American Megatrends Apollo User manual

Apollo
Pentium PCI ISA Motherboard
User's Guide
MAN-728
2/21/96

ii Apollo Motherboard User’s Guide
© Copyright 1995-1996 American Megatrends, Inc.
All rights reserved.
American Megatrends, Inc.
6145F Northbelt Parkway
Norcross, GA 30071
This publication contains proprietaryinformation which is protected by copyright. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transcribed, stored in a retrieval
system, translated into any language or computer language, or transmitted in any form whatsoever without the prior written consent of the publisher, American
Megatrends, Inc.
Limited Warranty
Buyer agrees if this product proves to be defective, that American Megatrends, Inc. is only obligated to replace or refund the purchase price of this product at
American Megatrend's discretion according to the terms and conditions on the motherboard warranty card. American Megatrends shall not be liable in tort or
contract for any loss or damage, direct, incidental or consequential. Please see the Warranty Registration Card shipped with this product for full warranty details.
Limitations of Liability
In no event shall American Megatrends be held liable for any loss, expenses, or damages of any kind whatsoever, whether direct, indirect, incidental, or
consequential, arising from the design or use of this product or the support materials provided with the product.
Trademarks
Intel and Pentium are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation.
VESA is a registered trademark of the Video Electronics Standards Association.
MS-DOS, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
SMC is a registered trademark of System Management Corporation.
IBM, AT, VGA, PS/2, OS/2, and EGA are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. XT and CGA are trademarks of International Business Machines
Corporation.
Fujitsu is a registered trademark of Fujitsu America, Inc.
Motorola is a registered trademark of Motorola Corporation.
Hitachi is a registered trademark of Hitachi America, Ltd.
PNY is a registered trademark of PNY Corporation.
Oki is a registered trademark of Oki America, Inc.
NEC is a registered trademark of NEC Corporation.
Samsung is a registered trademark of Samsung Electronics Corporation.
Siemens is a trademark of Siemens Corporation.
Mitsubishi is a registered trademark of Mitsubishi Electronics of America.
Micron is a registered trademark of Micron Corporation.
Unix is a registered trademark of American Telephone and Telegraph Company Bell Laboratories.
Weitek is a trademark of Weitek, Inc.
Toshiba is a registered trademark of Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba.
PC-DOS, OS/2 and Presentation Manager are trademarks of IBM Corporation. Ventura Publisher is a trademark of Xerox Corporation. WordPerfect is a trademark of WordPerfect
Corporation. WordStar is a trademark of WordStar Corporation. VESA, VBE/PM, and DPMS are trademarks of Video Electronics Standards Association.
Cirrus Logic is a registered trademark of Cirrus Logic Corporation.
All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
Revision History
7/31/95 Initial release.
11/3/95 Corrections to the manual.
2/21/96 Corrections to the manual.

Preface iii
Table of Contents
1 System Overview..................................................1
System Description......................................................................2
Onboard I/O Support...................................................................7
2 PCI Local Bus......................................................11
3 Installation.............................................................15
Apollo Motherboard Layout .....................................................16
Step 1 Unpack the Motherboard...............................................17
Step 2 Set Jumpers.....................................................................18
Step 3 Install Memory...............................................................22
Step 4 Install the CPU...............................................................26
Step 5 Install the Motherboard..................................................28
Step 6 Connect the Power Supply.............................................30
Step 7 Connect the Keyboard Cable..........................................32
Step 8 Connect the Mouse Cable...............................................33
Step 9 Connect Cables ...............................................................34
Step 10 Connect Onboard I/O....................................................37
Step 11 Install Floppy Drive.....................................................39
Step 12 Install Hard Disk...........................................................41
Step 13 Install Adapter Cards....................................................43
Step 14 Test and Configure........................................................44
4 WINBIOS Setup....................................................45
Section 1 Setup..................................................................................48
Standard Setup ...........................................................................48
Advanced Setup .........................................................................52
Chipset Setup.............................................................................55
Power Management Setup .........................................................56
PCI/PnP Setup ...........................................................................59
Peripheral Setup.........................................................................62
Section 2 Utility.................................................................................64
Section 3 Security.............................................................................65
AMIBIOS Password Support ...................................................65
Section 4 Default...............................................................................68
5 Jumper Settings for Commonly-Used CPUs69
6 Upgrading Cache Memory................................71
7 Programming the Flash ROM..........................75
Index..........................................................................79

iv Apollo Motherboard User’s Guide
Preface
To the OEM Thank you for purchasing the high performance American Megatrends Apollo Pentium PCI ISA
motherboard. This product is a state of the art motherboard that includes the famous AMIBIOS. It is
assumed that you have also licensed the rights to use the American Megatrends documentation for the
American Megatrends Apollo motherboard
This manual was written for the OEM to assist in the proper installation and operation of this motherboard.
This manual describes the specifications and features of the Apollo motherboard. It explains how to assemble
a system based on the Apollo motherboard and how to use the AMIBIOS that is specifically designed for
this motherboard.
This manual is not meant to be read by the computer owner who purchases a computer with this
motherboard. It is assumed that you, the computer manufacturer, will use this manual as a sourcebook of
information, and that parts of this manual will be included in the computer owner's manual.
Technical Support If an American Megatrends motherboard fails to operate as described or you are in doubt about a
configuration option, please call technical support at 770-246-8645.

Preface v
Precautions Against Static Electricity
Static electricity can damage the motherboard and other computer components. Keep the motherboard in the
anti-static bag until it is to be installed. Wear an anti-static wrist grounding strap before handling the
motherboard. Make sure you stand on an anti-static mat when handling the motherboard.
Avoid contact with any component or connector on any adapter card, printed circuit board, or memory
module. Handle these components by the mounting bracket.
Packing ListYou should have received the following:
•an Apollo Pentium PCI ISA motherboard,
•several cables,
•a Warranty Card, and
•The American Megatrends Apollo Pentium PCI ISA Motherboard User's Guide.

vi Apollo Motherboard User’s Guide

Chapter 1 Overview 1
1System Overview
The American Megatrends Apollo Pentium PCI ISA motherboard is a high performance motherboard with
integrated PCI IDE and onboard I/O.
The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard includes a low-voltage Intel Pentium® P54C CPU running at 100, 120,
or 133 MHz. The Intel Triton chipset on the motherboard optimizes the PCI local bus interface, allowing the
CPU to sustain the highest possible bandwidth at all times. This motherboard includes four PCI and four ISA
expansion slots. Onboard I/O includes IDE on the PCI local bus, two serial ports, and a parallel port.
Apollo Dimensions
The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard is approximately 8½ inches wide by 10.2 inches long (the standard
mini Baby AT size with similar mounting holes).

2Apollo Motherboard User’s Guide
System Description
CPUType The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard supports a 90, 100, 120, or 133 MHz Intel Pentium CPU in a single
320-pin ZIF socket.
CPU Type CPU Speed Host Clock Rate PCI Clock Rate
P54C 100 MHz 50 MHz 25 MHz
P54C 100 MHz 66 MHz 33.33 MHz
P54C 90 MHz 60 MHz 30 MHz
P54CS 120 MHz 60 MHz 30 MHz
P54CS 133 MHz 66.66 MHz 33.33 MHz
The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard includes Socket 5 support. The CPU speed is selected through jumper
settings. CPU voltages are supported through a built-in voltage regulator.
Programmable Crystal Oscillator The Apollo motherboard has a programmable crystal oscillator that supports all possible
motherboard frequencies.
Supported CPU Voltages This motherboard supports standard, VR, and VRE voltages. Voltages are selected through jumper
settings.
CPU Cooling A heat sink or a heat sink and fan are required for every Pentium CPU. If the motherboard is shipped with a
100 MHz, 120 MHz, or 133 MHz CPU, the heat sink and cooling fan are supplied with the motherboard.
Important
If you are installing the CPU, you must make sure that adequate cooling is provided. See
the CPU manufacturer’s instructions.
Cont’d

Chapter 1 Overview 3
System Description, Continued
Cache Memory The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard supports 256 KB or 512 KB of L2 secondary cache memory. External
cache memory is Write-through/Write-back. Asynchronous cache memory is supported. 3-2-2-2 and 4-3-3-3
Burst Read/Write is supported with asynchronous secondary cache memory.
The Pentium CPU includes 16 KB of L1 internal cache memory. Internal cache memory is Write-back/Write-
through.
Cache Memory Type Cache Memory Size Maximum System
Memory Cached
L1 Internal 16 KB 128 MB
L2 Secondary 256 KB 64 MB
L2 Secondary 512 KB 128 MB
Cache Access Times The access times for L2 secondary cache memory are:
Host Clock Rate Asynchronous SRAM Access Time
50 MHz 15 ns
60 MHz 15 ns
66.66 MHz 15 ns
CMOS RAM The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard has 128 bytes of nonvolatile CMOS RAM (NVRAM) to store
system configuration information.
Real Time Clock The Apollo motherboard has a real time clock and CMOS RAM powered by an onboard 3V Lithium battery.
Important
The battery on the motherboard can explode if improperly installed. Handle
the battery according to the battery manufacturer’s instructions. Use only the
recommended type of battery. Discard used batteries according to the battery
manufacturer’s instructions.
Cont’d

4Apollo Motherboard User’s Guide
System Description, Continued
Main System MemoryThe Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard supports up to 128 MB of DRAM system memory in two
memory banks mounted directly on the motherboard. Memory parity generation and memory parity checking
are not supported.
With EDO (Extended Data Out) memory, 7-2-2-2 Burst Read page hit is supported. With standard memory,
7-3-3-3 Burst Read page hit is supported.
The memory sockets use SIMM (Single Inline Memory Modules) or DIMM (Dual Inline Memory
Modules). Standard fast page mode or EDO memory types are supported and can be used together in the
same memory bank.
SIMM Types The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard supports EDO or fast page mode SIMMs operating at 70 ns (RAS
access time). Memory must be populated two SIMMs at a time. The SIMMs can be single-sided or double-
sided. Both x 32 and x 36 SIMMs are supported. The following SIMM types can be used:
•512 KB x 32 (or 36),
•1 MB x 32 (or 36),
•2 MB x 32 (or 36),
•4 MB x 32 (or 36),
•8 MB x 32 (or 36), and
•16 MB x 32 (or 36) SIMMs
Memory Restrictions The following restrictions apply to motherboard memory:
•System memory slots must be populated one bank at a time. Each bank of memory consists of two
SIMM modules.
•The same type of SIMMs must be used within a bank of memory. Cont’d

Chapter 1 Overview 5
Description, Continued
System BIOS The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard system BIOS is mounted on a 128 KB x 8 32-pin flash ROM DIP.
Boot block BIOS code is installed on the flash ROM so the BIOS code can be upgraded easily. The
AMIBIOS on the Apollo motherboard:
•supports the Plug and Play 1.0A specification,
•provides PCI-PCI bridge support,
•provides DMI (Desktop Management Interface) support,
•provides PnP Device Initialization Manager (DIM) support,
•includes ATAPI support for IDE CD-ROM drives,
•provides APM (Advanced Power Management) support,
•allows you to boot the computer from a CD-ROM drive,
•provides ATA IDE Mode programming support,
•provides an icon in WINBIOS Setup that displays system information, and
•supports the Extended Capabilities Port (ECP) and Enhanced Parallel Port (EPP) specifications.
The system BIOS is stored at E0000h - FFFFFh and has a built-in WINBIOS Setup for system configuration.
WINBIOS Setup has a graphical user interface that is extremely easy to use.
Expansion Slots The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard has four PCI expansion slots and four ISA expansion slots. The PCI
bus and ISA bus are synchronous with the CPU clock speeds, as shown below:
CPU Speed PCI Bus Speed ISA Bus Speed
66.66 MHz 33.33 MHz 8.33 MHz
60 MHz 30.0 MHz 7.50 MHz
50 MHz 25.0 MHz 8.33 MHz
Cont’d

6Apollo Motherboard User’s Guide
Description, Continued
I/O Capability The Apollo Pentium PCI ISA motherboard accesses 16- or 8-bit I/O devices on the ISA bus and 32-bit
devices on the PCI local bus.
PCI Local Bus The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard has four PCI expansion slots..
Keyboard and Mouse The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard has a standard six-pin DIN keyboard connector. The mouse
connector is a five-pin Single Inline connector. A four-pin berg connector is provided on the motherboard to
attach a keyboard lock cable.
Speaker The motherboard has a standard speaker attachment.
CMOS RAM Drain The motherboard includes a two-pin berg (JCP Password Clear) that can be shorted to drain all power from
CMOS RAM. This jumper can be used if the computer is password-protected and the user has forgotten the
password.
Fuse The motherboard includes a resettable UL-rated fuse in the keyboard circuit.
3.3V Power The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard includes a 3.3V power supply connector and a 3.3V voltage regulator
and heat sink onboard. Either one can be used to provide 3.3V power.

Chapter 1 Overview 7
Onboard I/O Support
Onboard I/O The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard provides the following onboard I/O:
•two bus mastering IDE channels on the PCI local bus,
•one bidirectional parallel port with EPP (Enhanced Parallel Port) and ECP (Extended Capabilities Port)
mode support with a DB25 connector,
•two serial ports with two 16550 UARTs and two DB9 connectors, and
•a standard shrouded 34-pin floppy drive connector that supports 1.2 MB, 1.44 MB, and 2.88 MB
floppies. Vertical recording is supported on 2.88 MB floppy drives.
Onboard IDE The two onboard IDEcontrollers are on the PCI local bus. The IDE controllers support IDE Modes 0, 1, 2,
3, and 4 and up to four IDE drives. Two standard 40-pin IDE connectors are on the motherboard. IDE bus
mastering, 32-bit transfer, LBA mode, and fast ATA are supported. The cycle times for the IDE modes are:
IDE Mode Cycle Time (in
nanoseconds)
0 600
1 383
2 240
3 180
4 120
Onboard NS16550s The Apollo motherboard has two National Semiconductor NS16550 UARTs for serial port, which
provide enhanced serial port features.
Floppy Drive Support The motherboard supports up to two floppy drives (720 KB, 1.44 MB, and 2.88 MB 3½" drives
and 1.2 MB 5¼" drives).
Cont’d

8Apollo Motherboard User’s Guide
Onboard I/O Support, Continued
Memory Addresses The motherboard uses 32-bit memory addresses to access 4 gigabytes of memory address space on
the PCI expansion slots. The ISA expansion slots use the 16-bit memory addresses to access up to 16 MB.
I/O Channel Check The motherboard supports the use of the I/O channel check to generate NMIs.
I/O Address Space The Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard uses I/O addresses 0100h through 03FFh for ISA-
compatible I/O.
Seven DMA Channels The motherboard has seven DMA channels. Any DMA channel can be set for 8 or 16-bit DMA
device sizes.
Fifteen Interrupt Levels The NMI takes precedence over all 15 hardware interrupts.
Priority Label Typical Interrupt Source
1IRQ 0 Interval Timer 1, Counter 0 OUT
2IRQ 1 Keyboard
3-10 IRQ 2 Used internally for IRQ 8 through IRQ 15
3IRQ 8 Real-Time-Clock
4IRQ 9 PCI/PnP or ISA
5IRQ 10 PCI/PnP or ISA
6IRQ 11 PCI/PnP or ISA
7IRQ 12 Onboard PS/2 Mouse orPCI/PnP or ISA
8IRQ 13 Coprocessor Error (internal)
9IRQ 14 Hard disk drive, local bus IDE controller, or
PCI/PnP. or ISA
10 IRQ 15 PCI/PnP or ISA
11 IRQ 3 Serial Port 2, PCI/PnP, or ISA
12 IRQ 4 Serial Port 1, PCI/PnP, or ISA
13 IRQ 5 Parallel Port 2, PCI/PnP or ISA
14 IRQ 6 Floppy disk controller
15 IRQ 7 Parallel Port 1, PCI/PnP or ISA

Chapter 1 Overview 9
Green PC Features
The American Megatrends Apollo Pentium PCI motherboard has been designed with the EPA Green PC
specifications in mind. The Green PC features include:
•flash BIOS write protection,
•flash BIOS programming,
•SMI support,
•APM support,
•stop clock support, and
•Sleep Mode, which allows the system to go to a low power consumption mode of operation when the
PC is idle.
Compliance with EPA Green PC Specifications
To meet the Green PC specifications, a computer system must be able to enter an idle state (Sleep Mode)
that reduces the total system power use to 30 watts or less on the input - AC side. The monitor and printer
must also use no more than 30 watts.
Responsibility The system integrator is ultimately responsible for meeting all Green PC specifications and performing the
tests necessary to obtain Energy Star approval.
The motherboard is only one component in the system. Other components have a major impact on system
power use.

10 Apollo Motherboard User’s Guide
Green PC Implementation Disclaimers
Green PC Responsibility The system integrator must be responsible for Green PC compliance.
American Megatrends has simply supplied the means to meet the Green PC requirements and cannot be held
responsible for final system assembly.
Disabling Sleep Mode If a computer will be running an application that requires long periods of CPU activity with no
input from the keyboard, mouse, COM1, or COM2, Sleep Mode should be disabled in WINBIOS Setup.
If Sleep Mode is not disabled, the system will switch to Sleep Mode and the system performance will be
greatly decreased. Some examples of such applications are: file servers, CAD systems, software compilers,
screen savers, and many more.
No Need for Screen Savers
Important
Screen saver software should not be used
with Sleep Mode enabled.
Sleep Mode serves the same purpose as a screen saver and obviates the need for a screen saver.

Chapter 2 PCI 11
2PCI Local Bus
The Apollo motherboard conforms to the PCI Version 2.0 specification. This motherboard has expansion
slots for four PCI adapter cards. The PCI slots are automatically configured by the WINBIOS system BIOS.
PCI is a specification for a local bus standard. The PCI specification also provides the electrical specifications
for peripheral chip makers and the logic requirements for a PCI Controller. While PCI defines a local bus
standard, it also defines a standard component-level interface. PCI is a common I/O component interface.
The motherboard conforms to the Intel PCI specifications. The PCI Local Bus Specification is a standard set
of interface, architecture, timings, electrical, and physical specifications that permit all PCI local bus products
to be totally interchangeable. PCI is a multiplexed extension of the CPU bus. In PCI, the CPU bus control
mechanisms have been extended to optimize I/O support. PCI establishes a local bus standard where a large
variety of I/O components can be directly connected without using any glue logic.
What PCI Accomplishes PCI is a way to physically interconnect highly integrated peripheral components and
processor/memory systems.
PCI Features Up to ten PCI loads can be used in the same system on the PCI bus, including the PCI Controller and an
expansion bus controller for computers based on the EISA, ISA, or MCA® architectures. PCI decouples the
CPU from the expansion bus, works at 30 or 33 MHz, and uses a 32-bit data connection path to the CPU.
Cont‘d

12 Apollo Motherboard User’s Guide
PCI, Continued
PCIFeatures PCI:
•is processor-independent,
•has a multiplexed address, command, and data bus and supports burst mode operation on reads and
writes,
•runs synchronous with the CPU at speeds up to 33 MHz,
•has a maximum data transfer rate of 120 MBs (with a peak rate of 132 MBs on a 32-bit data path),
•has low latency for random accesses (about 60 ns write access latency) to slave registers from a PCI bus
master on the PCI bus,
•is capable of full concurrency with the processor and PCI bus masters,
•has full multimaster capability, allowing any PCI Master peer-to-peer access to any PCI slave,
•has hidden and overlapped central arbitration,
•has a low pin count (master - 47; slave - 45),
•has address and data parity, and
•uses three physical address spaces: 32-bit memory, 32-bit I/O, and a 256 byte-per-agent configuration
space. Cont’d

Chapter 2 PCI 13
PCI, Continued
Buffered Reads and WritesThe PCI Controller buffers reads and writes between the memory/CPU and PCI peripheral
devices.
PCI Component Classes PCI components must be one of three classes: bus master, slave, or master/slave combination.
Bus Mastering PCI devices can be bus masters, slaves, or a combination of bus master and slave.
Concurrent Operation The CPU in a PCI system runs concurrently with PCI bus mastering peripherals.
Although bus mastering peripheral devices are arbitrated, significant data transfer rate improvements can be
achieved without splitting resource utilization between the CPU and a bus mastering device.
Peripheral devices can operate at speeds up to 33 MHz in a PCI environment.
Burst Mode The PCI specification also provides for burst mode of any length for both reads and writes.
Multiplexing PCI is a multiplexed bus. Multiplexing allows more than one signal to be sent on the same electrical path.
The control mechanisms have been modified and extended to optimize I/O support.
PCI Adapter Cards The Apollo Pentium PCI Pentium motherboard has four PCI expansion slots. The PCI expansion slots can
accept any adapter card that complies with the PCI Revision 2.0 specification.
All PCI expansion slots are bus mastering slots.

14 Apollo Motherboard User’s Guide