A few IP-35 Pro BIOS setup questions

[Mutley]

HI all,

I recently bought the Abit IP-35 Pro motherboard. Its installed and running with 2GB of Corsair Twinx XMS2 PC6400 RAM, and Intel E6600.

Anyway, I'm setting up the BIOS at the moment and I have a couple of noob questions (i'm upgrading from very old technology, so bear with me..)

1. What does EIST actually do, and for a normal PC, used for playing games, is it best to have it on or off? I believe it varies CPU speed or something like that. I may do some OC'ing at some point as well.

2. What is the C1E function? Should it be on/off?

3. I have a Samsung 500GB SATA drive installed. In the OnChip SATA settings, should SATA mode be AHCI or IDE? I don't really know what AHCI does for me...

4. The Jmicron IDE/SATA controller - apparently this controls the eSATA connections. Should the controller mode be IDE or AHCI for those connections?

5. Power management - I have a Saitek Eclipse II keyboard plugged in (USB), so its not an old keyboard. However, I can't get any of the keyboard power on functions to work. Doesn't matter if I pick HotKey, anykey, whatver...any idea why that wouldn't work?

Thanks for any ideas!

[Mutley]

Got another question around AHCI.

Apparently my hard drive (Samsung HD501LJ) supports NCQ which is needed for AHCI. So I turned on AHCI in the BIOS. Now when I reboot, no drives are listed. If I go into the BIOS, no drive is listed.

Changing back to IDE mode makes no difference. I have to reset the BIOS on the motherboard.

Any idea what might be happening?

[Johnny Bravo]

OK from the top

1. What does EIST actually do, and for a normal PC, used for playing games, is it best to have it on or off? I believe it varies CPU speed or something like that. I may do some OC'ing at some point as well.

EIST stands for Enhanced Intel SpeedStep technology which basically clocks down your cpu when it's idle. handy for power consumption/heat if you're gonna run it stock. A pain if you're overclocking. You can turn it on now but if you want to over clock in the future I suggest you turn it off.

2. What is the C1E function? Should it be on/off?

Is basically the same as EIST but it's a bit more ON/OFF power saving, whereas EIST has multiple steps and also adjucts voltages with I *think* C1E does not. Again if your running stock you can leave it one to save power/reduce heat output

3. I have a Samsung 500GB SATA drive installed. In the OnChip SATA settings, should SATA mode be AHCI or IDE? I don't really know what AHCI does for me...

Set it to IDE. AHCI is brings about a few advantages like NCQ and the ability to hot swap drives but unless you need to do that it's got a fair few problems in XP support.

4. The Jmicron IDE/SATA controller - apparently this controls the eSATA connections. Should the controller mode be IDE or AHCI for those connections?

As above keep it simple and stick with IDE.

5. Power management - I have a Saitek Eclipse II keyboard plugged in (USB), so its not an old keyboard. However, I can't get any of the keyboard power on functions to work. Doesn't matter if I pick HotKey, anykey, whatver...any idea why that wouldn't work?

OK there are setting in the BIOS for this kinda thing, I'm not in front of the board atm but I'd guess they'll either be under power management or the USB settings. there is an option to allow devices to turn on the PC. I think this may help

[Johnny Bravo]

Got another question around AHCI.

Apparently my hard drive (Samsung HD501LJ) supports NCQ which is needed for AHCI. So I turned on AHCI in the BIOS. Now when I reboot, no drives are listed. If I go into the BIOS, no drive is listed.

Changing back to IDE mode makes no difference. I have to reset the BIOS on the motherboard.

Any idea what might be happening?

So even once you've changed it back the drive is not visible? Hmmm I suggest going into the BIOS once it's been reset and setting the "fail safe" settings
reboot
and hopefully the drive will reappear.

[Mutley]

Making any changes in the BIOS once this has happen has no affect. I have to manually reset the BIOS, which restores factory defaults, the restart for the drive to re-appear.

[Mutley]

OK there are setting in the BIOS for this kinda thing, I'm not in front of the board atm but I'd guess they'll either be under power management or the USB settings. there is an option to allow devices to turn on the PC. I think this may help

Johnny thanks for all this information.

On the power management side of things, I've already tried making the relevant changes in the BIOS, but they don't make difference. None of the various keyboard power-on settings in the BIOS work.

[Johnny Bravo]

Johnny thanks for all this information.

On the power management side of things, I've already tried making the relevant changes in the BIOS, but they don't make difference. None of the various keyboard power-on settings in the BIOS work.

Hmm I wonder, the USB gets a reserve power supply line from the PSU but it is chosen by a jumper on the board at each USB header. Grab the manual and look for the jumper - it may be that your PSU requires it to take the stand by power feed off the +5vsb. I'll have a look when I get home tonite.


I'm perplexed why your harddrive has stopped working/is visible to the board?? Have you tried it in a different SATA header on the board? Also if possible try it in another machine to make sure its still working.

[Mutley]

I just test the power management stuff using a PS2 keyboard, and that all works fine - you can resume from the S3 state no problem. Doesn't work with a USB keyboard though, even though the "resume from USB" option is switched on. A BIOS bug perhaps?

[Mutley]

Hmm I wonder, the USB gets a reserve power supply line from the PSU but it is chosen by a jumper on the board at each USB header. Grab the manual and look for the jumper - it may be that your PSU requires it to take the stand by power feed off the +5vsb. I'll have a look when I get home tonite.


I'm perplexed why your harddrive has stopped working/is visible to the board?? Have you tried it in a different SATA header on the board? Also if possible try it in another machine to make sure its still working.

Yeah its an odd one. If I switch the controller back to IDE mode, everything is fine, the drive re-appears. This time, I didn't need to do a hard reset of the BIOS either.

I already have Windows XP installed on that hdd - when I switch to AHCI, despite reporting no drives being visible, it looks like windows tries to boot - you get the F5 screen (you know the one that appears if Windows didn't shut down properly before). However, it doesn't get any further, the PC just power cycles, and starts again. So that left me wondering if the disk is working, but just isn't seen in the BIOS for some reason, and maybe Windows needs reinstalling....

...except I can't reinstall because the DVD drive I have is a SATA unit, and is completely invisible when you switch the SATA controller to AHCI, just like the HDD!

I'll try swapping the drives to other SATA ports.

On the USB power front, I'll take a look. I have the manual here, I'll have a dig around. I appreciate any further information you can find out on this. It seems minor, but its quite frustrating not being able to start the PC from the keyboard.

[Mutley]

OK, nothing in the manual about USB power.

This keyboard lights up - when I plug the keyboard into all the USB sockets (both front and rear panel), when the PC is off, the lights come on briefly, so I guess there is power to all the USB ports. Its just that the PC doesn't respond to the keyboard to power it up. I've also tried messing with OS/BIOS support for USB option, to no avail.

[gilgamesh]

Yeah its an odd one. If I switch the controller back to IDE mode, everything is fine, the drive re-appears. This time, I didn't need to do a hard reset of the BIOS either.

I already have Windows XP installed on that hdd - when I switch to AHCI, despite reporting no drives being visible, it looks like windows tries to boot - you get the F5 screen (you know the one that appears if Windows didn't shut down properly before). However, it doesn't get any further, the PC just power cycles, and starts again. So that left me wondering if the disk is working, but just isn't seen in the BIOS for some reason, and maybe Windows needs reinstalling....

...except I can't reinstall because the DVD drive I have is a SATA unit, and is completely invisible when you switch the SATA controller to AHCI, just like the HDD!

I'll try swapping the drives to other SATA ports.

On the USB power front, I'll take a look. I have the manual here, I'll have a dig around. I appreciate any further information you can find out on this. It seems minor, but its quite frustrating not being able to start the PC from the keyboard.

I cna help with that
early bios and even beta bios 1.3 fixed afew problems but introduced others (as inmy review) such as the hdd disapearing when the ACHI function is enabled.

BIOS beta 14 fixes the issue mad indeed final bios (sales) version 11 addressesthis issue also

gilgamesh

[Mutley]

Interesting. I couldn't find a new BIOS revision - where would I find them for this board?

[DratUK]

Beta Bios from here

Remember they are BETA use at your own risk!!!!

Official Bios release inc version 11 that gligamesh refers to.

[BUFF]

5. Power management - I have a Saitek Eclipse II keyboard plugged in (USB), so its not an old keyboard. However, I can't get any of the keyboard power on functions to work. Doesn't matter if I pick HotKey, anykey, whatver...any idea why that wouldn't work?

don't know if it's just abits (not just IP35) but this only seems to work on PS/2 kbs.

[Mutley]

Thanks guys. Installed the latest (non beta) .11 version. Seems ok. Now in power management, I can select between S1 and S3 sleep states. However if I select S3 and USB to bring it out of sleep, the USB keyboard still doesn't work to bring it out of sleep...