Weekly Tweaks Archive IV

CPU Internal Core Speed
When you select whatever speed your CPU should be running at, the correct host bus speed and bus frequency multiplier will automatically be selected. However, if you choose the Manual setting, as when overclocking, you will also see:

CPU Host Bus Frequency
Whatever you want the bus speed to be.

CPU Core: Bus Freq. Multiple
Whatever you want the CPU multiplier to be

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CPU Core Voltage
If you choose the Default setting, it will be set automatically.

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CPU Clock Failed Reset
If you enable this, and your system crashes three times because your overclocking is too much, your CPU speed will automatically be reset to twice the bus speed.

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CIH Buster Protection
Protects against viruses that try to destroy the BIOS.

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Boot Sector Virus Protection 
All it does is warn you when attempts are made to write to your boot sector or partition table, so it can be annoying when you see the error message every few seconds or so while trying to do something legitimate. Actually, it's useless for those drives that have their own BIOS in the controller (ESDI/SCSI). 

-Disable when using Multi-user DOS, or installing software. 
-Only available for operating systems such as DOS that do not 
  trap INT 13.

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Virus Warning 
See Boot Sector Virus Protection (Award).

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ChipAway Virus On Guard 
See above. 
Guards against boot virus threats early in the boot cycle, before they have a chance to load.

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Report no FDD for Win 95 
Set to Yes if using Windows 95/98 without a floppy to release IRQ6  (this is required to pass Windows 95/98's SCT test and get the logo). 

Also disable the Onboard FDC Controller in the Integrated Peripherals screen.

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CPU L2 cache ECC Checking 
If enabled, data is checked as it passes through the L2 cache, which reduces performance slightly. However, you must be running a fastish PII or above to see any difference.

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Acer ID Strings

In the bottom left hand corner of the screen:

ACR89xxx-xxx-950930-R03-B6

The first 2 characters after ACR identify the motherboard. The last few are
the BIOS revision. The ones before that are the date (e.g. 950930).

ID Motherboard Product
05 X1B Altos 19000
07 M7 Altos 900/M and 9000/M
19 V55-2 Acros, Power
1A M3A Altos 300
1B V35 Power
22 V50LA-N Acros, Power
24 M9B Altos 9000/Pro
25 V55LA Acros, Power, Aspire
29 V60N AcerPower
2F M11A Altos 900/Pro
30 V56LA Acros, Power, Aspire
33 V58LA Acros, Power, Aspire
35 V35N Acros, Power
46 M9N Altos 920 and 9100
4B V55LA-2M Acros, Power, Aspire
5A X3 Altos 19000 Pro 4
62 V65X AcerAcros PII
63 V58 Entra
67 V65LA Acros, Power
6B A1G4 Acros
6D V20 AcerPower
89 M5 Altos 7000P
8F M3 (SCSI) Altos 9000
8F M3-EIDE AcerPower, AcerPower 590
99 A1GX, -2 Acros, Power
9A V30, -2 Acros, Power
9C V12LC, -2X Acros, Power, Aspire

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Celeron

A cut-down version of the PII aimed at the low-cost market, initially supplied without an L2 cache, which prompted the unofficial name of DeCeleron. It was subsequently reissued with 128K of L2 cache running at processor speed, resulting in a chip that has gained some respect, especially as it rivals the PII in many areas. It started off using Slot 1, but now uses Socket 370, with the provision that, from 533 MHz, Coppermine (.18 micron) technology was used and won’t necessarily fit your socket, as some of the pinouts were changed. Converters are available, though, including those to allow Socket 370 chips to use Slot 1. Although the chip is as fast, if not faster, than PIIs or even PIIIs, its front side bus only runs at 66 MHz. Also, you will not be able to upgrade a socket 370 Celeron to a Pentium III (if for no other reason, they don’t use the same vcoltages). Also, be aware that the 400 and 433 MHz versions use fixed clock multipliers of 6 and 6.5, which means 600 and 650 if you try to use an FSB of 100 MHz.

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Cyrix A20M Pin
Cyrix chips need special BIOS handling, if only because their 386 version has a cache (Intel's doesn't), and it may have trouble keeping the cache contents up to date if any part of the PC is allowed to operate by itself, in this case, the keyboard controller toggling the A20 gate. The A20M signal can be raised separately by the BIOS to tell the CPU the current state of the A20 gate.

This also allows the CPU's internal cache to cache the first 64K of each Mb in real mode (the gate is always open in protected mode), and is fastest.

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Cyrix Pin Enabled
As above, but refers to DMA and the FLUSH pin on the CPU, which invalidates the cache after any DMA, so the contents are updated from main memory, for consistency. If you can't set the FLUSH pin, increase the refresh interval and use Hidden Refresh

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