American Megatrends III User manual

Apollo III PCI Pentium
ISA Motherboard
User's Guide
MAN-752
12/6/96

Apollo III PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User’s Guide
ii
© Copyright 1996 American Megatrends, Inc.
All rights reserved.
American Megatrends, Inc.
6145F Northbelt Parkway
Norcross, GA 30071
This publication contains proprietary information 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 Megatrends’ 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.
MS-DOS, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
SMC is a registered trademark of Standard Microsystems 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.
SCO, UnixWare, and Unix are registered trademarks of The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Toshiba is a registered trademark of Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba.
VESA is a trademark of the Video Electronics Standards Association.
All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
Revision History
7/28/96 Initial release.
12/6/96 Updated manual for new version of BIOS.

Preface iii
Preface
To the OEM Thank you for purchasing the high performance American Megatrends
Apollo III PCI Pentium 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 III 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 III motherboard. It explains how to assemble a system
based on the Apollo III 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.

Preface iv
Packing List
You should have received the following:
• an Apollo III Pentium PCI ISA motherboard,
• an optional USB cable and mounting bracket,
• two serial cables,
• one parallel cable,
• a Warranty Card, and
• the American Megatrends Apollo III Pentium ISA Motherboard User's
Guide.
Static Electricity
The Apollo III motherboard can easily be damaged by static electricity. Make
sure you take appropriate precautions against static electric discharge:
• wear a properly-grounded wristband while handling the Apollo III
motherboard or any other electrical component,
• touch a grounded anti-static surface or a grounded metal fixture before
handling the Apollo III motherboard,
• handle system components by the mounting bracket, if possible.
Batteries Make sure you dispose of used batteries according to the battery
manufacturer’s instructions. Improper use of batteries may cause an
explosion. Make sure you follow the battery manufacturer’s instructions about
using the battery.
Replace used batteries with the same type of battery or an equivalent
recommended by the battery manufacturer.

Chapter 1 Hardware Installation 1
1Hardware Installation
Overview
The American Megatrends Apollo III PCI Pentium ISA motherboard includes
the following features.
CPU The motherboard supports an Intel® Pentium™ 75, 90, 100, 120, 133, 150,
166, 180, 200 MHz or higher speed CPU operating at Standard, VR, or VRE
voltages. The CPU speed and voltage are set via jumpers.
Upgrade CPU You can install an Intel P54C series, P54CT, or P55C CPU.
Chipset The Apollo III PCI Pentium ISA motherboard uses an Intel 82430HX,
including CPU interface controller, advanced cache controller, integrated
DRAM controller, synchronous ISA bus controller, PCI local bus interface,
and integrated power management unit.
Expansion slots The motherboard includes three 16-bit ISA expansion slots and four 32-bit
PCI expansion slots. The PCI local bus throughput can be up to 132
megabytes per second.
L1 Internal Cache The Intel Pentium on the motherboard has an 8 KB data cache and an 8
KB instruction cache.
L2 Secondary Cache The motherboard has either 256 KB or 512 KB of synchronous
PBSRAM, direct-mapped, write-back. L2 secondary cache memory. Cont’d

Apollo III PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User’s Guide
2
Overview, Continued
DRAM Cached If 256 KB of L2 secondary cache memory is installed on the motherboard, up
to 128 MB of system memory can be cached.
If 512 KB of L2 secondary cache memory is installed on the motherboard, up
to 256 MB of system memory can be cached.
System Memory The motherboard supports up to 256 MB of system memory mounted on the
motherboard in two banks of 72-pin 4 MB, 8 MB, or 16 MB SIMMs.
Use Fast Page Mode or Extended Data Out (EDO) SIMMs operating at 60 ns.
Fast ATA The motherboard supports the Fast ATA specification using PIO mode 4 and
multiword DMA mode 2.
System BIOS This motherboard has a 128 KB AMIBIOS system BIOS on a Flash ROM
with built-in WINBIOS Setup.
BIOS Shadowing The system BIOS is always copied from ROM to RAM for faster execution.
The end user can shadow 16 KB ROM segments from C0000h – DCFFFh.
Motherboard Size The Apollo III Pentium PCI ISA motherboard is 10 inches by 8.625
inches. Cont’d

Chapter 1 Hardware Installation 3
Overview, Continued
AMIBIOS Features AMIBIOS features include:
• IDE block mode support,
• IDE 32-bit data transfer support,
• IDE Programmed I/O mode 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 support,
• IDE LBA mode support,
• APM (Advanced Power Management) and Flash BIOS hooks,
• EPA Green PC-compliant,
• PCI and Plug and Play (PnP) support, and
• DIM (Device Initialization Manager) support,
• DMI (Desktop Management Interface) support,
• ATAPI support,
• can boot from a CD-ROM drive,
• automatically detects system memory, cache memory, and IDE drive
parameters,
• Intel NSP-compliant,
• Fast ATA IDE mode programming,
• Boot sector virus protection,
• instant-on support,
• automatically configures PnP and PCI devices.
IDE The Apollo III motherboard has two 40-pin IDE connectors onboard that
support up to four IDE drives. The IDE controller is on the PCI local bus.
Floppy The Apollo III motherboard has an onboard floppy controller that supports up
to two 360 KB, 720 KB, 1.2 MB, 1.44 MB, or 2.88 MB floppy drives.
Parallel Port The Apollo III motherboard has an onboard ECP and EPP-capable parallel
port connector.
Serial Ports The Apollo III motherboard has two onboard serial port connectors and two
16550 UART serial ports.
Keyboard The Apollo III motherboard Includes a standard miniDIN keyboard
connector. Cont’d

Apollo III PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User’s Guide
4
Overview, Continued
Mouse The Apollo III motherboard includes a 5-pin berg mouse connector.
USB The Apollo III motherboard has two 4-pin USB connectors. USB allows
future generations of USB-compliant peripheral devices to be automatically
detected and configured through a single port. The AMIBIOS on the Apollo
III motherboard provides complete USB system BIOS support.
Infrared A 10-pin infrared connector is provided on the motherboard. The
motherboard and AMIBIOS comply with the IrDA SIR infrared device
standards and specifications.
Power Connectors The Apollo III motherboard has three power supply connectors.
RTC/CMOS RAM A real time clock and 128 bytes of CMOS RAM with a battery backup is
provided on the motherboard.
Power Management Power management services include:
• Green PC LED,
• power management signal to Green PC-aware power supplies,
• automatic IDE and video power down,
• monitor blanking,
• SMI (System Management Interrupt) support,
• APM, and
• system stop clock. Cont’d

Chapter 1 Hardware Installation 5
Overview, Continued
PCI Slots The motherboard conforms to the PCI Version 2.1 specification. The PCI
slots are automatically configured by the AMIBIOS. The PCI slots operate
synchronously with the CPU clock, as follows:
CPU External Clock Frequency PCI Expansion Slot Frequency
66 MHz 33 MHz
60 MHz 30 MHz
50 MHz 25 MHz
Onboard I/O The Apollo III Pentium ISA motherboard includes:
• two 40-pin IDE connectors on the PCI bus that support up to four IDE drives,
• a 34-pin floppy drive connector,
• two 10-pin serial port connectors (with 16550 UARTs),
• a 26-pin parallel port connector with ECP and EPP support,
• an infrared connectors,
• two USB connectors,
• a keyboard connector, and
• a PS/2 mouse connector.
Apollo III Dimensions
Expansion
Slots
0.62"
Keyboard
Connector
0.85"
SIMM
Sockets
2.5"
CPUHeatSink
1.75"
PowerConnectors
2.0"
10"
8.625"
HeatSink
1.5"

Apollo III PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User’s Guide
6
Installation Steps
Step Action
1Unpack the motherboard.
2Configure the CPU.
Select the CPU voltage.
Select the CPU speed.
Install the CPU.
3Install memory.
Install system memory.
4Install the motherboard.
5Attach cables to connectors.
Connect the power supply.
Attach the keyboard cable.
Connect the mouse cable.
Attach cables.
6Connect onboard I/O.
Connect the serial ports.
Connect the parallel port.
7Connect floppy drive(s).
8Connect the IDE drive(s).
9Test and configure.
Warning
This motherboard contains sensitive electronic
components that can be easily damaged by static
electricity. Follow the instructions carefully to
ensure correct installation and to avoid static
damage.