The Award Web Center Award Starts Over 50 Million Computers Every Day. New BIOS Features and Solutions Version 4.51 PG This page contains information from our R&D departments about new features and solutions in the Award EliteBIOS software. The articles on this page are intended for OEM customers, system integrators, and technical support personnel. Contents Award BIOS Support for USB Keyboard and Mouse High-Capacity, Removable-Media Drive ATAPI Support BIOS Support for Ultra DMA/33 Protocol Boot Block BIOS New Feature in Award Flash Utility Version 5.33 CPU ID Display Symbol @CODE Changed to FCODE in Source Codes Award Zero-Volt Suspend Utility BIOS Support for No-Emulation Mode Booting Boot Sequence for Special BIOS, Including SCSI HDD and CD-ROM Selections SCSI Hard Drive Boot Failure IDE HDD Boot Failure Award BIOS Support for USB Keyboard and Mouse Introduction The advent of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard enables "outside-the-box" Plug-and-Play PC expansion. Due to the easy installation of PC peripherals, computers equipped with USB devices will become popular in the near future. Many USB peripherals, such as devices for audio systems, telephony, mass storage, keyboards, and mice, are being developed right now. USB keyboards and mice will be the first USB devices available. It is expected that keyboard and mouse ports will disappear and USB keyboards and mice will be used by the end of 1996. The demand for USB keyboard and mouse support in the Award BIOS thus has become urgent and inevitable. The Award USB BIOS establishes communication between a host system and USB devices by setting up bus transactions that comply with the packet transfer protocol detailed in the USB specification version 1.0. The Award USB BIOS supports USB keyboards and mice in system boots and in applications running in non-USB aware environments (e.g., DOS). Host Controller Interface The Host Controller Interface (HCI) specifies the communication channel between the host controller and the host controller drivers and defines data structures for the host controller to initiate bus transactions. Currently, two host controller interfaces, namely, OpenHCI and Universal HCI (UHCI), have been developed. The Award USB BIOS is designed to work with any host controller that is compatible with the OpenHCI or UHCI specification. Hardware Requirements for Award USB BIOS For the Award USB BIOS to function properly, the system should have the following hardware: 1.Host controller compatible with either OpenHCI or UHCI 2.One root hub 3.At least two downstream ports on the root hub 4.Keyboard controller hardware emulation 5.CPU capable of SMM operation 6.A USB keyboard and/or a mouse plugged directly into the root hub port The Award USB BIOS The Award USB BIOS has five major functions: 1.System core logic chipset setup for USB 2.Host controller initialization 3.Bus enumeration 4.Bus transaction scheduling 5.USB interrupt service USB Interrupt Service Routine For USB keyboard and mouse service, a USB transaction delivers user input data from the device's interrupt endpoint to the host controller through the universal serial bus. The input data can be in the form of either USB key codes generated from a USB keyboard or USB mouse data generated from a USB mouse. The host controller then requests service from the CPU for the received data by issuing an interrupt service request that may be routed to the CPU's SMI or IRQ. Once invoked, the USB interrupt service routine performs keycode and mouse data translations, which convert USB keycode and mouse data to legacy keyboard scan codes and mouse data, respectively. Before the USB interrupt service routine terminates, the converted data is passed to the keyboard controller hardware emulation ports. The keyboard IRQ1 and mouse IRQ12 are generated from the host controller as a result of a write to the KBC hardware emulation ports. Upon exiting from SMM, the pending IRQs are serviced. Conclusion The Award USB BIOS complies with USB specification version 1.0. However, for the two host controller interfaces, there are two versions of the Award USB BIOS: the OHCI BIOS for the host controllers that are compatible with the Open HCI specification version 1.0, and the UHCI BIOS for the host controllers that are compatible with the Universal HCI specification version 1.0 Both Award USB BIOS versions support booting and non-USB aware applications. For now, the following two human input devices are supported by the Award USB BIOS: 1.USB keyboard 2.USB mouse In the future, USB hub support will be included in the Award USB BIOS. Q4 1996 High-Capacity, Removable-Media Drive ATAPI Support We are pleased to announce ATAPI support for high-capacity, removable-media drives, namely, the LS-120 drive. Award BIOSes dated 1 November 1996 and later can include this feature on special request. The following table shows how to integrate a high-capacity, removable-media drive into your system in the floppy drive configuration fields in Setup: Floppy Drive(s) Already Install LS-120 Installed Drive As Drive A Drive B Drive A and Drive B None None Drive A Note that with a high-capacity, removable-media drive installed, you cannot enable the Swap Floppy Disk function in Setup. Note also that if the system contains two floppy drives already, the BIOS cannot recognize the LS-120 drive as drive A or B. However, Windows 95 OSR2 can recognize a high-capacity, removable-media drive as drive D. You can view the status of an LS-120 drive during HDD auto-detection during the POST stage, and also in the System Configuration Table that appears before booting. LS-120 drive status appears as LS-120, Mode? in the HDD type data. The functions of the LS-120 drive with 120-MB removable media, including formatting a bootable diskette, booting the system from the bootable diskette, and reading/writing data are limited to operating environments that include ATAPI support for high-capacity, removable media drives, such as Windows 95 OSR2, using IDE data in FAT format. To determine that a system is running Microsoft Windows OSR2, open Control Panel | System. In the first (General) tab, under System, the version number is 4.00.950 B or 4.00.950 C. If you have any questions about this announcement, contact Award Technical Support for information. Q4 1996 BIOS Support for Ultra DMA/33 Protocol We are pleased to announce that the Award BIOS with release dates since 7 November 1996 supports the Ultra DMA/33 IDE data transfer protocol. To take advantage of the benefits of the Ultra DMA/33 protocol, the following system components must support it: BIOS IDE hard drive Chipset: i.e., Intel 82430TX PCIset containing the PIIX4 PCI ISA IDE Xcelerator Operating environment: Windows 95 OSR2 or third-party IDE bus master driver To determine that a system is running Microsoft Windows OSR2, open Control Panel | System. In the first (General) tab, under System, the version number is 4.00.950 B or 4.00.950 C. To activate the Ultra DMA/33 function in a system running Windows 95 OSR2, follow these steps: 1. Enter Windows 95. Double click My Computer and then the Control Panel icon. 2. Move the cursor to System and choose Device Manager. 3. Check View Devices by Type in the Device Manager, and then select Disk Drives. 4. Highlight Generic IDE Disk Type 47 in Disk Drives. 5. At the left bottom corner of the menu, press the Properties button. 6. Look for Settings and then choose Options. 7. Put a check mark in the DMA box to enable this function. This turns on IDE bus master transfer. 8. Exit Windows 95, reset the system, and enter the BIOS Setup utility. a. Highlight Integrated Peripherals and press Enter. b. Select the channel that connects to the Ultra DMA/33 IDE hard drive and then enable the function by setting the item value to Auto. There are four channels: IDE Primary Master UDMA: AUTO/DISABLE IDE Primary Slave UDMA: AUTO/DISABLE IDE Secondary Master UDMA: AUTO/DISABLE IDE Secondary Slave UDMA: AUTO/DISABLE If the hard drive on the selected channel does not support the Ultra DMA/33 protocol, the BIOS disables this function automatically. Assuming support of the Ultra DMA/33 protocol in the installed hard drive, the table below shows the default hard drive mode with different combinations of UDMA BIOS support and DMA driver installation. BIOS Setup DMA Driver HDD Mode UDMA-Disabled Not Installed PIO UDMA-Disabled Installed DMA UDMA-Enabled Not Installed PIO UDMA-Enabled Installed Ultra DMA/33 As you can see in this table, Ultra DMA/33 implementation is possible only when UDMA is enabled in the BIOS Setup and a DMA driver (in the OS or from a third-party) is loaded. If you have any questions about this announcement, contact Award Technical Support for infor...
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