rint er.
COM1 Port: To connect with pointing devices, modem or others serial devices.
Speaker Out: To External Speaker, Earphone or Amplifier.
Line-In: Comes from the signal sources, such as CD/Tape player.
MIC-In: From Microphone.
MIDI/Game Port: For 15-pin PC joystick, game pad or MIDI devices.
The Case Open connector provides chassis intrusion-monitoring function. This function logged the event in the system BIOS when
chassis is opened. You can use the 2-pin chassis intrusion sensor to connect with Case Open, and enable the chassis monitoring
function of system BIOS. Please contact our local distributor or reseller for purchasing this sensor. And again, you also can visit our
official web site: www.aopen.com.tw
This connector is used to connect Mono In/MIC Out cable from internal modem card to onboard sound circuit. The pin 1-2 is Mono
In, and the pin 3-4 is MIC Out. Please note that there is no standard for this kind of connector yet, only some internal modem cards
implement this 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 housing without an audio port on the front panel.
Recently, many viruses have been found that may destroy bios code and data area. This motherboard implements a very effective
hardware protection method that does not involve any software or BIOS coding, hence is 100% virus free. There is a BIOS flash
ROM mounted on the M/B when you get it. If you want to add extra BIOS flash ROM, please contact the local distributor or reseller.
You also can link t o AO pen offic i al we bs it e: www.aopen.com.tw
External Controller provides you a better and convenience way to switch the BIOS status between “Rescue” and “Normal”
without opening the case of your computer. You have to plug the jumper cable to the connector pin ( JP30 ) on the motherboard. Be
careful of the orientation when you connect, the red wire should correspond to Pin1.
In conjunction with Dr. LED (Upgrade Optional), which can easily show what kind of problem you may incur on your system during
assembly. It can clearly indicate whether there is a component issue or an installed issue by the 8 LEDs on the front panel of Dr.
LED. This helps you quickly self-diagnostic your system status.
Dr. LED is a CD disc storage box with 8 LEDs on its front panel, the size of Dr. LED is exactly the same as 5.25 in floppy drive, so
that it can be mount into normal 5.25 in drive bay of any housing.
The total 8 LEDs light up alternatively if the system fails in one of eight stages. Once the LED7 (latest LED) is lit, this indicates t h a t
the system has completed its boot-up procedure.
The 8 LEDs indicate the following messages when lit:
LED 0 - Indicates that the CPU may have been installed incorrectly or is damaged.
LED 1 - Indicates that the memory may have been installed incorrectly or is damaged.
LED 2 - Indicates that the AGP may have been installed incorrectly or is damaged.
LED 3 - Indicates that the PCI card may have been installed incorrectly or is damaged.
LED 4 - Indicates that the floppy disk drive may have been installed incorrectly or is damaged.
LED 5 - Indicates that the HDD may have been installed incorrectly or is damaged.
LED 6 - Indicates that the keyboard may have been installed incorrectly or is damaged.
LED 7 - Indi ca tes th at t he sy st em is OK.
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
Boot O.K. KB HDD Audio CPU Video Memory PCI
Note: During POST (Power On Sel f Test) procedure, the
Debug LED will light on sequentially from LED0 to LED7 until
the system boot O.K
uto switching to ATX standby
power as long as AC power line is
plugged. This smart design can
increases battery life if you still had
battery plugged on motherboard.
This Motherboard implements Flash ROM and a special circuit that allows you to save your current CPU and CMOS Setup
configurations without using the battery. 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.
It is very popular that the Over Current Protection was implemented on AT X 3.3V/5V/12V switching power supply. However, the
new generation CPU uses different voltages that has regulator to transfer 5V to CPU voltage (for example, 2.0V), and thus makes
5V over current protection useless. This motherboard is equipped with switching regulator onboard which supports CPU
over-current protection; in conjunction with 3.3V/5V/12V power supply to provide the full line 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.
This motherboard implements a hardware monitoring system. As you turn on your system, this smart design will continue to
monitor your system’s working voltage, fan status and CPU temperature. If any of these systems’ status go wrong, there will be an
alarm through the AOpen Hardware Monitoring Utility
Traditional motherboard has fuse for Keyboard and USB port to prevent over-current or shortage. These fuses are soldered
onboard that user cannot replace it when it is damaged (did the job to protect motherboard), and the motherboard remains
malfunction.
With expensive Resettable Fuse, the motherboard can resume back to normal function after fuse had done its protection j ob.
Y2K is basically a problem of the identification of year code. To save storage space, traditional software uses only two digits for
year identification. For example, 98 for 1998 and 99 for 1999, but 00 will be confused with 1900 and 2000.
There is an RTC circuit (Real Time Clock) in conjunction with 128 bytes of CMOS RAM data in the chipset of the motherboard. The
RTC has only two digits and the CMOS has another 2 digits. Unfortunately, this circuit’s behavior is like this 1997! 1998 ! 1999
! 1900, that means it may have the Y2K problem. Below is a diagram of how applications work with the OS, BIOS and RTC. In
order to keep the best compatibility in the PC industry there is a rule that applications must call the OS to get services and OS
must call the BIOS, and then only BIOS is allowed to access the hardware (RTC) directly.
Applications
There is a Tick Routine (that goes live around every 50m sec) in the BIOS to keep record of date/time information. In general the
BIOS, this Tick Routine does not update the CMOS every time because the CMOS is a very slow device that degrades system
performance. The Tick Routine of the AOpen BIOS has 4 digits for year coding, as long as applications and the operating system
follow the rule to get date/time information. There will be no Y2K problem (such as NSTL’s test program). But unfortunately again,
we found some test programs (such as Checkit 98) accesses RTC/CMOS directly. This motherboard has hardware Y2K
checking and protection that ensures risk free operation.
The quality of low ESR capacitor (Low Equivalent Series Resistance) during high frequency operation is very important for the
stability of CPU power. The idea of where to put these capacitors is another know-how that requires experience and detail
calculation.
Not only that, this motherboard implements 2200μf condensers, which is much larger than normal condenser (1000 or 1500μf)
and it provides better stability for CPU power.
The power circuit of the CPU core voltage must be checked to ensure system stability for high speed CPUs (such as the new
Pentium III, or when overclocking). A typical CPU core voltage is 2.0V, so a good design should control voltage between 1.860V
and 2.140V. That is, the transient must be below 280mV. Below is a timing diagram captured by a Digital Storage Scope, it shows
the voltage transient is only 143mv even when maximum 18A current is applied.
Note: This diagram for example only, it may not exactly be the same as the diagram of this motherboard.
Note: This diagram is for example only, it may not exactly be the same diagram of this motherboard.
For high frequency operation, especially overclocking,
layout is the most important factor to make sure
chipset and CPU working in stable condition. The
layout of this motherboard implements AOpen’s
unique design called “ Frequency Isolation Wall”.
Separating each critical portion of motherboard into
regions where each region operates in a same or
similar frequency range to avoid cross talk and
frequency interference between each region’s
operations and condition. The trace length and route
must be calculated carefully. For example, the clock
trace must be equal length (not necessarily as short
as possible) so that clock skew will be controlled
within few a pico second (1/10
Cool down CPU and Chipset is important for system reliability. Aluminum heat sink provides better heat consumption especially
when you are trying to over clock.
There are motherboard drivers and utilities included in AOpen Bonus CD disc. You don’t need to install all of them in order to boot
your system. But after you finish the hardware installation, you have to install your operation system first (such as Windows 98)
before you can install any drivers or utilities. Please refer to your operation system’s installation guide.
Note: Please follow recommended procedure
to install Windows 95
If you are using Windows® 98 Second Edition, Windows® Millennium Edition or Windows® 2000, you do not need to install the 4-in-1
driver as the IRQ Routing Driver and the ACPI Registry are already incorporated into the operating system. Users with Windows
98 SE may update the VIA Registry INF and AGP drivers by installing them individually.
You can install th e VIA 4 in 1 drive r (IDE Bus master (For Windows NT use), VIA ATAPI Vendor Support Driver, VIA AGP, IRQ
Routing Driver (For Windows 98 use), VIA Registry (INF) Driver) from the Bonus Pack CD disc auto-run menu.
Warning: If you w ant to uninst all the VIA AGP Vx d driver, please remo ve
the AGP card driver first. Otherwise, the screen may go black at rebooting
after the un-installation.
Note: Installing this Bus M aster
IDE driver may cause Suspend
to Hard Drive failure.
This motherboard comes with an AD 1885 AC97CODEC and t he sound controller is in VIA South Bridge chipset. You can find the
audio driver from the Bonus Pack CD disc auto-run menu.
The onboard PROMISE® FastTrak 100 Lite chipset provides DOS, Widows 3.1/95/98/98 SE/ME/NT/2000 driver for install. Please
refer to the “ATA/100 IDE RAID Manual” for more detail information.
You can monitor the operating status of disk array and drives configured on the IDE RAID channel using the supplies FastCheck™
monitoring utility for Windows-based operating system. FastCheck™ generates visual and audible messages alerting you
possible problems with the disk array or controller. Please refer to the “ATA/100 IDE RAID Manual” for more detail information.
You can install Hardware Monitoring Utility to monitor CPU temperature, fans and system voltage. The hardware monitoring
function is automatically implemented by the BIOS and utility software. No hardware installation is needed.
ACPI Suspend to Hard Drive is basically controlled by Windows operation system. It saves your current work (system status,
memory and screen image) into hard disk, and then the system can be totally power off. Next time, when power is on, you can
resume your original work directly from hard disk within few seconds without go through the Windows booting process and run your
application again. If your memory is 64MB, normally, you need to reserve at least 64MB HDD space t o save your memory im age.
2. After Windows 98's installation is complete, go to the Control Panel > Power Management.
a. Set Power Schemes > System Standby to " Never".
b. Click on "Hibernate" and select "Enable Hibernate Support" then "Apply".
c. Click on the "Advanced" tab, you'll see "Hibernate" on "Power Buttons". Note that this option will only be seen after step b
mentioned above has been completed; otherwise only "Standby" and "Shutdown" will be shown. Select "Hibernate" and
"Apply".
3. Clean boot into DOS and run AOZVHDD utility.
a. I f you assign th e whole disk to yo ur Win 98 system (FAT 16 or FAT 32 ), please ru n "aozvhdd /c /file". Please remember
sufficient free space has to be reserved in the disk, e.g. if you have 64 MB DRAM and 16 MB VGA card installed, the system
needs at least 80 MB free space. The utility will locate the space automatically.
b. If you assign an individual partition for Win 98, please run "aozvhdd /c /par tition". Of course, the system needs to provide
unformatted an empty partition.
4. Reboot sys tem .
5. You've already implemented ACPI Suspend to-Hard Drive. Click "Start > Shut Down > Standby" then the screen will go off
immediately. And 1 minute or so will be taken for the system to save what's in the memory to the hard drive; the larger the memory
size the longer this process will take.
DETECT
b. Select "ADD Binary" and name it as "ACPIOPTION".
c. Right click and select Modify, add "01" after "0000" to make it "0000 01".
d. Save changes.
2. Select "Add New Hardware" under Control Panel. Allow Windows 98 to detect new hardware. (It will find "ACP I B I O S " and
remove "Plug and Pla y BIOS")
3. Reboot sys tem .
4. Clean boot into DOS and run "AOZVHDD.EXE /C /File"
Changing from ACPI to APM
1. Run "Regedit.exe"
a. Go through the following path
This motherboard supports ACPI Suspend to RAM function. With this function, you can resume your original work directly from
SDRAM without going through the Windows 98 booting process and run your application again. Suspend to SDRAM saves your
current work in the system memory, it is faster than Suspend to Hard Drive but requires power supplied to SDRAM, while Suspend
to Hard Drive requires no power.
System parameters can be modified by going into BIOS Setup menu, this menu allows you to configure the system parameters and
save the configuration into the 128 bytes CMOS area, (normally in the RTC chip or in the main chi pset).
The AwardBIOS™ that installed in the Flash ROM
provides critical low-level support for standard devices such as hard disk drives, serial and parallel ports.
Most BIOS setting of AX37D Plus / AX37D Pro had optimized by AOpen’s R&D engineering team. But, the default setting of BIOS
still can’t fine-tune the chipset controlling entire system. Hence, the rest of this chapter is intended to guide you through the
process of c onf ig uri ng y our sys t em us ing set up .
To enter to BIOS setup menu
, press <Del> when POST (Power-On Self Test) screen is s hown on your monitor.
of the motherboard is a custom version of an industry standard BIOS. The BIOS
Note: Because the BIOS code is the most often
changed part of the motherboard design, the BIOS
information contained in this manual may be
different with actual BIOS that come with your
motherboard.
Generally, you can use the arrow keys to highlight items that you want to choose, then press <Enter> key to select, and use the
<Page Up> and <Page Down> key to change setting value. You also can press <F1> key for help and press <Esc> key to quit
Award™ BIOS setup program. The following table provides details about how to use keyboard in the Award BIOS setup program.
By the way, all products of AOpen also provides a special function in the BIOS setup, you can press <F3> key selecting preferred
menu language to display.
Key Description
Page Up or + Changing setting to next value or increase the value.
Page Down or - Changing setting to previous value or decrease value.
Enter Select the item.
Esc 1. In main menu: Quit and don’t save any c hange.
2. In sub menu: Exit current menu to m ain menu.
Up Arrow Highlight previous item.
Down Ar ro w Highlight next item.
Left Arrow Move the light bar to left side of menu.
Right Arrow Move the light bar to right side of menu.
F1 Get menu or item help description.
F3 Changing menu language.
F5 Load previous setting value from CMOS.
F6 Load fail-save setting value from CMOS.
F7 Load turbo setting value from CMOS.
F10 Save changed setting and exit setup program.
Note: A Open always dedicates to give users a more
friendly computer system. Now, we include all
function descriptions of BIOS setup program into the
BIOS Flash ROM. When you select one function of
BIOS setup program, the function description will
appeared at right side of screen. Hence, you don’t
need read this manual while you changing the BIOS
setting.
Warning: Please avoid of using "Load Turbo Defaults", unless
you are sure your system components (CPU, SDRAM, HDD,
etc.) are good enough for turbo setting.
By flashing your motherboard, you agree to accept the possibility of BIOS flash failure. If you motherboard is working and is stable,
and there are no major bugs that were fixed by a latter BIOS revision, we recommend that you DO NOT try to upgrade your BIOS.
By doing so, you are taking a risk of BIOS flash failure. If you indeed intent on upgrading, PLEASE BE SURE to use the right BIOS
revision for the right motherboard model.
AOpen Easy Flash is a little different than traditional flash method. The BIOS
you simpl y r un a sing le c omm en d t o comp let e the f la sh p roc ess .
binary file and flash routine are linked together and
Caution: AOpen Easy Flash BIOS programs are designed to be
compatible with the Award BIOS. At the date of this note, AOpen
Easy Flash BIOS programs are not available for AMI BIOS. AMI
BIOS appears mostly only on old 486 boards and some early
Pentium boards. Please be sure to view the README compressed
inside the BIOS package before upgrading, and follow upgrade
instructions carefully. This will minimize the chance of flash
failures.
Below are the steps for easy flashing procedures: (applies for Award BIOS ONLY)
1. Download new BIOS upgrade zip
For example, AX37DP102.ZIP.
2. Run shareware PKUNZIP (http://www.pkware.com/
BIOS file and the flash utility.
Or Winzip (http://www.winzip.com/
3. Save the unzipped file into a bootable floppy disk.
For example, AX37DP102.BIN & AX37DP102.EXE
4. Reboot the system to DOS mode without loading any memory handler (such as EMM386) or device driver. It needs around
520K free memory spaces.
5. Execute A:> AX37DP102 and the program will do the rest of it.
DO NOT turn off the power during FLASH PROCESS until you are asked to!!
6. Reboot system and press <Del> to enter BIOS setup
Warning: The new BIOS upgrade will permanently replace your
original BIOS's settings and PnP information when flashing. You
may need to reconfigure your BIOS setting and re-install
Win95/Win98 as well as your add-on cards, so that your system
can go back to work as normal.
file from AOpen's web site.
) which supports miscellaneous operation systems to extract the binary
As a leading manufacturer in motherboard industry, AOpen always listens to what customers want and develop products to fit
different user's requirements. Reliability, compatibility, leading technology and friendly features are our basic goals when designing
motherboards. Other than above mentioned design criteria, there are power users who are always seeking to push the limitation of
the system performance by overclocking which we call them "Overclocker".
This section is dedicated to overclockers.
This high performance motherboard is designed for maximum 133MHz CPU bus clock. But it comes with clock generator of
150MHz when we design it to accommodate future CPU bus clock. Our lab test results shown that 150MHz is achievable when
proper setting and qualified components were presented, we feel quite comfortable overclocking to 150MHz. Not only that, this
motherboard has full-range (CPU core voltage) settings and an option to adjust CPU core voltage. The CPU clock ratio can be up
to 8x that supports almost all of Pentium III/Celeron CPUs in the future and provides flexibility for overclockers. For your reference,
the following configurations are what we feel comfortable at 150MHz bus clock.
But not guaranty.
Tip: Note that overclocking may also
cause thermal problem. Please make
sure that the cooling fan and the
heatsink were adequate to dissipate
excessive heat that's generated by
overclocking the CPU.
☺
Warning: The design of this product follows CPU and chipset vendor's
design guideline. Any attempts to push beyond product specification are
not recommended and you are taking your own risk to damage your
system or important data. Before doing overclocking, you must make sure
your components are able to tolerate such abnormal setting, especially
CPU, SDRAM, hard disks, and AGP VGA cards.
VGA and HDD is key components for overclocking, for your reference, the following list are what have been successful overclocked
in our lab. Please note that AOpen can not guaranty they can be successful overclocked again. Please check the Available Vendor List (AVL) by link to our official website.
Basically, AC97 specification separates sound/modem circuit to two parts, digital processor and a CODEC for analogy I/O they are
linked by AC97 link bus. Since digital processor can be put into motherboard main chipset, the cost of sound/modem onboard
solution can be reduced.
ACPI is the power management specification of PC97 (1997). It intends to save more power by taking full control of power
management to operating system and bypass BIOS
operating system (such as Windows 98). This is a bit similar as the PnP
power switch to control the power state transition.
AGP is a bus interface targeted for high-performance 3D graphic. AGP supports only memory read/write operation and
single-master single-slave one-to-one only. AGP uses both rising and falling edge of the 66MHz clock, for 2X AGP, the data
transfer rate is 66MHz x 4byte x 2 = 528MB/s. AGP is now moving to 4X mode, 66MHz x 4byte x 4 = 1056MB/s. AOpen is the first
company to support 4X AGP motherboards by both AX6C (Intel 820) and MX64/AX64 (VIA 694x), started from Oct 1999.
. The chipset or super I/O chip needs t o provide standard register interface to
The CODEC circuit of AC97 sound/modem solution can be put on motherboard or put on a riser card (AMR card) that connects to
motherboard through AMR connector.
AAOOppeenn BBoonnuuss PPaacckk CCDD
A disc bundled with AOpen motherboard product, there are motherboard drivers, Acrobat Reader for PDF online manual and other
useful u til it ies .
Unlike ACPI, BIOS controls most APM power management functions. AOpen Suspend to Hard Drive is a good example of APM
power management.
AATTAA ((AATT AAttttaacchhmmeenntt))
ATA is the specification of diskette interface. In 80’s, many software and hardware manufacturers instituted the ATA s pecification
together. The AT is meaning International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) personal computer/AT’s bus structure.
AATTAA//6666
ATA/66 uses both rising edge and falling edge but doubles UDMA/33 transfer rate. The data transfer rate is 4 times of the PIO
mode 4 or DMA mode 2, 16.6MB/s x4 = 66MB/s. To use ATA/66, you need special ATA/66 IDE cable.
ATA/100 is a new IDE specification under developing. ATA/100 uses both rising edge and falling edge as ATA/66 but cl ock cycl e
time is reduced to 40ns. The data transfer rate is (1/40ns) x 2 bytes x 2 = 100MB/s. To use ATA/100, you need special 80-wire IDE
cable, t he s am e as ATA/66.
BIOS is a s et of assembly routine/prog ram that reside i n EPROM or Flash ROM. BIOS controls Input/output devices and other
hardware devices of motherboard. In general, to provide hardware independent portability, operation system and drivers is required
to access BIOS without directly access hardware devices.
BBuuss MMaasstteerr IIDDEE ((DDMMAA mmooddee))
The traditional PIO (Programmable I/O) IDE requires the CPU to involve in all the activities of the IDE access including waiting for
the mechanical events. To reduce the workload of the CPU, the bus master IDE device transfers data from/to memory without
interrupting CPU, and releases CPU to operate concurrently while data is transferring between memory and IDE device. You need
the bus master IDE driver and the bus master IDE HDD t o support bus m aster IDE mode.
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 SDRAM utilizes the existing SDRAM infrastructure and technology while doubling the nominal bandwidth available to systems
in an easy to design and simple to adopt way. Initially a perfect solution for memory intensive server and workstation applications,
DDR low cost and low voltage will ultimately make it an ideal solution for all segments of the PC market, high performance desktop
and mobile PCs, Value PCs and even Internet Appliances and mobile devices.
DIMM socket has total 168-pin and supports 64-bit data. It can be single or double side, the golden finger signals on each side of
PCB are different, and that is why it was called Dual In Line. Almost all DIMMs are made by SDRAM
that some old DIMMs are made by FPM/EDO
2.5V..
DDMMAA ((DDiirreecctt MMeemmoorryy AAcccceessss))
Channel for communications between the memory and surrounding devices.
, which operate at 3.3V. Note
and only operate at 5V. Do not confuse them with SDRAM DIMM which operates at
The ECC mode needs 8 ECC bits for 64-bit data. Each time memory is accessed; ECC bits are updated and checked by a special
algorithm. The ECC algorithm has the ability to detect double-bit error and automatically correct single-bit error while parity mode
can only detect single-bit error.
The EDO DRAM technology is actually very similar to FPM (Fast Page Mode). Unlike traditional FPM that tri-states the memory
output data to start the pre-charge activity, EDO DRAM holds the memory data valid until the next memory access cycle, that is
similar to pipeline effect and reduces one clock state.
Also known as E2PROM. Both EEPROM and Flash ROM can be re-programmed by electronic signals, but the int erface technology
is different. Size of EEPROM is much smaller than flash ROM.
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.
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