Biostar T Power I45 BIOS thread

[Ket]

Bit of a generic title to cover both findings and the eventuality of mBIOS(es) released.

As you guys all know I don't have the T Power yet, but I have been looking at it's BIOS to see what I can dig up, so heres what I found so far!

The first is called Energy Lake Feature. I can't find any information about this what-so-ever. So anything people can find on it will be useful. Its an option that is not displayed in the BIOS by default and is disabled.

Next is Restore On AC Power Loss. We all should be familiar with this setings, just wondering if anyone would find it useful me making it visible in the BIOS.

Another option is something I first come across in the AW9D-Max BIOS when modding it, SLP_S4# min. Assertion Width. This is another option I can't find any info on at all, it's not hidden in the BIOS, I'm just wondering what the hell it is. There must be some info out there about this option surely

The next is the Auto Overclock System. By default as T Power users will know it displays "V6-Tech Engine". The curiosity about this is investigating the BIOS there are two other "Tech Engines", V8 and V12 Who wants me to whack it up to V12 so people can see what it does? Maybe it'll turbocharge our boards for uber out-of-this-stratosphere overclocks or something...

Changed \ added so far:

- Added a bunch of CPU patches to the P6 CPU microcode table which should allow support for FSB800 P4s and Celerons.

- Changed boot timeouts for HDD, optical drives and USB sticks. This should help speed up the boot process.

HDD timeout changed from 35 seconds to 10
Optical timeouts changed from 35 seconds to 5
USB timeouts changed from 20 seconds to 10

So, your thoughts, and info folks?

This mBIOS has the custom P6 CPU table, its naturally untested as I don't have the TPower yet, so use it at your own risk.

DL Linky

[Marcam923]

Sweet can't wait to see the results.

[Marcam923]

Also does this bios have support for the E8600?

[Ket]

Yep the mBIOS will have E8600 support

[Marcam923]

Yep the mBIOS will have E8600 support

I am trying to locate a thread on another forum that had some issues with the tpower bios. As soon as I find it I will bring it here.

[Ket]

Alright. Dunno how much I'll be able to fix up but if I can find a way it shall be done

[philbrown23]

the V12 engine is already available in bios V15 via windows software the max on v15 is +300mhz tho and voltages stay the same on all of them have you done any poking around in the cpu voltage option yet? as you'll see when you get yours the volage adjustments are in .05v increments wich really sux for us wolfedale users. also the memory overclocking really sux on this board, in fact some times even having the memory at stock sux because it can become very unstable.

[Ket]

I've been thinking about the memory issues the TPower seemingly has. My inital thoughts are to inject the P5Q Premium memory table somehow... Youknow the more I think about BIOS mods for this TPower the more I feel like I'm planning a manned mission to Mars

[Marcam923]

I've been thinking about the memory issues the TPower seemingly has. My inital thoughts are to inject the P5Q Premium memory table somehow... Youknow the more I think about BIOS mods for this TPower the more I feel like I'm planning a manned mission to Mars

HAHAHA, better you than me my friend.

[mrcape]

Hi Ket, whenever you want to avail a file I'd test it for P4 520, 540, 631 and e8600.

[Ket]

Drop me a PM mrcape I have a beta you can test. I removed the extra CPU support for now as I want to test the "foundations". Also could you change PCI latency timer to 32 clocks and see if your OCs remain the same or better\worse. Theres latency issues that can be cleaned up to do with onboard audio by changing the latency. It goes without saying, but be sure to at least have the facilities to perform a hotflash should this BIOS not work. Theres no reason why it shouldn't, but look how my board got nuked just by renaming a few BIOS options

[mattkosem]

As phillbrown mentioned, the granularity of the voltage increases is pretty poor. Any improvements on that front would be great.

--Matt

[mattkosem]

BTW, this article about the 945 chipset mentions "Energy Lake". Loosely translated by google(pertaining to that board):

Differences between the southern bridge ICH7-DH from ICH7R is no support for RAID arrays of 5 (while maintaining support for RAID 0, 1 and 10) and support for technology Energy Lake, which is responsible for power management. The latter feature is most relevant to systems "digital home", which should be as silent.

--Matt

[Ket]

Improving the granularity for voltage increases are not impossible - but pretty difficult. The problem is that some pretty aggressive hacks would need to be done to get the extra options in, then after that you have to deal with the issue of getting those added options to work.

Marcam, did you find that thread?

[Ket]

BTW, this article about the 945 chipset mentions "Energy Lake". Loosely translated by google(pertaining to that board):



--Matt

Thanks for the link Found anything to do with SLP_S4# assertion width?

[Marcam923]

Improving the granularity for voltage increases are not impossible - but pretty difficult. The problem is that some pretty aggressive hacks would need to be done to get the extra options in, then after that you have to deal with the issue of getting those added options to work.

Marcam, did you find that thread?

I'm still lookin bud ... I know I will find it, just have a little more searching to do....

[Ket]

From all us earthlings we wish you good luck in your searching marcam

[Marcam923]

From all us earthlings we wish you good luck in your searching marcam

I think I can I think I can. I will find it!

[Marcam923]

Ok I found the thread, however it was not issues with the biostar board, it was issues with a Foxconn P35A board I just bought... ooops...

Oh well, sorry..

[Ket]

lol I don't mind, less work for me that needs to be done to the Biostar BIOS

[Marcam923]

lol I don't mind, less work for me that needs to be done to the Biostar BIOS

Yeah, I guess it is good that the issues were not with this bios.

[Ket]

Exactly Venturing back to my Mars comment and for a side topic while talking about the BIOS stuff, hows this general plan sound for a one-way trip to the planet? The idea isn't a suicide mission so give it a read

Mars has always captured my imagination. It may sound far-fetched but the many games about space exploration and even the games based on Mars (lets take Doom3 for example) aren't really so far fetched when you sit back and think about things. Lets assume a one-way trip to Mars in the beginning, what do we need to survive?

- Shelter
- A vehicle (ideal oppertunity to test a derivitive of solar cars!)
- Oxygen
- Food / water
- Communications

Thats it. Picking the right place on Mars in the beginning would be essential. Thermal imaging could be used from one of the orbiters to pick a location on the planet that never gets too cold during the martian summers and winters. I'm almost positive there must be areas of the planet that would not have temperatures drop a maximum of below -50c.

Power could easily be provided by a thermo-nuclear generator, wouldn't have to be huge, say big enough to provide enough power for 5-10 people. A Recycling plant of sorts I imagine wouldn't be too difficult to establish on the surface of Mars to recycle water. Fresh water supplies could be dealt with by finding a way to purify the water from one of the permafrosts on Mars, and even a very low-tech approach could solve this, condensation, and purify the water made through that.

For food a greenhouse would not be too difficult to set up to grow food. Things like wheat, potatoes etc should be easy to grow. Shelter could quite easily be dealt with, the transport used to take the team to Mars could double as living quarters once landed by having a pressure vacuume and secondary bulkhead door for additional safety from the poisonous atmosphere and possible corroding properties the martian dust may have.

Of course a lot of these supplies would need to be sent to the planet a few years before the team arrived so everything would be ready to be used. Protection for any vehicles could come in the guise of a heavy stainless steel "hood", thats then bolted down into the martian soil. Remember gravity on Mars is only 38% that of Earth, making building for a small team quite easy as objects would be 62% lighter on Mars. Venturing on the more ambitious side of things pre-programmed drones could be sent with the inital supply shipments to build the greenhouse, power plant etc and maintain them until the team arrived.

One possible problem is muscle and bone loss, a simple way to overcome this would be exercise machines. Colonisation of Mars is very possible here and now, forget about the future.

All it takes is determination. I doubt anyone would ever be bored exploring a new planet and the view of the two Moons of Mars and the view of Earth would simply be breathtaking. Our gradual increased presence on Mars could also be all it takes in order to kick-start Mars, no specific Terraforming program would be necessary. What we need now is for people to stop being so shocked about one-way trips, which as I described is far from futile, and for people to volunteer. I would!

[mattkosem]

Thanks for the link Found anything to do with SLP_S4# assertion width?

According to this document, "This item sets the minimum assertion width of the SLP-S4# signal to
guarantee the DRAM has been safely power-cycled." I don't see any other details, other than 4-5 seconds being a common time for it.

--Matt

[dinos22]

what exactly are you planning on changing to improve overclocking that bios engineers havent done already at Biostar?

[philbrown23]

do you have this board dinos?? if so, you may not be asking that question,lol. the bios is very froggy and will not really allow much for memory overclocking, and the voltage settings are very course to for every voltage not just cpu volts btw.