Table of Contents Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................... 1 1.1 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 USB2.0....................................................................................26 Super 7.1 Channel Audio Effect ...................................................................27 Connecting Front Audio ..............................................................................28 Connecting 1394 .......................................................................................29 Connecting COM2 (for i915Ga-EFRII only) ....................................................
Chapter 6 Installing Drivers ................................................................... 55 6.1 Installing Drivers....................................................................................... 56 6.2 Installing Utilities ...................................................................................... 57 Chapter 7 Troubleshooting..................................................................... 58 Chapter 8 Technical Support .........................................................
1.1 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? 14 16 13 15 1 2 17 3 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 5 19 4 6 21 7 23 25 27 8 29 9 31 10 32 11 33 12 1. Resetable Fuse 18. S/PDIF Connector 2. JP28 PS2 KB/Mouse Wakeup Jumper 19. Game Port Connector 3. CPUFAN Connector 20. 32-bit PCI Expansion Slots x 3 4. 4-pin 12V ATX Power Connector 21. COM2 Connector 5. PCI Express x 16 Graphics Slot 22. IrDA Connector 6.
2.2 Specification Here is the main function of your motherboard.
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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 FC-LGA4 CPU, which is the latest CPU package developed by Intel. Other forms of CPU package are impossible to be fitted in. 1. Pull CPU socket lever and plate up. 2. Remove plastic cap from CPU socket plate. 3. 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. 4. Press down the CPU socket plate and lever to finish CPU installation.
Installing CPU Fan 1. Gently put down the CPU fan on CPU socket with four sticks aiming correctly to the four mounting holes. Mounting Mounting hole hole 2. Press down four fixing sticks into the holes one by one. Make sure the sticks are firmly fixed into the holes. Fixing stick Note: The picture above may look different from the product you purchased.
Connecting CPU and System Fans Plug the CPU fan cable to the 4-pin CPUFAN connector. If you have chassis fan, you can also plug chassis fan in SYSFAN1 or SYSFAN2 connector. PWM SENSOR +12V GND CPUFAN Connector GND +12V SENSOR SENSOR +12V GND SYSFAN1 Connector SYSFAN2 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 and navy blue 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.
Maximum The Performance of the Dual Channel To obtain the highest performance of Dual Channel, the configuration of DIMM must meet the following conditions. Matched DIMM configuration in each channel ● Same density (128MB~1GB) As long as you insert memory modules of same density into Channel 1 (DIMM A1 & DIMM A2) and Channel 2 (DIMM B1 & DIMM B2), dual channel mode will be enabled.
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 ATX 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 24-pin ATX power connector and 4-pin 12V 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 24-pin connector. Note: If you don’t have 24-pin ATX power cable, please plug your 20-pin ATX power cable leftwards into the ATX power connector shown leftwards.
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 and the range is from 0.8375V to 1.6V. It’s not necessary to set CPU core voltage. Setting CPU Frequency This motherboard is CPU jumper-less design; you can set CPU frequency by 1MHz stepping CPU Overclocking in the BIOS. CPU Core Frequency = CPU FSB clock x CPU Ratio.
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.
Adjusting your Hard Disk Setting Except its original 1 set of parallel IDE, this motherboard supports the latest serial ATA hard disk. If you are unable to find your newly installed serial ATA hard disks on your operating system after having them installed, the problem may lie in the BIOS setting. You can simply adjust BIOS settings to have them work properly. After installing your hard disks properly, you can directly go to BIOS setting screen for adjustment.
If you desire to change the default setting, press Enter for selection list: Disabled: You can choose this item if there are only traditional IDE hard disks had been installed on your system. Disabling this item will also cancel the detection of serial ATA hard disks during POST, which will theoretically speed up your boot-up time a little bit; however, please remember to re-adjust the setting here if you want to use serial ATA hard disk later. Auto: This is factory default setting on this motherboard.
Connecting PCI Express x 16 Graphics Slot i915Ga-EFRII / i915Pa-EFRII provides a PCI Express x 16 Graphics slot, a red slot having the latest PCI Express x 16 specification on motherboard. The PCI Express x 16 is a bus interface targeted for high-performance 3D graphic. Traditionally AGP used both rising and falling edge of the 66MHz clock for 8X AGP, and the data transfer rate could achieve 2.1GB/s. Now PCI Express x 16 is moving to higher data transfer rate, which is upgraded to 8.
Connecting PCI Express x 1 Slot This motherboard provides one PCI Express x 1 slot, which is located between the PCI Express x 16 and traditional PCI slot. In order to go with the step of today’s and tomorrow’s processors, PCI Express x 1 provides higher I/O bandwidth. The transfer data rate could achieve 500MB/s concurrently (it’s 250MB/s per direction), which is nearly 4 times faster than the traditional PCI. You could install any PCI Express x 1 device in these slots for your preference.
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.
10/100/1000Mbps LAN Supported On the strength of Broadcom 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 eight 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.
Super 7.1 Channel Audio Effect This motherboard comes with an ALC880 or ALC850 CODEC, which supports the latest 7.1 Channel with high quality of audio effects, bringing you a brand new audio experience. This motherboard provides 7.1 Channel ports shown as below. Picture represents the standard location of all speakers in 7.1 Channel sound tracks.
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. Please be informed that to have front audio ports work properly, the front audio panel of the housing should be designed for High definition Audio jack. If the front audio panel is not designed for High Definition Audio jack, we strongly recommend you to connect the microphone to the back panel of the motherboard.
Connecting 1394 With IEEE1394 Chip on board (TI 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. Pin1 Pin1 Warning: Please note that Hot-Plug is not allowed on IEEE 1394 headers; doing so will burn the controller IC and damage the motherboard.
Connecting COM2 (for i915Ga-EFRII only) This motherboard provides two serial ports. One of them is on back panel connector, and the other is on the left of board. With proper cable, you can connect it to the back panel of chassis.
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.
Connecting Game Port This motherboard comes with a game port (Joystick-Midi) for you to connect any midi devices or joysticks. To use this function you have to have a joystick module and connect it with a game port cable to this port on the motherboard.
Connecting CD_IN This connector is designed to connect CD Audio cable from CDROM or DVD drive to onboard sound.
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.
Colored Coded Back Panel (for i915Ga-EFRII) The onboard I/O devices have PS/2 Keyboard, PS/2 Mouse, RJ-45 LAN Connector, COM1, VGA port, Printer, USB, Azalia sound and game ports. The view angle of drawing shown here is from the back panel of the housing. PS/2 Mouse Connector SPP/EPP/ECP Parallel Port RJ45 LAN Jack USB 2.0 Ports Rear SUR Line-In Speaker Out Center/ Subwoofer MIC-In PS/2 Keyboard COM 1 Port Connector USB 2.
Colored Coded Back Panel (for i915Pa-EFRII) The onboard I/O devices have PS/2 Keyboard, PS/2 Mouse, RJ-45 LAN Connector, COM1, COM2, Printer, USB, Azalia sound and game ports. The view angle of drawing shown here is from the back panel of the housing. PS/2 Mouse Connector SPP/EPP/ECP Parallel Port RJ45 LAN Jack Rear SUR Line-In Speaker Out USB 2.0 Ports Center/ Subwoofer MIC-In PS/2 Keyboard COM 1 Port Connector COM2 Port USB 2.
LED Indication LED indication including Boot LED and Standby 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 JP28 Keyboard / Mouse Wakeup Jumper This motherboard provides PS2 keyboard / mouse wake-up function. JP28 KB/Mouse Wakeup Jumper 1 1 Disable (Default) Enable JP2 Speaker Output Jumper JP2 Speaker Output 1 1 Buzzer (default) Speaker Allows you to turn off the voice from buzzer or speaker. You can choose not to be bothered by the warning made from Dr. Voice when it detects any error in operating system.
JP24 BIOS Rescue Jumper This motherboard provides DieHard BIOS II function to rescue your BIOS and protect BIOS from viruses. Once your BIOS were crashed, please set JP24 to Pin2-3 to boot up the system with BIOS 2. Then set the JP24 back to Pin1-2. You can go to our website (http://download.aopen.com.tw/downloads) to download your BIOS version suited for your motherboard, and have it flashed. Moreover BIOS 2 is further enhanced with data saving function.
Chapter 4 Special Features and Utilities hapter 4 Special Features and Utilities 4.1 SATA RAID by ICH6R Arouse RAID function in BIOS With Intel ICH6R integrated onboard, this motherboard supports RAID 0 and RAID 1 functions. For more RAID introduction, please visit our website: http://english.aopen.com.tw/tech/techinside/RAID.htm After having properly installed your Serial ATA hard disks, you may directly get into the BIOS setting screen for adjustment.
RAID Configuration Uitlity In order to make sure your system can recognize and operate Serial ATA RAID device smoothly, we have to enter RAID Option ROM to do some configuration. After finishing the BIOS setup and reboot, you will see [Press CTRL + I to enter configuration Utility] about half way through the boot up. Please press these two buttons simultaneously. When you enter you will be presented with a screen as shown below: 1.
4.2 SATA RAID by Promise PDC20579 Apart from the RAID function offered by Intel ICH6R, this motherboard is also designed with Promise Serial ATA (PDC20579) controller onboard, which is capable of providing you additional RAID 0, 1, 0+1 through 1 ATA133 IDE connector and 2 SATA connectors.
RAID Configuration Utility Promise PDC20579 is capable of creating RAID 0, 1, 0+1 by SATA5, 6 and IDE2. When driver is successfully installed, please press in POST to enter FastBuild Utility to set up RAID arrays. The Main Menu of FastBuild Utility Auto Setup: Press 1 to enter Auto Setup and BIOS will automatically optimize your RAID array depending on your personal demand for data storage.
Define Array: Press 3 to enter Define Array and BIOS will allow you to set up a RAID array by choosing Array No, RAID Mode, and Total Drv. 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.
4.3 SilentTek – Noise is Gone! As CPU clock keeps rocketing higher and higher, it has inevitably brought higher heat and system temperature in a relative way. The way we deal with this heat problem, however, is to spare no effort to add one fan after another to protect our pampered system, expecting these fans cool down our machine as much as they can. But at the same time, we believe that same users are affected terribly by the irritating noises of these fans while working with their PC.
The first image you have here is Voltage Status page. You can find current status of all voltages here and set your expected margins of warning level. You may check your system voltage from the indicating bar here. In “Temp/Fan/Case” page, you can get aware of the current temperature of CPU and the heat inside chassis. Also, you can check if fans are running properly.
The following page is surely the most important part of this utility. You can control the rotation speed of specific fans that you have got the options inside this page. CD-ROM Rotation Speed Control: by enabling the CD-ROM Rotation Speed Control, you can adjust the rotation speed of your CD-ROM. When you set the speed to high level, the CD-ROM will work at its fastest speed and it will run at basic required speed while you set the value to low speed.
4.4 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 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.
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.
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.
WinBIOS Utility In the past, users have to keep punching the DEL key during POST (Power-On-Self-Test) screen to get into the BIOS, which is inconvenient and clumsy. From now on, AOpen provides an easier way to configure your BIOS. WinBIOS is a customized utility, running exclusively on AOpen motherboards, to allow you setting up BIOS under Windows environment. Designed to remain traditional-BIOS-alike interface, you can adjust BIOS parameter with clear descriptions for every item.
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 58
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) 2003, Phoenix Technologies, LTD. i915Ga-EFRII R1.02 May. 01. 2004 AOpen Inc. I915Ga-EFRII is the 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.
Technical Support 61
