Some obscure Award BIOS options

po0k

there's no need to explain all these, though do if your bored , I'd just like to know if they are advantageous or not
just a few things I can't understand:
Block File transfer - it's supposedly a 'Turbo' setting when enabled on my BIOS
Assign VGA IRQ - I take it this assigns an IRQ to the VGA card?
Is there any advantage to be gained from enablin/disabling this?(I have a CLABS GeForce256)
Is ACPI worth the hassle?
It seems to not want to work nicley with my windows. When the PC goes into standy (not suspend to disk - which I mwouldn't mind getting working) it won't come out of standby. a bit of a p1ss-off when your doing something that takes a while to process/download etc.
Tjhere area few but I'm incollege at the moment.
I;ll write them down when i get home and bring them into you.

bonkey

I could be incorrect on these - so dont come complaining if I get it wrong!

Originally posted by [FCA]SyxPak
[BBlock File transfer - it's supposedly a 'Turbo' setting when enabled on my BIOS[/B]

AFAIK, older HDs did not support BFTs. Turning it off can make a disk slower, btu more reliable. I dont think theres any benefit to turning it off unless you have an ancient or unstable system.

Assign VGA IRQ - I take it this assigns an IRQ to the VGA card?
Is there any advantage to be gained from enablin/disabling this?(I have a CLABS GeForce256)

Again - backwards compatability, AFAIK, mostly for older OS's like the early versions of DOS. Should be able to leave it off I think.

Is ACPI worth the hassle?
It seems to not want to work nicley with my windows. When the PC goes into standy (not suspend to disk - which I mwouldn't mind getting working) it won't come out of standby. a bit of a p1ss-off when your doing something that takes a while to process/download etc.

Unless you actually want power-saving, cauise you leave your machine on 24/7 I wouldnt bother.

AFAIK, Win2K is the only Windows OS to do a semi-decent job with ACPI. The "wont come out of standby" is an age-old problem.

The most I do is configure my system to power down the monitor after 30 mins of inactivity. Spinning down the disk etc. could also be an option, but I get bored waiting for it to spin up, expscially cause it can spin down when I'm writing doccos or something tedious (plenty of memory => no disk thrashing). Then when I go to save, the machine locks for a few seconds while it spins the disk back up. Bleurgh.

jc

SantaHoe

Is there any good site out there that tells you exactly what each setting does?
Most of them are pretty self explanitory... while on the other hand, some settings are totaly obscure, to the point of madness.
For example, my motherboard manual (all of them) would define something like this:

MDPGF Option [Enable | Disable]
Enables or disables MDPGF.

Now what the hell use is that to someone who doesn't know what MDPGF is?
(I just made up MDPGF, so you needn't look it up )

And in your experience(s), has BIOS tweaking really payed off for you?
(directed at nobody in particular)

po0k

I have had some good experiences fiddling with my BIOS.
In particular, the CAS rating for my RAM.
I have this config:
3x DIMM slots.
1x 128MB PC100 CAS2 Ram
2x 256MB PC133 CAS3 Ram.
Seeing as how I only run the FSB at 100MHZ (atm) I can have all three sticks running safely and stabley at CAS2, whcih does give a bit of performance gain over CAS3.
Normally the setting is on 'Auto' and it'll probably run the whole lot at CAS3, even though it would be fine at CAS2.
There is also the AGP arpeture.
when I had only 128MB of ram I set it to 64MB.
Now that I have 640MB it's up at 256 (the max my board seems to want to allow). I'm reformatting my PC again this weekend, and I'd like to have every piston firing at full whack when I type 'setup' at the DOS prompt.
There is also RAS to CAS precharge and RAS delay (or something), I remember someone (gerry maybe) posted on this ages ago, but I forget what they do.

Googleize your life

There has been some other stuff too, but I can't remember.
basiclly it helps if you know what your doing before you save the settings and then have to find that jumper near the ROM to clear it........

Summary
So I should enable Block File Transfer and Disable the VGA IRQ?
There's also a IRQ for USB and 'Assign IRQ for Modem'.
If I disable the IRQ for the USB, am I in fact disabling the USB itself?
I have an internal PCi modem, and i don't use any sort of wake-uip thingummies. So I reckon I should disable the IRQ for the modem.
Am I right in doing this?

po0k

Tom's Hardware Guide

BattlingCheese

Another good guide if you have an Abit KT7/KT7 Raid

http://www.icrontic.com/index.php?page=public/articles&articleId=44

or

http://www.3dspotlight.com/tweaks/bios/print.shtml

Gerry

Firstly, there are a lot of redundant terms in the bios setup these days. While some of them are implemented for compatibility, most have little effect.

afaik, block file transfer is multiple sector transfer, which means its a performance setting. Only ancient hdds would not be capable of this, also the hdd controller (probably) ignores this setting.

USB will still work without an assigned irq, but apparently this may cause problems with some devices.

I don't think the modem setting makes a blind bit of difference in your case, it may have some effect with a hardware modem, but again not 100% sure.

ACPI causes a lot of problems on some machines, and slight problems on most. When it works it saves a fair bit of power, but I don't think its worth the hassle.

po0k

There is a link for the Wake-On-Modem on the mobo that needs to be hook up to the modem.
i have a Lucent 1646DSP (Hybrid Hradware/winmodem), and it has no corresponding pins.
Wouoldn't have used it anyways.
There is a "SBLink" though.
I have a SBLive!1024, and there are a few jumperpins on it, but I haven't the slightest idea what they are for (bar the Live! Drive connectors).

My mind is all muddled at the moment.
I';ve something else to post but I can't remember it.
i really should write down stuff when I thionk of it (usually while I lay in bed just about to go to sleep, BIOS settings flash before my eyes)