(S1668) Bios 4.0 Evaluation for 3940UW & Dual PPro NT Kernel

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This all started with the Titan Pro S1668 ATX Motherboard with a Dual
PPro configuation, NT 4.0 and the Adaptec 3940UW.
It would not recognize the second SCSI channel of the 3940UW under
NT 4.0 and Windows 95 OSR2.

At 00:55 04/03/97 +0100, Juan Altmayer Pizzorno wrote:

>There is a new AWARD BIOS file under
>   ftp://ftp.tyan.com/bios/natoma/eval
>Apparently this is a pre-release of the “TYAN TYN 4.0”.  Anybody
>willing to give it a try?  My diskette drive seems to have died
>over this last weekend, so I can’t…
>.. Juan
Here goes …
WARNING !!! I installed BIOS 4.0E and I cannot move back to 3.03 !!!!

1)
Installation of the BIOS went without problems, but it changed one
setting for sure, the Boot setting. It would not boot directly from
the floppy, and I had to change the settings. Look at all those
nice settings: A,C,D,SCSI,CDROM
The ‘Verifying DMI Pool Data’ wasn’t present before (I think).

2)
Installing the NT Server 4.0 (1381) with the BIOS 4.0E 2/19/97 on a
Dual PentiumPro/256kb brings up a Blue Screen as below when the
screen resolution changed and the real NT kernel is activated
 (screen shows version,memory,build)

-BlueScreen—————————————————————-­—
Microsoft (R) Windows NT (TM) Version 4.0 (Build 1381).
1 System Processor [96 MB Memory] MultiProcessor Kernel

*** STOP: 0x0000000A (0x0000AB74,0x00000002,0x00000001,0x801DD1DE)
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL*** Address 801dd1de has base at 801d7000 –
hal.dll

CPUIP:GenuineIntel 6.1.7 irql:2 SYSVER 0xf0000565

Dll Base DateStmp – Name                Dll Base DateStmp – Name
80100000 3202c097 – ntoskrnl.exe        801d7000 31f578cb – hal.dll
8020b000 31f51355 – setupdd.sys         80065000 31ec792d –
SPDDLANG.SYS
80001000 31f8ff94 – pcmcia.sys          8023f000 31ec6c74 –
SCSIPORT.SYS
8000b000 31ec6c6d – vga.sys             80252000 31ec6c90 –
i8042prt.sys
80258000 31ec6c94 – kdbclass.sys        8025b000 31eedd07 –
fastfat.sys

Address  dword dump     Build [1381]                         – Name
8014ab00 801dd1de 801dd1de 806aeb60 806ae933 8069bb68 8011595e –
hal.dll
8014ab10 8011595e 8011595e                                     –
ntoskrnl.exe

Restart …
—————————————————————————­—

3)
Installing the NT Workstation 4.0 (1381) with the BIOS 4.0E 2/19/97 on

a Dual PentiumPro/256kb in the same conditions as just above gives the

same result : Blue Screen with different settings for the memory
allocations. Should be insteresting to see if NT 3.51 crahses as well.

4)
Booting with the Windows 95 OSR2 system already caused some graphics
problems, but they might have come from the fact that I interupted
95 in it’s boot process twice the hard way.
4.0E seems to allow the using of the USB port. But having two Matrox
Millenium screws up the IRQ settings. It would be nice to have a
setting to choose which IRQ the Serial Bus would use. I might need
to remove one.

At this stage I cannot move back to the BIOS 3.03 !!!!!

        more adventures to follow very soon…

[Later…]

My adventures in BIOS land continue…

There is a new Award Flash Utility, but you can’t find it on
Tyan’s site nor on Award. I found it on http://soyo.com.tw/bios.htm
page. It’s the Award Flash Utility 5.33 writer. The directory also
contains a DMICFG program for DOS. Interesting.

The upgrade to BIOS 4.0E has completly screwed up my Windows 95 OSR2
graphic part. It will not detect my Matrox Millenium card anymore
(I even removed the second card as it was conflicting with the USB)

NT 4.0 (srv & wks) still crashes during the second setup disk.

And I cannot move back from the 4.0E Bios to the 3.03 Bios. Maybe
the Award Flash program doesn’t allow the move back to a older
BIOS revision.
Well I’m going to call my motherboard supplier for a new Bios chip.