Floppy Feedback

[saaya]

This one is going to be popular and the outcome is easy to predict :D
anyways, I can need any feedback to convince people here at foxconn that its reaaallly time to move on, OR confirmation that some of you really need a floppy connector.

Thanks for the feedback! :toast:

[INFRNL]

:D:rofl:No Need, Dont Want!

[Serpentarius]

get a USB floppy .. less hassle and reusable in multiple computers :D

[saaya]

well its good to run memtest86+ and flash a bios... but you can do that with bootable usb sticks...
im still surprised that you actually have to use a tool to make a usb stick bootable, it should be a standard of usb sticks to be bootable by default... but anyhow, its a 5min thing at worst and getting rid of the floppy connector saves space on the pcb for other connectors and better routing of important stuff like pciE and sata :)

oh and for anybody interested, the floppy controller is integrated in the superpio chip, so it kinda comes for free... thats why almost every board still has floppy connectors today, its pretty much free so nobody wants to throw away a feature that SOME people might still want :D

[zanzabar]

i vote get rid of it, usb floppy drives are like $10 so there is no point for one internally IMO since most people in the performance segment only use them for XP drivers and XP is EOL

[HuffPCair]

what is a floppy??????

I voted for the first one hehehe

[Serpentarius]

what is a floppy??????

I voted for the first one hehehe

something fluffy? lol

[saaya]

yeah im really curious about the word origin of floppy, lol :D
maybe the pets name of the guy who invented it? :D

[HuffPCair]

something fluffy? lol

Could be.... but I want pictures or it never existed!!!

[zanzabar]

dont u guys remember back in the day there was hard disks that are hard and metal and flopy disks with the paper plastic label and the magnetic sheet inside and they were floppy with the 5.25" and 8"

[BenchZowner]

You can flash the BIOS or run memtest ( can't think of anything else that needs a floppy ) with a USB Flash Disk Drive, a USB/e-SATA HDD / enclosure, and of course from a CD/DVD/Blu-ray disc.
No need for a floppy connector that just stands there just to be there.
Get rid of it.
Save space for other stuff or for better mobo layout.

[sabe]

yeah im really curious about the word origin of floppy, lol :D
maybe the pets name of the guy who invented it? :D

Supposedly it was because the first few floppy disks were housed in the large soft jackets that 'flopped' around when you held them by the sides.

[xXlAinXx]

floppy what?! XD
So, need to ask Award for move his embedded bios recovery block to look directly at USB device insted the floppy.
New procedure must be something like the code below.



Force Bios Flash - Award Procedure

1. Copy the BIOS file and flash utility to the USB Device

2. Create an text file with any standard text editor and add the following lines and replace the BIOSNAME.BIN with the name of the BIOS file you are using.

@ECHO OFF

awdflash BIOSNAME.BIN /py/sn/f/cc/r

3. Save the above file with right name/exstension as follow: AUTOEXEC.BAT

4. Boot up with the stick in.


The parameters are explained here:

py = program yes
sn = save no
f = flash
cc = clear cmos
r = reboot

[saaya]

Supposedly it was because the first few floppy disks were housed in the large soft jackets that 'flopped' around when you held them by the sides.
ahhhhhh i see... and thats where they decided to call it a floppy disk? :D
funny naming haha

i wonder why they didnt call cds shiny mirror discs :D


floppy what?! XD
So, need to ask Award for move his embedded bios recovery block to look directly at USB device insted the floppy.
New procedure must be something like the code below.

nope, we dont need that, we use 2 bios chips :)
so if one fails, you can boot from the second and reflash the first.
and the only time i ever needed the bios recovery stuff was on nvidia 780 and 790 chipsets anyways *cough* :D

what the floppy DOES come in handy for is raid installs with windows xp...
then again, you can use http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html
its free and it lets you implement any driver in the xp installation cd... its a bit annoying cause you have to create your own xp install cd, but there are worse things :D

and i never tried it, but in theory a usb floppy should work for that as well...

[CmB]

i wonder why they didnt call cds shiny mirror discs :D




They were going to but I told them not to.:p: Get rid of the floppy, yech.

--Chris

[Serpentarius]

seriously .. floppy is very surviving external storage which should've gone years ago ..

even IDE has left some of the mobo, but they still retain floppy ..

seriously .. even in my office .. the floppy has seems abandoned .. does this happens to your office as well? do you guys still using floppy?

[HDCHOPPER]

nope still use a floppy every day here ( small shop tho)

[WhiteFireDragon]

please get rid of it. no one uses a high end board and needs a floppy. and while you're at it, get rid of the IDE too. one floppy or IDE port could fit 6 SATA ports.

[Expat GriZ]

Kill IT!!! No need for it these days. Like mentioned above, will allow for better traces and more ports we need and forward looking. While you are at it, give us the ability to use "B" as a drive letter as well. I think this is a hold over from the Old 5 in. floppy days.

[saaya]

seriously .. even in my office .. the floppy has seems abandoned .. does this happens to your office as well? do you guys still using floppy?

you mean here? hell no!
they only use it in the labs to install windows on raid...
without that nobody would even know what a floppy is nowadays...
THANKS MICROSOFT! :slap: :D

luckily you can create a custom install cd with the raid driver included...
but yeahms really blew that one with xp, they only think about oems and they ghost their systems ot use custom installs so they dont have any problems...


Kill IT!!! No need for it these days. Like mentioned above, will allow for better traces and more ports we need and forward looking. While you are at it, give us the ability to use "B" as a drive letter as well. I think this is a hold over from the Old 5 in. floppy days.im not sure but i think even if we remove floppy altogether drive letters a and b wont be available as they are referenced to in windows and the bios kernel and kinda reserved... dont think theres anything we can do about that... if we remove floppy and more board makers follow us then windows 9 or so might finally have that fixed.. provided there are still drive letters then ^^