VIA Technologies VT8237R, VT8237 User Manual

1

Electronic Emission Notices

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Statement

This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital
device, pursuant to Part 15 of FCC Rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable
protection against harmful interference in a residential installation. This equipment
generates, uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in
accordance with instructions contained in this manual, may cause harmful interference
to radio and television communications. However, there is no guarantee that interference
will not occur in a particular installation.

If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception, which
can be determined by turning the equipment off and on, the user is encouraged to try to
correct the interference by one or more of the following measures:

- REORIENT OR RELOCATE THE RECEIVING ANTENNA

- INCREASE THE SEPARATION BETWEEN THE EQUIPMENT AND THE RECEIVER

- CONNECT THE EQUIPMENT INTO AN OUTLET ON A CIRCUIT DIFFERENT FROM
THAT OF THE RECEIVER

- CONSULT THE DEALER OR AN EXPERIENCED AUDIO/TELEVISION TECHNICIAN

NOTE: Connecting this device to peripheral devices that do not comply with Class B

requirements, or using an unshielded peripheral data cable, could also result in
harmful interference to radio or television reception.

The user is cautioned that any changes or modifications not expressly approved
by the party responsible for compliance could void the user’s authority to operate
this equipment.

To ensure that the use of this product does not contribute to interference, it is
necessary to use shielded I/O cables.

Copyright

This manual is copyrighted with all rights reserved. No portion of this manual may be
copied or reproduced by any means.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this manual, no responsibility
for errors or omissions is assumed. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting
from the use of the information contained herein.

Trademarks

All brand names, logos and registered trademarks mentioned are property of their
respective owners.

2

Technical Reference Booklet

Table of Contents

HARDWARE CONFIGURATION ....................................................... 4

Key Features ............................................................................................... 4

MOTHERBOARD LAYOUT ................................................................ 7

REAR PANEL .................................................................................... 8

AUDIO CONFIGURATION ................................................................ 10

SPEAKER CONFIGURATION ............................................................ 10

Method 1: 4/6 Surround audio output of back panel only ........................... 10

Method 2: Using S-Bracket connectors ...................................................... 12

JACK-SENSING INSTRUCTION ........................................................ 14

JUMPER SETTING ............................................................................... 1 6

JBAT1 - CMOS Clear ................................................................................... 16

JP1-Keyboard Power Select Jumper .......................................................... 16

CONNECTORS ................................................................................. 17

Floppy Disk Drive Connector:CN3 .............................................................. 17

Hard Disk Connectors:CN1&CN2 .............................................................. 17

Serial ATA Hard Disk Connectors:SATA-1&SATA-2 ..................................... 18

USB Connectors :USB1/USB2/USB3 ......................................................... 20

Fan Power Connectors:CPU FAN/SYS FAN/WOL ....................................... 21

CD-IN Connector:CDS1 .............................................................................. 22

Front Panel Audio Header:FPS1 ................................................................. 23

S-Bracket (SPDIF)/LEN/LFE/Surround Output Connector:

CN6(optional) ................................................................................................. ..... 24

Front Panel Header:FP1 ............................................................................. 26

SLOTS .............................................................................................. 27

CPU INSTALLATION ........................................................................ 28

3

HARDWARE SETUP ......................................................................... 32

To Install DDR DIMMs ................................................................................. 32

BIOS SETUP ..................................................................................... 3 3

Starting Setup .............................................................................................. 33

Main Menu ................................................................................................... 34

Standard CMOS Features ........................................................................... 35

Advanced BIOS Features ............................................................................ 36

Advanced Chipset Features ........................................................................ 36

Integrated Peripherals ................................................................................ 36

Power Management Setup .......................................................................... 36

PNP/PCI Configurations ............................................................................. 36

PC Health Status ......................................................................................... 36

Frequency/Voltage Control .......................................................................... 37

Set Supervisor/User Password .................................................................. 37

Flash Update Procedure ............................................................................. 38

VT8237R/VT8237 SATA RAID USER MANUAL ............................. 39

Enter BIOS Configuration Utility .................................................................. 39

Create Disk Array ......................................................................................... 40

Delete Disk Array ......................................................................................... 42

Select Boot Array ......................................................................................... 42

Duplicate Critical RAID 1 Array .................................................................... 43

Rebuild Broken RAID 1 Array ...................................................................... 44

DRIVER AND RAID SOFTWARE INSTALLATION ............................ 46

Microsoft Windows Driver Installation ......................................................... 46

INSTALL OPERATING SYSTEM INTO SATA HDD

OF VT8237R/VT8237 ..................................................................... 48

Install Windows 98SE or Me ....................................................................... 48

Install Windows NT4.0,2000,XP ................................................................. 48

APPENDIX ....................................................................................... 48

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Technical Reference Booklet

HARDWARE CONFIGURATION

Key Features :
Chipset

• VIA P4M800+VT8237R/VT8237 chipset.

Processor

• Supports Intel® Celeron® , Pentium® 4 processors in the LGA775
package (with 0.8V~1.6V voltage).

• Supports PSB (Processor System Bus) frequency of 533MHz
(133MHz bus clock).

• Supports PSB (Processor System Bus) frequency of 800MHz
(200MHz bus clock).

• Supports Hyper-Threading Technology.

VRM 10.0 (Voltage Regulator Modules) on Board

• Flexible motherboard design with on board VRM 10.0, easy to upgrade
with future Intel® Celeron, Pentium®4 processors.

• 0.8375V to 1.600V in 12.5mV steps.

System Memory

• A total of two 184-pin DDR SDRAM sockets.

• Support up to 2GB DRAMs for unbuffered DDR SDRAM module.

• Support DDR400/333/266 DDR SDRAM.

• 2.5V DRAM interface for DDR SDRAM.

System BIOS

• PnP, APM, ATAPI and Windows® 98/2000/XP.

• Full support of ACPI & DMI.

• Auto detects and supports LBA harddisks with capacities over 160 GB.

• Easy to upgrade BIOS by end-user.

On-board I/O

• On board two PCI fast IDE ports supporting up to 4 ATA, ATA2 , Ultra
ATA33/ 66/100/133 IDE HDDs, CD-ROMs, ZIP drives and LS-120
drives as boot drive.

• One ECP/EPP parallel port.

• One 16550 Compatible UART serial ports.

• One floppy port supports two FDD of 360KB, 720KB, 1.2MB , 1.44MB

and 2.88MB capacity.

• Eight USB2.0 ports.

• PS/2 keyboard connector.

• PS/2 mouse is supported.

• One Front Panel Sound Connector.

• Infrared (IrDA) is supported via a header.

• One 15-Pins VGA connector.

5

Serial ATA/RAID Controller (optional)

• Complies with Serial ATA Specificaion Revision 1.0.

• Two ports supported two S-ATA devices.

• Support RAID Configuration.

• S-ATA drive transfer rate is capable of up to 150MB/S per channel.

Expanded USB Support

• Includes 4 UHCI host controllers,increasing the number of external
ports to eight.

• Includes 1 EHCI USB2.0 Host Controller that supports eight ports
(Bandwidth shared between eight ports).

Plug-and-Play

• Supports Plug and Play specification 1.1.

• Plug and Play for Windows® 98, Windows® 2000 as well as
Windows® XP.

• Fully steerable PCI interrupts.

On-board AC97 Sound

• Integrated AC97 controller with standard AC97 Codec.

• Direct Sound and Sound Blaster compatible.

• Full-Duplex 16-bit record and play back.

• PnP and APM 1.2 support.

• Windows® 98/2000/XP drivers ready.

• Line-in, Line-out, Mic-in and MIDI/Game port.

• Supports ALC650/ALC655 AC97 Code for six sound channel output
(optional).

On-board VT6103 LAN (optional)

• High performance PCI master interface with scatter / gather and
bursting capability.

• Standard MII interface to external PHYceiver.

• 10/100MHz full and half duplex operation.

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Technical Reference Booklet

Integrated UnichromeTM GFX/Video Accelerator

• Optimized Shared Memory Architecture (SMA).

• 16/32/64MB frame buffer using system memory.

• 128-bit 2D/3D graphics engine.

• Full internal AGP 8X performance.

• Microsoft DirectX texture compression.

• High quality DVD video playback.

• CRT resolutions up to 1600X1200.

• 32-bit true color rendering.

• MPEG-2 video textures.

Power Management

• Supports SMM, APM and ACPI.

• Break switch for instant suspend/resume on system operations.

• Energy star “Green PC” compliant.

• Hardware monitoring circuit is supported, provide voltage, temperature,
fan speed, etc. monitoring (optional).

• WOL (Wake-On-Lan) header support (optional).

• Supports suspend-to-RAM(STR)(optional).

Expansion Slots

• 1 AGP slot (support AGP 4X/8X mode).

• 2 PCI bus master slots - ver. 2.1 compliant.

Static electricity can harm delicate components of the motherboard.
To prevent damage caused by static electricity, discharge the static
electricity from your body before you touch any of the computers
electronic components.

7

Motherboard Layout

The following diagrams show the relative positions of the jumpers, connectors, major
components and memory banks on the motherboard.

# The LAN Connector is optional.
# The ALC650/ALC655 embeds an internal analog switch (by driver software)
to share LINE input with Surround output, and share MIC input with CENTER/
LFE output.

NOTE

1) Be sure to check the cable orientation in order to match the colored strip to the pin
1 end of the connector.

2) Be sure to connect PW1 and PWR1 to power supply correctly, otherwise, the mother

-board can’t work normally.

3) When you start up the system, please wait for 5 seconds after you power on AC.

4) It is not recommended to add a metal spacer plate on the back of the Socket775.
Otherwise, some components will be short and damaged.

FOXCONN

REMOVE

LGA775 Socket

8

Technical Reference Booklet

Rear Panel

The back panel provides the following connectors:

Mouse Connector

The mainboard provides a standard PS/2

®

mouse mini DIN connector for

attaching a PS/2

®

mouse.You can plug a PS/2® mouse directly into this

connector.

Keyboard Connector

The mainboard provides a standard PS/2

®

keyboard mini DIN connector

for attaching a PS/2

®

keyboard.You can plug a PS/2® keyboard directly into

this connector.

USB 2.0 Connector

The mainboard provides a UHCI (Universal Host Controller Interface)

Universal Serial Bus root for attaching USB devices such as keyboard, mouse
or other USB-compatible devices.You can plug the USB device directly into
the connector.

PIN SIGNAL DESCRIPTION

1 VCC +5V/5VSB (optional)
2 -Data 0 Negative Data Channel 0
3 +Data0 Positive Data Channel 0
4 GND Ground
5 VCC +5V/5VSB (optional)
6 -Data 1 Negative Data Channel 1
7 +Data 1 Positive Data Channel 1
8 GND Ground

USB 2.0 Connector DescriptionUSB 2.0 Connector

9

Serial Port Connector: COM

The Port is 16550A high speed communication ports that send/receive

16bytes FIFOs. You can attach a serial mouse or other serial devices directly
to the connectors.

LAN Jack (Optional)

The mainboard provides one standard RJ-45 jack for connection to Local

Area Network(LAN).You can connect a network cable to the LAN jack.

Parallel Port Connector:LPT

The mainboard provides a 25-pin female centronic connector as LPT. A

parallel port is a standard printer port that supports Enhanced Parallel Port
(EPP) and Extended Capabilities Parallel Port (ECP) mode.

MIDI/Game Connector

The mainboard provides the game port to connect a joystick or a MIDI

device.

Audio Port Connector

Line_Out is a connector for Speakers or Headphones. Line In is used for

external CD player, Tape player, or other audio devices. Mic In is a connector
for microphones. The ALC650/655 embeds an internal analog switch (by driver
software) to share LINE input with Surround output, and share MIC input with
CENTER/LFE output.

The ALC655 embeds the jack sensing function.When you plug an audio
device into the corresponding connector, the system will show you what you
pluged into the motherboard.

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Technical Reference Booklet

Audio Configuration

ALC650/655 support 6 channel output,after installing the audio driver,
you can select 4/6 channel surround audio output in software utility and then
connect surround speakers to appropriate audio ports.

There are two ways to obtain 4/6 channel surround audio output:

1. 4/6 surround audio output of back panel only. All surround speaker

connect to audio connector.

2. S-Bracket (optional cable). You have installed S-Bracket into the

computer, and then connect two front speakers to back panel’s

“Line-out” port, and the rest of speakers to S-Bracket. Detail connection

is refer to Page 25.

Speaker Configuration

Method 1: 4/6 Surround audio output of back panel only.

After installing the audio drivers, you can attach the speakers for 2-/4-/6­channel audio output. Always connect the speakers to the LINE OUT
connectors. Different connector configurations for 2-/4-/6-channel
operations are listed below:

2-Channel

4-Channel 6-Channel

In 2-channel configuration,
Line Out, Line In and MIC
functions all exist.

When set to 4-channel
configuration, Line In
is replaced by Rear
Speaker Out. Line in
function does not exist.

When set to 6-channel
configuration, Line In
is replaced by Rear
Speaker Out. Mic is
replaced by Center/
Subwoofer Speaker Out.
Line in and Mic do not
exist function.

11

In utility, double click “AC97 Audio configuration” icon from the
window tray on the right bottom.

Then the “AC97 Audio Configuration” will appear. Click on the Speaker
Configuration tab to select the audio mode.

A. When you choose 4-channel mode for 4 speaker output, the selected item
is showed as below (Figure1)

(Figure1)

B. When you choose 6-channel mode for 5.1 speaker output, the selected
item is showed as below (Figure2)

(Figure2)

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Technical Reference Booklet

Back Panel S-Bracket

1

2

3

SPDIF jack (coaxial)

Rear Speaker Out

No function

(Front channels)

Description:

Connect two speakers to back panel’s Line Out connector and two
speakers to one Line Out connector of S-Bracket. If you want to use
Line In function, please click the Rear Speaker Out button (showed
as below)

1

23

+

Method 2: Using S-BRACKET connectors:

S-Bracket (The S-Bracket is showed in page 25) is an optional accessory.
It gives access to analog and digital audio output by integrating both SPDIF
and analog LINE OUT connectors. To use the S-Bracket, you should select
correct setting in the software utility. For information about the setting, refer
to selecting 4- or 6- Channel Setting later in the section.

Connector configurations for 4- and 6- channel using S-Bracket are
described below:

4-Channel Analog Audio Output

13

Back Panel S-Bracket

1

2

3

SPDIF jack (coaxial)

Rear Speaker Out

Center and Subwoofer Out

(Front channels)

6-Channel Analog Audio Output

Description:

Connect two speakers to back panel’s Line Out connector and four
speakers to both Line Out connectors of S-Bracket. If you want to use

Line In and MIC function at the same time, please click the Rear
Speaker Out and Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out buttons.

(showed as below)

1

23

+

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Technical Reference Booklet

Jack-Sensing Instrouction

Jack-Sensing provides audio connectors error-detection function.

Install Microsoft DirectX8.1 before to enable Jack-Sensing support
for Windows 98/98SE/2000/ME.

Jack-Sensing includes 2 parts:AUTO and MANUAL. Following is an
example for 2 channels (Windows XP):

Introduction of audio connectors

You may connect CDROM, Walkman or others audio input devices to Line In
jack. speakers, earphone or others output devices to Line Out jack. and
microphone to MIC In jack.

Auto-detecting:

Please connect the devices to the right jacks as above. A window will appear
as below picture if you setup the devices properly.

15

If you set wrong with the connectors, the warning message will come out as
following picture.

Manual setting:

If the device picture shows different from what you set, please press
“Correction...” to set.