AOpen MX6B-OV User Manual

Chapter 1

Overview

MX6B EZ is a new generation Pentium II / Pentium III based system board that
utilizes Intel 82440ZX/BX AGPset on Micro ATX PCI/ISA platform. This
AGPset is designed for the Pentium II / Pentium III / Celeron CPU, and
supports new architectures such as a high speed AGP graphics port, SDRAM,

Ultra DMA/33, Bus master IDE and USB ports. It has three Dual in-line
Memory Module (DIMM) slots that allow to install SDRAM memory and
expand up to a maximum of 512MB. Since the cache is on the CPU card
(connector SLOT1), there is no secondary level cache onboard. Also, MX6B

EZ uses a 2M bit Flash ROM BIOS to reserve for future new functions.
In addition to the above features, MX6B EZ also implements plenty of special

features as follows.
Jumper-less Design Pentium II / Pentium III / Celeron VID signal and SMbus

clock generator provide CPU voltage auto-detection and allows the user to set
the CPU frequency through the CMOS setup, therefore no jumpers or switches
are used. The correct CPU information is saved into the EEPROM. With these
technologies, the disadvantages of the Pentium based jumper-less designs are
eliminated. There will be no worry of wrong CPU voltage detection and no need
to re-open the housing in case of CMOS battery loss. The only jumper left is to
clear the CMOS, which is a safety hook if you forget the password.

Full-range CPU Core Voltage This motherboard supports a CPU core voltage
from 1.3V to 3.5V, that can be applied to various CPU types in future.

Battery-less Motherboard This motherboard implements EEPROM and a
special circuit (patent applied) that allows you to save your current CPU and
CMOS Setup configurations without the need of a 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 EEPROM and the system will recover as usual.

APM Suspend To Hard Drive "Immediately" turns on system and goes back
to the original screen before power down. You can resume your original work
directly from hard disk without go through the Win95 booting process and run

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Overview

your application again. Suspend to Hard Drive saves your current work (system
status, memory image) into hard disk. Note that you have to use VESA
compatible PCI VGA, Sound Blaster compatible sound card with APM driver,
for Suspend to Hard Drive to work properly.

ACPI Suspend to Hard Drive The conventional "Suspend to Hard Drive"
function is a private design of AOpen motherboards, the requirement to run it is
a BIOS revision and correct chipset that supports this function. However,
nowadays "Suspend to Hard Drive" has been become widely known as the "S4

- Hibernation" state defined in the ACPI specification; in this case not only the
BIOS itself but also the operation system (i.e. Windows98) and even the display
card are involved in the execution of this function. With regard to how to
implement this function, please refer to section “1.4 ACPI Suspend to Hard
Drive”.

0V Wake On Modem In conjunction with ATX soft power On/Off, it is possible
to have the system totally power off and wakeup to automatically answer a
phone call to serve as an answering machine or to send/receive a fax. The
most important break through is not only an externally cased modem but also
an internal modem card can be used to support Wake On Modem. The MX6B
EZ and MP56 internal modem card implement a special circuit (patent applied)
to make sure the modem card works properly without any power.

Wake On LAN This feature is very similar as the Wake On Modem feature, but
it is through a local area network. To use the Wake On LAN function, you must
have a network card that supports this feature and have installed proper
network management software.

Wake On RTC Timer The Wake Up Timer is more like an alarm, which wakes
up and powers on your system at a pre-defined time for a specific application. It
can be set to wake up everyday or on specific date within a month. The
date/time is accurate to within a second.

Wake On Keyboard This function allows you to power on your system by
clicking the hot key that you specified. Besides, you also may disable the
function of power button and let the system can only be powered on through
the preset keys (like a password).

Wake On Mouse This function allows you power on the system by clicking a
specified mouse button twice successively.

High Efficiency Synchronous Switching Regulator Most of the current
switching designs are Asynchronous mode, which from a technical point of view,
still consumes very high power and generates heat. This motherboard
implements a high efficient synchronous switching design so that the
temperature of MOS FET is far less than the Schottky diode of the
asynchronous design.

CPU and Housing Fan Monitoring The MX6B EZ has one more "fan
monitoring" function to prevent system overheat. There are two fan connectors.

1-2

Overview

One is for the CPU and the other can be an extra housing fan. The system will
report an alarm fan malfunction through utility software such as Hardware
Monitoring Utility.

CPU Thermal Protection The MX6B EZ has a special thermal detection circuit
to provide warning through application software when the temperature is higher
than a predefined value.

System Voltage Monitoring Further more, the MX6B EZ implements a voltage
monitoring system, As you turn on your system, this smart design will continue
to monitor your system’s working voltage. If any of the system’s voltage is over
the component's standard an alarm will be sounded through utility software
such as a Hardware Monitoring Utility for a warning to user.

AC Power Auto Recovery 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. In BIOS Setup settings if this item is set to
“Enabled” the system will automatically power-on after AC power resumes.

PC99 Ready For user’s convenience in installing the PC system, AOpen
adopts the recommended PC99 color scheme in all connectors that mount on
this motherboard.

FCC DoC Certificate The MX6B EZ has passed the FCC DoC test. The
radiation is very low, you can use any kind of housing.

Powerful Utility Software AOpen Bonus Pack CD disc contains many useful
utilities, such as Norton Antivirus, AOchip, Hardware Monitoring Utility, etc.

Note: This motherboard is battery-less, that means the RTC (real
time clock) can continue running without a battery as long as the
power cord is plugged. But in case of power failure or the power
cord being unplugged, you will need to reset the date and time
from the "Standard CMOS Setup" section of the BIOS Setup. For
more information, please see "Chapter 3 BIOS Setup".

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Overview

1.1 Specifications

Form Factor
Board Size
CPU
System Memory
Second-level Cache
Chipset
Onboard Audio
Expansion Slots
Serial Port

Parallel Port

Floppy Interface

IDE Interface

USB Interface

PS/2 Mouse
Keyboard
RTC and Battery

BIOS

Micro ATX
244 mm x 220 mm
Intel Pentium II / Pentium III / Celeron Processor
SDRAM, 168-pin DIMM x3, maximum 512MB.
On the CPU card (Slot1 connector)
Intel 82440ZX/BX AGPset
ESS Solo-1
ISA x1, PCI x 3 and AGP x1
Two serial ports UART 16C550 compatible, and the

3rd UART for IR function.
One parallel port supports standard parallel port (SPP),

enhanced parallel port (EPP) or extended capabilities
port (ECP).

Floppy interface supports 3.5 inches drives with
720KB, 1.44MB or 2.88MB format or 5.25 inches
drives with 360KB, 1.2MB format

Dual-channel IDE interface support maximum 4 IDE
hard disks or CDROM, mode 4 , bus master hard disk
drives and Ultra DMA/33 mode hard drives are also
supported.

Two USB ports supported by USB bracket, the BIOS
also supports USB driver to simulate legacy keyboard.

Mini-Din PS/2 mouse connector onboard.
Mini-Din PS/2 keyboard connector onboard.
RTC within Intel PIIX4E chipset. Lithium (CR-2032)

battery is an option, no battery is needed if power cord
is plugged.

AWARD Plug-and-Play, 2M bit Flash ROM BIOS.
Multi-language versions supported.

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Overview

1.2 APM Suspend to Hard Drive

Suspend to Hard Drive 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 Win95 booting process
and run your application again. If your memory is 16MB, normally, you need to
reserve at least 16MB HDD space to save your memory image. Note that you
have to use VESA compatible PCI VGA (AOpen PV70/PT70), Sound Blaster
compatible sound card and sound driver that supports APM (AOpen
AW32/AW35) for Suspend to Hard Drive to work properly. Of course, we
recommend choosing AOpen products for best compatibility.

To use Suspend to Hard Drive:

1. Go into BIOS setup, Power Management à Suspend Mode Option, select
"Suspend to Disk".

2. Go into BIOS setup, PNP/PCI Configuration à PnP OS Installed, select
"No". This can give BIOS the capability to allocate system resources for
Suspend to Hard Drive.

3. Boot up your system into DOS command prompt. If you are Win'95 user,
Please restart your Windows 95 under "Command Prompt" by pressing "F8"
while system shows "Windows 95 Starting ...". Choose "Safe Mode
Command Prompt Only" from selection so that system will start in DOS
command prompt.

4. Copy AOZVHDD.EXE to the root directory of your C: drive.

5. Option 1: Use /file switch (applied to FAT16 file system):
Please use following command to create a hidden file in the root directory of

your hard disk for Suspend to Hard Drive to save the system status and
memory image.

C:>AOZVHDD /c /file

Please make sure that you have enough continuous HDD space for
creating this hidden file. For example, if you have 32MB of system memory
and 4MB of VGA memory, you need at least 36MB (32MB + 4MB) of
continuous HDD space. If AOZVHDD failed to allocate the HDD space, you
may run "DEFRAG" Utility or "Disk Defragmenter" which come with MS­DOS or Win'95 to free HDD space.

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