[Image] - Triton FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Triton IDE Subsystem
Why can't I select Mode 4 (16.7 MB/S)?
Why can't I select both drives' speeds separately?
Why does my CD-ROM seem to run so slowly?
How can I enable Bus-Master IDE?
Which EIDE plug-in cards does MR BIOS support?

Disk Questions & Answers
Where's my CD-ROM?
Where's my IDE drive?
Why doesn't my >512M IDE work right?
Does Linux O/S work with MR BIOS?
Norton 8 says my disk is slower now !
Norton 9 Disk Doctor or Mortician?

Chipset and Motherboard
Does MR BIOS support my motherboard?
The flash-loader refuses to run !?
Does MR BIOS have built-in NCR SCSI bios?
Which vendor's chipset is best?
Upgrades for Mercury, Neptune, Aires, &tc.?
I want to tweak cache and bus timings !?

Other Hardware Issues
Adaptec 2940 bios 1.20 bugfix
Adaptec 2940 bios 1.21 bugfix
Adaptec 8371 component "discrepency"
Supra PnP modem bugfix
NSC Parallel Port problems
Does MR BIOS have built-in NCR SCSI bios?
Does MR BIOS support EDO-RAM ?
I bought a different type cache than reported !?

Windows 95
I just loaded MR BIOS, and now Win95 won't work!
Does 32-bit driver really improve IDE performance?

Microsoft Mouse Driver
Where's my PS/2 Mouse?

Power Management
Power Management Terminology

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                            Triton IDE Subsystem

Why can't I select Mode 4 (16.7 MB/S)?
The first reason for this is a physical limitation of the Triton chipset.
It derives its timing from the PCI clock, and provides a minimum (fastest)
cycle of 5 clocks. The maximum transfer rates achievable, in terms of
MegaBytes/Second, are as follows:

PCI-Clock = 25 MHz ..... Transfer Rate = 10 MB/S
PCI-Clock = 30 MHz ..... Transfer Rate = 12 MB/S
PCI-Clock = 33 MHz ..... Transfer Rate = 13.3 MB/S

It slides downhill from here. The second reason is one of reliability. You
will probably experience data corruption when the Triton is configured to
run your Mode 4 (16.7 MB/S) drive at rates in excess of approximately 11
MB/S. For this reason, MR BIOS no longer selects rates beyond that
automatically. If you want to run your drives faster, you'll need to
manually override the automatic settings and experiment a little. To
understand the Triton's Mode 4 problem better, obtain a small manual
entitled "ATA SIGNAL INTEGRITY ISSUES" from Quantum Corporation.

Why can't I select both drives' speeds separately?

Could this be a manifestation of Intel's obsession with fair competition?

In several aspects, the Triton's IDE subsystem appears to be a
stripped-down imitation of genuine EIDE controllers from CMD, OPTi and
others. It simply omits the provision to independently program the
master+slave drive pair with separate EIDE transfer rates. Instead, they
share a common timing register set. Each drive in the pair has two options:
Run at the common EIDE speed, or run at the ancient AT-Bus speed (approx
1.8 MB/S). This means that both drives on the same cable must be run per
the slower drive's requirements, or the faster drive may be run at full
speed and the slower drive penalized all the way back to 1983 speeds.

MR BIOS has a patent-pending ATA interface that is uniquely capable of
managing a wide variety of IDE controllers. But never was such an
uncompromisingly asymmetrical design anticipated. A back-door provision to
select the one-fast, other-slow configuration is as follows: In the
ATA-Disc setup utility, move the cursor to one of the drives' MB/S field.
Scroll the rates until the slowest value is visible, noting that both
drives' rates scroll simultaneously. Now, while the slowest rate is
selected, either of the drive-pair's MB/S value may be increased
independent of the other's. (In programmers' terms, the slow speed is
sticky). Be aware that MR BIOS incorrectly displays the slowest rate as
approximately 5 MB/S. That setting actually enables the sub-standard AT-Bus
rate.

Why does my CD-ROM seem to run so slowly?
Because it is being run slowly! Again, this results from a limitation in
the Triton design. When the "enhanced" transfer rate is enabled for a
drive, the Triton automatically and cleverly enables fixed-size sector
read-ahead and write-posting operations. Too cleverly, because Atapi
CD-ROM's hybrid-SCSI protocol employs variable-size blocks which prohibit
those advanced functions. As consequence, the EIDE transfer rate must be
disabled and the ancient AT-Bus rate is the only remaining option. Be
aware, the MR BIOS Setup Utility is unaware of Triton's shortcoming and
incorrectly displays EIDE speeds for Atapi CD-ROMs. Failsafe code
ultimately disregards the cmos setting (auto or manual MB/S) and enforces
the required sub-standard AT-Bus rate.

How can I enable Bus-Master IDE?
Bus-Mastering IDE is claimed to deliver higher performance than
conventional PIO methods. It cannot be implemented directly in BIOS though,
instead requiring a device driver that is activated upon bootup. Did you
receive such a diskette with your Intel Triton motherboard? If not, email
support@cs.intel.com and learn why!

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                          Disk Questions & Answers

Where's my CD-ROM?
Per ATA specifications, MR BIOS requires that a single, stand-alone CD-ROM
drive is configured as "master", and not as "slave". Change the jumper on
the rear of your CD-ROM drive to "master", and it will then be recognized.

This might seem a little unaccommodating of MR BIOS, and it is under review
here at Microid Research. However, the slave-only config can actually leads
to runtime problems. If software ever logged onto the (absent) master, you
would likely end up with a "busy" situation that would be impossible to
clear. While one drive is "busy", ATA protocol demands that you refrain
from accessing the drives' shared registers. Thus, you could never log back
onto the slave, except by violating ATA protocol. This could result in a
hung system when accessing the CD-ROM drive. Sound familiar?

Where's my IDE drive?
A number of IDE drives tend to lose sanity if accessed too early during
their initial spinup cycle. For this reason, the System Warmup Delay.....3
Sec field is provided in the Boot-Seq Setup Utility screen. If you disabled
this in order to accelerate the poweron bootup speed and now your drive has
vanished, you will apparently need to restore the delay. If it is still set
to 3 seconds, try increasing it.

Some recent model Maxtor drives refuse to be logged-in by MR BIOS when
configured as the second drive (slave) on a cable. The technical reason is
that those drives lose their reset status, and are then rejected by MR BIOS
during a diagnostic status check. (It appears that an Adaptec 8371
component in the drive's electronics is the cause, and suggests that a few
other OEM drives may also be afflicted with this "discrepency"). Currently,
the only solution is to configure the Maxtor as the master, and the other
drive as the slave. In the case of two Maxtor drives, place them on
separate cables, both as masters.

Why doesn't my >512M IDE work right?
MR BIOS has supported multi-GByte discs since 1990. In the Version 3 core,
ATA-disc setup was fully automated and the ability to manually
select/disable translation was abandoned altogether as obsolete. If you are
trying to re-use a >512M drive from a computer that contained another
vendor's bios, it probably is formatted to a maximum of 512M, or contains a
so-called disk-manager to break the 512M barrier. Either way, that drive's
format is incompatible with the modern methods of MR BIOS. The only way to
use it with MR BIOS is to re-FDISK and FORMAT it. Be sure to backup its
content with the previous computer/bios beforehand!

Does Linux O/S work with MR BIOS?
If your IDE drive is >512M and your version of Linux does not understand
translated drives, then MR BIOS will not work for you. There is no
provision in MR BIOS to reduce a drive's size beneath its reported
capacity. (Sorry). However, all 1.2.x versions do support this
configuration. You can upgrade the kernel and version of LILO if necessary
to enjoy the full capacity of your >512M IDE drive. (Thank you, C.G., for
pointing this out!)

Norton 8 says my disk is slower now !
After exclaiming that MR BIOS was using some kind of advanced disk
controller and warning its results would be artifically high, Norton 8 in
fact demerited MR BIOS disk performance with a lower index. ...And some of
you folks actually believed it !? To solve this nuisance, MR BIOS Ver 3.20
reverts back to archaic methods that make Peter happy. (Don't worry, no
performance was measurably lost).

Norton 9 Disk Doctor or Mortician?
After installing MR BIOS, there have been a few reports that NDD95 will
misdiagnose your disk as ill even though Scandisk finds it to be totally
healthy. Administering NDD95's cure at this point is likely to embalm your
filesystem, so don't be tricked into doing it! Rehabilitate Peter instead.
Un-install and then re-install Norton Utilities once prior to usage.

Updated info: Most (all?) of the NDD95 problem reports have been traced to
the cmos date being reset after running the flash loader utility. The flash
loader intentionally clears the cmos memory to assure a clean-slate startup
with the newly installed bios. Be sure to re-edit the date (especially, the
century part of the year) after flashing MR BIOS into your computer.
Beginning with Ver 3.26, the MR BIOS flash loader carefully avoids clearing
the cmos date.

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                          Chipset and Motherboard

Does MR BIOS support my motherboard?
If it's a Triton design and you see it on the MR BIOS ShareWare page, then
the answer is yes. If it's not a Triton design, please refer to the the MR
BIOS Upgrades page. Otherwise, the answer is at best not yet. Please don't
flood MR BIOS email with this inquiry!

The flash-loader refuses to run !?
For Intel and a few other vendors' motherboards, the MR BIOS ZIP file
contains a single flash-loader that was specifically customized for it. The
filename.EXE of that flash-loader will resemble the bios image
filename.BIO. The remainder of the supported motherboards will typically
use one of two categories of flash-rom, and their ZIP files contain either
29C010.EXE or 28F010.EXE or both flash-loaders. These loaders are general
purpose, each supporting a family of similar flash-roms. In all cases,
whether custom or generic, the flash-loader attempts to qualify the
flash-rom in your computer is the type it is able to program. If not, a
message to that effect is displayed and the flash-loader aborts upon your
first keystroke. In such an instance, you should check that a write-protect
jumper or other mechanism applicable to your motherboard is correctly
conditioned to permit flash-write operations. If everything appears correct
yet the loader refuses to operate, there is nothing left to do. Your
motherboard cannot be upgraded with MR BIOS at this time. (Sorry). Do NOT
attempt to use another vendor's flash-loader to upload the MR BIOS image!

Does MR BIOS have built-in NCR SCSI bios?
No, MR BIOS is not supplied with built-in NCR bios. But you can cook it up.
Here's the recipe: First, download the 16K binary file
ftp://ftp.symbios.com/pub/ncrchips/scsi/drivers/Utilities/flash3x.zip.
Next, rename the 92K distribution MR BIOS ".BIO" file to a temporary
filename, like MRBIOS. Then, pre-pend the NCR bios to the MRBIOS file using
the DOS copy command:

C:> COPY /b NCRBIOS + MRBIOS MRBIOS.BIO

The "/b" means "binary" (as opposed to ascii text). The "+" causes the two
files NCRBIOS and MRBIOS to be combined into the final, single file
MRBIOS.BIO. Note the SCSI bios needs to be listed 1st before the MRBIOS
file. Note also, the filenames used here are examples; you need to supply
the actual filenames. Confirm the result MRBIOS.BIO is exactly 16K+92K=108K
(110,592 bytes). If not, stop and figure out what went wrong! If yes, the
MRBIOS.BIO is now ready to be loaded according to the instructions in the
MRBIOS.TXT file. WARNING! Do this AT YOUR OWN RISK! If you're not sure you
know what you're doing, then get someone to help you who does. Please be
careful!

Note: There is also now a file flash4x.zip on the Symbios site that appears
to be more recent. It contains both a 16K and 32K ROM image. They appear to
be intended for use directly on a PCI plugin card. If you choose to use one
of these (instead of the version in the flash3x.zip file), you will also
need to change the setting of the E000: Shadow-RAM to RW_Shadow in the MR
BIOS Setup Utility.

Which vendor's chipset is best?
What kind of a question is this? Are there any competitors left in
business?

Upgrades for Mercury, Neptune, Aires, &tc.?
Emphatically NO! Information was witheld from Microid Research during these
chipsets' development cycles, and now it is impossible to backtrack the
hideous details of their extensive revision histories. Good luck getting a
bios upgrade from your original vendor. Remember, your purchase was a vote!

I want to tweak cache and bus timings !?
Then charge up your electric screwdriver, because you'll be using it.
Unlike most chipsets in recent history (and contrary to the spirit of Plug
'n Play), the Triton chipset offers no provision to program these
parameters. You can select (only two) AT-Bus speeds via jumper or
dipswitch. The cache timing is not programmable at all. You expect
performance can be increased by selecting more aggressive timing for
dual-bank, interleaved asynchronous cache? Forget it with Triton, the cache
is not interleaved.

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                           Other Hardware Issues

Adaptec 2940 bios 1.20 bugfix
Notice: All MR BIOS versions prior to Ver. 3.20 are incompatible with the
short lived AHA 2940 V1.20 bios. It generates a malformed Adapter-ROM image
in shadow-ram which, when executed, causes the system to crash. MR BIOS
Ver. 3.20 is now aware of this booby-trap. Please be sure to update your MR
BIOS, or steer clear of Adaptec 2940 cards with that afflicted bios!

Adaptec 2940 bios 1.21 bugfix
Notice: All MR BIOS versions prior to Ver. 3.22 may have spurious warm-boot
(Ctrl Alt Del) failures with the AHA 2940 V1.21 bios. In an apparent
attempt to fix a memory clobbering bug in Ver 1.20, the Adaptec V1.21 bios
searches for a clear 128K block before performing its initialization. If it
cannot find such a region, it exclaims Memory Error on the CRT and fails to
continue. But there is no reason to expect a 128K block of zeros will be
found during a warm-boot. To the contrary, MR BIOS attempts to preserve the
memory content for compatibility reasons (...not anymore, if AHA 2940 is
detected).

Supra PnP modem bugfix
A bugfix for Adaptec 1542CP PnP-ISA SCSI would provoke Supra PnP modem into
losing its PnP configuration (and ultimately clobber COM1). Beginning with
MR BIOS Ver 3.20, the 1542CP fix is abandoned to accommodate the popular
Supra PnP modem instead.

NSC Parallel Port problems
The National Semiconductor Super I/O chip's parallel port is being a little
troublesome. This component is found on many motherboards including Intel's
and other vendors'. In the standard parallel port mode ("SPP"), it should
provide pseudo-bidirectional functionality, but it is instead strictly an
output port. If your application requires bidirectionality, you will need
to change its mode to that respective setting via the Setup Utility Ports
screen. Unfortunately, when set to Bidirectional mode, the NSC port fails
several popular diagnostic programs. Beginning with MR BIOS Ver. 3.19, all
four modes, SPP, Bidir, EPP and ECP have been made available in Setup
Utility, allowing you to select the mode that best fits your requirements.

Does MR BIOS support EDO-RAM ?
Absolutely. And beginning with version 3.27, you can view your computer's
entire memory configuration directly from the Chipset setup utility.

So, what's the big fuss over 60 nS EDO-RAM anyway? It's just a natural
evolution of dram technology for recent 50+ MHz memory buses. It offers
only a very modest performance gain over conventional dram; maybe none at
all in interleaved designs. Perhaps it's being confused with the patented
15 nS EDRAM from Ramtron that is genuinely innovative and significantly
boosts performance. Benchmark your Triton board against Ocean-USA's
Octek-DCA2 5x86 EDRAM board and see for yourself the advantage that EDRAM
delivers!

I bought a different type cache than reported !?
MR BIOS detects your computer's cache size and sram type and configures
things accordingly. You can view this information in the Cache Setup
Utility. When external cache is absent, the only field in that screen will
be the X86-CPU Cache (on/off) option. Otherwise, a Cache Size field will
show its size, and an External Cache (on/off/none) field allows the cache
to be enabled or disabled (or marked absent for debug purposes).

If your system contains Asynchronous cache sram, nothing else appears in
the Cache Setup screen. However, if your cache is comprised of either
Synchronous Burst or Pipeline Burst sram, a Cache SRAM field will also
exist which defaults to Sync-Burst or Pipeline, respectively. For debug
purposes, this field can be toggled, but doing so and saving that (wrong)
choice will result in your computer hanging upon bootup. Although there are
other possible reasons, it is true in general that if the sram type has
been misconfigured, your computer will simply hang upon bootup.

If the reported sram differs from the type you bought, yet your computer
boots correctly, please consult with your hardware vendor and/or a
qualified technician before sending email to Microid Research!

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                                 Windows 95

I just loaded MR BIOS, and now Win95 won't work!
In some cases, it seems that Win95 needs a little manual encouragement to
become adjusted to the new bios environment. As a first attempt to correct
things, go to the Device Manager and view the current configuration. The
steps to get there are: (1) click Start, (2) click Settings, (3) click
Control Panel, (4) click System icon, (5) click Device Manager. At this
point, a graphical representation of your system's hardware will appear.
Now, one-at-a-time, select and click Remove for each item that is visibly
incorrect and/or you know to be misbehaving. Exit the Device Manager back
into the Control Panel, and click the Add New Hardware icon to invoke the
Hardware Wizard. Your computer's configuration will be redetected there,
and hopefully upon completion, it will be corrected. In most cases, this
does work and your computer will now run Win95 better than ever before. But
if you find Win95 stubbornly refuses to adjust, choke it with your CD-ROM
and run Win95 Install from scratch.

Does 32-bit driver really improve IDE performance?
Well, Core Test doesn't think so. In fact, Core Test typically registers
more than 20% transfer rate increase when the Win95 32-bit disk driver is
disabled! You might want to review your system's disk performance with
32-bit access disabled vs enabled, to see which way actually delivers best
results for your installation.

Follow these steps to change the 32-bit file system setting: (1) click
Start, (2) click Settings, (3) click Control Panel, (4) click System icon,
(5) click Performance, (6) click File System, (7) click Trouble Shooting,
(8) check (or uncheck) "Disable all 32-bit protect-mode disk drivers".

Or, to change it explicitly: (1) click Start, (2) click Settings, (3) click
Control Panel, (4) click System icon, (5) click Device Manager, (6) click
Hard disk controllers, (7) select and click the specific controller entry,
(8) uncheck (or check) "Original Configuration (Current)".

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                           Microsoft Mouse Driver

Where's my PS/2 Mouse?
The original IBM PS/2 extends the standard BIOS data area by "stealing" the
top 1 Kbyte of precious Base 640K memory, reducing it to an effective 639K.
That area is sometimes called the Extended BIOS Data Area ("EBDA"). It
seems the only useful thing in there is the PS/2 Mouse data storage. In
contrast, MR BIOS is concerned with conserving and optimizing memory usage.
To this end, the runtime MR BIOS image is condensed to maximize available
Upper Memory Blocks ("UMBs"), and the wasteful EBDA is not employed.
Instead, the few PS/2 Mouse variables are stored in the standard BIOS data
area (where they really belong). Unfortunately, from time to time you will
come across a Microsoft Mouse driver that assumes the EBDA exists unless
you explicitly tell it otherwise. To do so, you will need to create or edit
the driver's .INI file (usually MOUSE.INI) as follows:

[mouse]
MouseType=PS2
FailIfNoExtendedBIOS=False

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                              Power Management

Power Management Terminology
In the Energy Setup Utility screen, you are presented two different
activity monitoring options. Local activity includes only keyboard and
mouse, whereas Global activities include everything the Triton is equipped
to sense. If the selected activity type occurs before a power management
timer expires, then the system will remain awake. Similarly, that activity
will awaken the system if it is already asleep. There are two separate
timers, providing independent control of two separate low-power state
machines. Standby is a mildly power-reduced sleep state that occurs after a
brief period of inactivity; when you are momentarily distracted from work
at your computer. Suspend is a severely power-reduced sleep state that
occurs after a longer period of inactivity; when you leave your computer
unattended.

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