Table of Contents Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................... 1 1.1 A Thank-you Note Before You Get Start..........................................................4 1.2 Features of This Manual ...............................................................................5 1.3 Safety Information ......................................................................................5 Chapter 2 Introduction to This Motherboard .....
Connecting Front Audio ..............................................................................27 Connecting CD_IN .....................................................................................28 Connecting AUX_IN ...................................................................................29 Connecting COM2......................................................................................30 Connecting Case Open ..........................................................................
Exit without Saving ...................................................................................58 Load EEPROM Defaults ...............................................................................58 Save EEPROM Defaults...............................................................................58 Credits.....................................................................................................58 5.4 BIOS Upgrade under Windows environment................................................
1.1 A Thank-you Note Before You Get Start First of all, we would like to express our gratitude for purchasing AOpen products. Once again, this motherboard is designed uniquely to meet all your personal needs with our great industry-designing ability and our everlasting perseverance to the quality of all our products. This manual will introduce you how this motherboard is installed. Please keep it well for your future reference. If you lost your printed manual, you may also go to our website at http://www.
1.2 Features of This Manual To help you grab the useful information of this motherboard and aware of certain conditions that you might need to know, you will see the icons below frequently: Note This contains knowledge you should know in process of assembling, or some helpful tips. Warning / Caution Warning Please be careful when you see this mark. It highlights mistakes that occur often during assembling, or something you need to pay attention to.
Chapter 2 Introduction to This Motherboard Chapter 2 Introduction to This Motherboard 2.1 How does your motherboard look like? 16 17 18 20 19 2 1 3 21 4 22 5 23 6 24 8 25 26 10 27 12 28 30 14 29 7 9 11 13 15 31 1. JP28 PS2 KB/Mouse Wakeup Jumper 17. Onboard AC’97 CODEC 2. COM2 Connector 18. Front Audio Connector 3. 4-pin 12V ATX Power Connector 19. AUX_IN Connector 4. SYSFAN1 20. CD_IN Connector 5. AGP 4X Expansion Slot 21. S/PDIF Connector 6.
2.2 Specification Here is the main function of your motherboard.
2.
Chapter 3 Hardware Installation Chapter 3 Hardware Installation 3.1 Quick Installation Procedure 12. Installing Drivers & Utilities 1. Installing CPU 11. Installing Operating System (such as, Windows XP) 2. Installing CPU Fan & System Fan 3. Installing Memory Module 10. Loading Default BIOS, Setting CPU Frequency 4. Installing HD, CD-ROM and SATA Disk, etc 9. Connecting Back Panel Ports (Keyboard, Mouse, etc) 8. Installing Other Devices (USB, Front Audio, etc) 5. Connecting Front Panel Cable 7.
3.2 Installation You Have to Know Installing CPU This socket supports uFCPGA & uFCBGA package CPU, which is the latest CPU package developed by Intel. Other forms of CPU package are impossible to be fitted in. 1. Unscrew the socket screw counter-clockwise. 2. Locate Pin 1 in the socket and look for a golden arrow on the CPU upper interface. Match Pin 1 and golden arrow. Then insert the CPU into the socket. 3. Lock the CPU socket screw clockwise to fasten CPU.
Installing CPU Cooler This motherboard comes with a special CPU cooler desiged by AOpen, please follow the following steps to install CPU cooler. 1. Please apply thermal paste on the bottom of CPU cooler. Thermal paste 2. Gently put CPU cooler onto the CPU retention module. 3. Connect cooler’s fan power cable onto CPUFAN connector.
4. Install two cooler fixing sticks into CPU retention module. Note: Make sure that the sticks have hooked CPU retention module firmly. Fixing stick 5. Push the iron plate of cooler fixing stick up a bit.
6. Then press iron plate downward till you hear a “clip” sound. Note: Make sure that the iron plate have hooked CPU retention module firmly.
Installing CPU and System Fans Plug the CPU fan cable to the 3-pin CPUFAN connector. If you have chassis fan, you can also plug it in SYSFAN1 connector. GND +12V Sensor SYSFAN1 Connector GND +12V Sensor CPUFAN Connector Note: Some CPU fans do not have sensor pin so that they cannot support fan monitoring.
Installing Memory Modules DIMM slots are designed in black which are very easy to recognize. Insert the module straight down to the DIMM slot with both hands and press down firmly until the DIMM module is securely in place. Tab Pin 1 Key Note: The tabs of the DIMM slot will clip to hold the DIMM in place when the DIMM touches the slot’s bottom.
Connecting IDE and Floppy Cables Connect the 34-pin floppy cable and 40-pin, 80-wire IDE cable to floppy connector and IDE connector. Be careful of the pin1 orientation. Wrong orientation may cause system damage.
Connecting Front Panel Cable Attach the power LED, speaker and reset switch connectors to the 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 housing, which is a 2-pin female connector from the housing front panel. Plug this connector to the soft-power switch connector marked SPWR.
Connecting ATX Power Cables This motherboard comes with a 20-pin and 4-pin ATX power connector as shown below. Make sure you plug them in the right direction. We strongly recommend you to insert the 4-pin connector before connecting the 20-pin connector.
3.3 Other Installation for Your Reference Setting CPU Voltage and Frequency Setting CPU Core Voltage This motherboard supports Voltage ID (VID) function to detect CPU voltage automatically during power-on. Setting CPU Frequency This motherboard is CPU jumper-less design, you can set CPU frequency through 1MHz stepping CPU Overclocking in the BIOS. CPU Core Frequency = CPU FSB clock x CPU Ratio. However, all CPU now selling in the market belong to "Fixed Multiplier".
Connecting Serial ATA To connect a serial ATA disk, you have to have a 7-pin serial ATA cable. Connect two ends of the serial ATA cable to the serial ATA header on the motherboard and the disk. Like every other traditional disk, you also have to connect a power cable. Please be noted that it is a jumper free implement; you don’t need to set jumpers to define a master or slave disk.
Connecting AGP 4X Expansion Slot This motherboard provides an AGP 4X slot. The AGP 4X is a bus interface targeted for high-performance 3D graphic, and the data transfer rate could achieve 66MHz x 4bytes x 4 = 1056MB/s.
Connecting IrDA The IrDA connector can be configured to support wireless infrared module, with this module and application software such as Laplink or Windows Direct Cable Connection, user can transfer files to or from laptops, notebooks, PDA devices and printers. This connector supports both HPSIR (115.2Kbps, 2 meters) and ASK-IR (56Kbps). Install an infrared module onto the IrDA connector and enable the infrared function from BIOS Setup, UART Mode, you can use this function.
Dual Gigabit LAN Supported On the strength of dual Gigabit LAN controller on board, this motherboard provides 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet for office and home use. The Ethernet RJ45 connector is located on the top of USB connectors. The right hand side LED indicates link mode; it lights in yellow when linking to network.
Connecting USB2.0 This motherboard provides six USB 2.0 ports to connect USB devices such as mouse, keyboard, modem, printer, etc. There are four ports on the back panel. You can use proper cables to connect Front USB connector to USB modules or chassis front panel.
Connecting 1394 With IEEE1394 Chip on board (AGERE 1394), having its data transfer rate up to 400Mb/s, this interface can connect to devices that require high data transferring performance such as digital camera, scanner or others IEEE 1394 devices. Please use appropriate cables to connect IEEE1394 devices.
Super 5.1 Channel Audio Effect This motherboard comes with a Realtek AC’97 CODEC (ALC655), which supports high quality of 5.1 Channel audio effects, bringing you a brand new audio experience. On the strength of the innovative design of ALC655, you're able to use standard line-jacks for surround audio output without connecting any external module. To apply this function, you have to install the audio driver in the Bonus Pack CD as well as an audio application supporting 5.1 Channel.
Connecting Front Audio If the housing is 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 your housing doesn’t have an audio port on the front panel.
Connecting CD_IN This connector is designed to connect CD Audio cable from CDROM or DVD drive to onboard sound.
Connecting AUX_IN This connector is used to connect MPEG Audio cable from MPEG card to onboard sound.
Connecting COM2 This motherboard provides two serial ports. One of them is on back panel connector, and the other is on the upper of CPU socket. With proper cable, you can connect it to the back panel of chassis.
Connecting Case Open The “CASE OPEN” header provides chassis intrusion-monitoring function. To make this function work, you have to enable it in the system BIOS, connect this header to a sensor somewhere on the chassis. So, whenever the sensor is triggered by lights or by the opening of the chassis, the system will beep to inform you.
Connecting S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) is a newest audio transfer file format, which provides impressive audio quality through optical fiber and allows you to enjoy digital audio instead of analog audio. Through a specific audio cable, you can connect the S/PDIF connector to other end of the S/PDIF audio module, which bears S/PDIF digital output.
Colored Coded Back Panel The onboard I/O devices have PS/2 Keyboard, PS/2 Mouse, RJ-45 LAN Connector, COM1, VGA port, Printer, USB, and AC’97 sound. The view angle of drawing shown here is from the back panel of the housing. SPP/EPP/ECP Parallel Port PS/2 Mouse Connector RJ45 LAN Jack RJ45 LAN Jack Line-In Speaker Out MIC-In PS/2 Keyboard Connector COM 1 Port VGA Port USB 2.0 Ports USB 2.0 Ports PS/2 Keyboard: For standard keyboard, which use a PS/2 plug.
LED Indication LED indication including Standby LED and BOOT LED are AOpen’s considerate designs that aim at providing you friendly system information. STBY LED will light up when power is provided to the motherboard, giving you a convenient indication check the system power status in circumstances such as power on/off, stand-by mode and RAM power status during Suspend to RAM mode. BOOT LED will keep blinking when you power the system on and when your system is under POST (Power-On Self Test).
3.4 Jumper Settings This motherboard provides PS2 keyboard / mouse wake-up function. JP28 Keyboard / Mouse Wakeup Jumper JP28 PS2 KB/Mouse Wakeup Jumper 1 1 1 Disable (Default) Enable 1 Normal Clear CMOS (Default) JP14 Clear CMOS Jumper You can clear CMOS to restore system default setting. To clear the CMOS, follow the procedure below. JP14 Clear CMOS Data 1. Turn off the system and unplug the AC power. 2. Remove ATX power cable from connector PWR2. 3.
Chapter 4 Special Features and Utilities Chapter 4 Special Features and Utilities 4.1 RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) With the latest Promise PDC20579 implemented, i855GMEm-LFS provides RAID 0 and RAID 1 function for the Serial ATA hard disks. You may use FastBuild Utility provided by Promise to setup your disk array. For more RAID introduction, please visit our website: http://english.aopen.com.tw/tech/techinside/RAID.
The main menu of FastBuild Utility: After pressing , you will be presented with a screen as shown below. It’s the main menu of FastBiuld utility, you can use this utility to create or delete your disk arrays. Auto Setup: Press 1 to enter Auto Setup. You can choose “Performance” (RAID 0) or “Security” (RAID 1) mode by pressing , and BIOS will automatically optimize your RAID array depending on your personal demand for data storage.
View Drive Assignments: Press 2 to enter View Drive Assignments and BIOS will show you the hard drive information by physical array. Define Array: Press 3 to enter Define Array and BIOS will allow you to setup a RAID array by choosing Array No, RAID Mode, and Total Drv. Note: If you are not familiar with FastBuild utility, it’s strongly recommended to build disk array by selecting Auto Setup.
Delete Array: Press 4 to enter Delete Array and BIOS will allow you to delete an existing RAID array. Rebuild Array: Press 5 to enter Rebuild Array and BIOS will allow you to rebuild a crashed RAID array.
4.2 Other Useful Features With excellent design ability of R&D team, AOpen boasts for its various powerful and handy features that come with our product like follows. You are welcomed to visit our technical website to learn more about those features. http://english.aopen.com.
Chapter 5 Setting BIOS Chapter 5 Setting BIOS 5.1 Introduction 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 chipset). The Phoenix-Award BIOS™ that installed in the Flash ROM of the motherboard is a custom version of an industry standard BIOS.
5.2 How To Use Phoenix-Award™ BIOS Setup Program Generally, you can use arrow keys to highlight items that you want to choose, press key to select, and use and keys to change setting values. You can press key to quit Phoenix-Award™ BIOS setup program. The following table provides details about how to use keyboard in the Phoenix-AwardBIOS setup program. Key Description Page Up or + Change setting to next value or increase the value.
Standard CMOS Features The "Standard CMOS Setup" sets the basic system parameters such as the date, time, and the hard disk type. Use the arrow keys to highlight an item and or to select the value for each item. Standard CMOS Features > Date To set the date, highlight the Date parameter. Press or to set the current date. The date format is month, date, and year. Standard CMOS features > Time To set the time, highlight the Time parameter.
IDE HDD Auto-Detection: Press “Enter” to auto-detect parameters of HDD IDE Channel 0 Master (Slave): Define the parameters of IDE devices in Channel 0 (Master or Slave). Available options: z None: if there is no device, please select “None” for speeding boot up. z Auto: enable BIOS to auto-detect parameters of IDE device. (Default) z Manual: allow users to define parameter of IDE device. Access Mode: Set the using mode of HDD. Available options: CHS / LBA / Large / Auto (default).
Advanced BIOS Features This screen appears when you select the option "Advanced BIOS Features" from the main menu. Advanced BIOS Features > CPU feature Delay Prior to Thermal: Select delay time periods prior to enabling the Thermal Monitor. Available options: 4 Min / 8 Min / 16 Min / 32 Min Thermal Management: Set the function of CPU internal Thermal Management. When CPU supports Thermal Monitor 1 (TM1) and Thermal Monitor 2 (TM2), user could select TM1 or TM2.
Advanced BIOS Features > Removable Device Priority Advanced BIOS Features > Hard Disk Boot Priority Advanced BIOS Features > CD-ROM Boot Priority This parameter allows you to specify the system boot up search sequence. Advanced BIOS Features > First Boot Device Advanced BIOS Features > Second Boot Device Advanced BIOS Features > Third Boot Device This parameter allows you to specify the system boot up search sequence.
Advanced BIOS Features > Bypass Vivid BIOS This item allow user to bypass Vivid BIOS or not when booting up. Advanced Chipset Features The "Advanced Chipset Features" includes settings for the chipset dependent features. These features are related to system performance. Warning: Make sure you fully understand the items contained in this menu before you try to change anything. You may change the parameter settings to improve system performance.
Advanced Chipset features > DRAM RAS# Precharge If an insufficient number of cycles are allowed for the RAS to accumulate its charge before DRAM refresh, the refresh may be incomplete and the DRAM may fail to retain data. Fast give faster performance; and Slow gives more stable performance. This field applies only when synchronous DRAM is installed in the system.
Integrated Peripherals This submenu appears if you select the option "Integrated Peripherals" from the main menu. This option allows you to configure the I/O features. Integrated peripherals > OnChip IDE Device This parameter allows you to “Enable” or “Disable” the IDE device connected to the primary or secondary IDE connector. Integrated peripherals > Onboard Device This item allows you to set onboard devices.
USB Controller: This item lets you enable or disable the USB controller. USB 2.0 Controller: This item lets you enable or disable the USB 2.0 controller. USB Keyboard Support: This item lets you enable or disable the USB keyboard driver within the onboard BIOS. The keyboard driver simulates legacy keyboard command and let you use USB keyboard during POST or after boot if you don't have USB driver in the operating system. AC97 Audio: This item is used to enable or disable the onboard audio.
Power ON Function: This item is used to select Wake on Keyboard/Mouse mode. z Any Key: This function allows you wake up the system by clicking any key. z Button Only: Disable Wake on KB/MS function. You can boot up your system by power button only. z Keyboard 98: If selecting this option, you can boot up the system by power button and the “Wake” key on Keyboard 98. z Password: Disable the function of power button and let the system can only be powered on through the preset keys (like a password).
ASKIR: This setting allows infrared serial communication at a maximum baud rate of 57.6K baud. RXD, TXD Active: This item is used to select RxD (Receive Data) and TxD (Transmit Data) mode for UART, for instance, IR device, modem, etc. Normally, we suggest you keep the default setting. Please see the documentation that comes with your device. Available options: Hi, Hi / Hi, Lo IR Transmission Delay: If “Enabled” is selected, there will be a 4 character delay when SIR is changed from TX mode to RX mode.
Power Management > ACPI Suspend Type This function allows you to select suspend types. S1 is Power On Suspend and S3 is Suspend to RAM. Available Options: S1, S3, S1 & S3 Power Management > Soft-off by PWR-BTTN This is a specification of ACPI and supported by hardware. When Delay 4 sec. is selected, the soft power switch on the front panel can be used to control power On, Suspend and Off. If the switch is pressed for less than 4 seconds during power On, the system will go into Suspend mode.
Power Management > Date (of Month) Alarm This item is displayed when you enable the Wake On RTC Timer option. Here you can specify what date you want to wake up the system. For Example, setting to 15 will wake up the system on the 15th day of every month. Tip: Setting this item to 0 will wake up the system on the specified time (which can be set in the Wake On RTC Timer) every day. Power Management > Time (hh:mm:ss) Alarm This item is displayed when you enable the Wake On RTC Timer option.
Silent BIOS/HW Monitor This submenu displays Silent BIOS / HW monitor status and provides some basic control function. Silent BIOS/HW Monitor > CPU Warning Temperature This item is used to specify a CPU warning temperature. When the CPU’s temperature is higher than this predefined value, the CPU’s speed will automatically slow down and there will be a warning from BIOS. Silent BIOS/HW Monitor > Fan Mode This item allows user to select the mode of Fan Speed.
Frequency/Voltage Control This submenu allows you to configure the CPU and memory clock. Frequency/Voltage Control > CPU Bus Frequency This item allows user to overclock the bus frequency of CPU. The range is from 100 to 400. Tip: When you fail to overclock, you could: 1. 2. Clear CMOS (JP14) to restore the default setting. After turning power on, press “Home” immediately until the screen appears.
Load Setup Defaults The "Load Setup Defaults" option loads optimized settings for optimum system performance. Optimal settings are relatively safer than the Turbo settings. All the product verification, compatibility/reliability test report and manufacture quality control are based on "Load Setup Defaults". We recommend using these settings for normal operation. "Load Setup Defaults" is not the slowest setting for this motherboard.
Set Password Password prevents unauthorized use of your computer. If you set a password, the system prompts for the correct password before boot or access to Setup. To set a password: 1. 2. 3. At the prompt, type your password. Your password can be up to 8 alphanumeric characters. When you type the characters, they appear as asterisks on the password screen box. After typing the password, press. At the next prompt, re-type your password and press again to confirm the new password.
5.4 BIOS Upgrade under Windows environment With outstanding R&D ability of AOpen, we now bring you a whole new BIOS Flash wizard ---- EzWinFlash. With an eye to convenience for users, EzWinFlash combines the BIOS binary code and flash module together, so the only thing you have to do is just clicking on the utility you downloaded from web and let it help you complete the flash process automatically.
You may accomplish BIOS upgrade procedure with EzWinFlash according to following steps, and it’s STRONGLY RECOMMENDED to close all applications before you start the upgrades. Download the latest version of BIOS package zip file from AOpen official web site. (Ex: http://english.aopen.com.tw/) Unzip the downloaded BIOS package (ex: WSGMAXII102.ZIP) with WinZip (http://www.winzip.com) in Windows environment. Save the unzipped files into a folder, for example, WSGMAXII102.EXE & WSGMAXII102.BIN.
5.5 Vivid BIOS technology Have you been fed up with the conservative and immutable POST screen? Let’s rule out the tradition idea that POST screen are stiff and frigid, and let AOpen show you the newly developed VividBIOS to experience the lively vivid colorful POST screen! Unlike earlier graphic POST screen which could occupy the whole screen and mask text information during POST, AOpen VividBIOS deals with graphics and texts separately, and makes them running simultaneously during POST.
Chapter 6 Installing Drivers Chapter 6 Installing Drivers You may think that installing drivers and utilities would be a repeated task of going through those installation wizards and steps-by-steps. Now, you will be surprised with how “Ez” EzInstall could do. Without wizards or steps, all you have to do is to do one click and then it’s done. Click and done. Yes.
6.1 Installing Drivers As you may see from the Installing driver page, EzInstall had picked up necessary for your motherboard. All you have to do is just click on the “GO”, and no more steps afterward, of all listed drivers, grey checks indicate necessary drivers; you cannot click them off. Red checks can be disabled if you don’t want to install them now. Press the icon will prompt the “Install Driver” page. You may also press “Back” to return to the Main page.
6.2 Installing Utilities Installing Utilities is virtually the same as installing drivers. AOpen provides you many friendly and powerful utilities to manage your system. You may find lots of fabulous utilities listed there, and all you have to do is to click on the “GO”, then it will install the utilities to your system right away without complicated steps. Press the icon will prompt the “Install Utilities” page for your selection. You may also press “Back” to get back to the Main page.
Chapter 7 Troubleshooting Chapter 7 Troubleshooting 65
Chapter 8 Technical Support Chapter 8 Technical Support Dear Customer, Thanks for choosing AOpen products. We invite you to register at http://www.aopen.com to become a Gold Member of Club AOpen so as to ensure quality service in the future. In order to maintain the best service to every customer of us, we recommend you to follow the procedures below and seek help from our branches according to the region you buy the product.
Model Name and BIOS Version Model name and BIOS version can be found on upper left corner of first boot screen (POST screen). For example: Phoenix AwardBIOS v6.00PG, An Energy Star Ally Copyright (C) 2004, Phoenix Technologies, LTD. i855GMEm-LFS R1.02 Sept. 01. 2004 AOpen Inc. i855GMEm-LFS is model name of motherboard; R1.02 is BIOS version Register Your Motherboard Thanks for choosing AOpen product, please register this motherboard at http://club.aopen.com.
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