The Mother Board

[pilot40874]

Hello Experts!

I have the UWAVE and am trying to find the "factory" BIOS that came with the board, rather than the "dumbed-down" version that is supplied with the OEM board from Compaq (which doesn't let me set ANYTHING other than a boot password and reset defaults!)

I want to adjust the clock settings etc, via the BIOS in order to get more from my Compaq. I've been reading a lot of information on the internet concerning overclocking the Duron, but I'm still not sure exactly what method may work on my OEM version board. Has anyone done this with the OEM version of the FIC AZ31 board? Does anyone know anything about how do do this? I'm familiar with the "pencil trick" which supposedly allows resting the Duron/Athalon voltage and clock multiplier to increase the CPU processing speed. I've never tried it, and I'm wondering if I also have do do anything with the BIOS, too?

Does anyone know if the 100/133Mhz jumper on the AZ31 can be set to 133 without hurting anything? I have PC133 SDRAM, but I've been told that the VIA Apollo KT133/686A chip set on this board can only support 100Mhz? Also, the compaq specs say the board only supports 768Mb of SDRAM, but the manufacturers specs say it can support 1.5Gb! What gives?

Any info you have would be appreciated.

Regards,
Jim

(P.S. Here are a few links to information on the FIC AZ31 in case these are usefull to anybody in answering my questions.

http://www.baber.com/baber/411/fic_az31.htm
http://www.viatech.com/en/apollo/KT133.jsp
http://www.sysopt.com/userreviews/mboards/reviewhtml/FIC_AZ31_-_OEM_UWAVE_Version.html
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/00q3/000711/index.html
http://www.motherboards.org/articlesd/how-to-guides/41_1.html
_________________
Compaq Presario 5WV254 (FIC AZ31 motherboard, OEM version)
AMD Duron 700Mhz - stock clock
VIA Apollo KT133/686A chipset
nVidia GeForce4 Ti4200
250w pcu
yada, yada, yada....

[Tolemac]

Welcome to the Mother Board!

The KT133 chipset can run PC133 memory, but will only run the FSB at 100MHz.

What BIOS version does your board have currently? There is a BIOS update on the FIC site, but I want to see which one you have first so that I can make some comparisons.

Here's the link to the Pencil Trick. Familiarize yourself with it before actually doing it. It is easy, but it's best to know what you're about before attempting it.
_________________
The Gift of Healing

[pilot40874]

Does ACPI sound like BIOS? I'm not sure what kind of BIOS this machine has. Compaq doesn't let you get to the BIOS. Instead if you hold the DEL key while booting, you get this lame "DOS-like" window with very limited menu items. It's not allowing me to actually make any changes such as clock speed, etc. About the only thing it lets me do is set a password and/or reset the system defaults. I guess they made it that way so people like me can't mess up anything. Also, since this is the OEM version of the FIC AZ31, it doesn't come with the NOVUS II features or the ability to set the clock from the board.

The article you mentioned only talks about unlocking the multiplier using the L1. That would be fine if I had a board that allowed me to set voltage or BIOS that allowed me to access clock speeds, but I don't. That's why I was trying to see if there was any way I could replace the BIOS that's on the machine now. However, I did come across this very interesting article that describes how you can take the pencil trick one step farther and actually unlock the L3, L4, and L7 leads to set the voltage and clock speeds that are hard wired on the chip. Take a look and let me know if this makes any sense. It may be my only options, but I don't want to risk it if I'm not sure. Since I've never done anything like this before, I don't want to attempt it until I get positive confirmation that it works.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/00q3/000711/index.html

As far as my BIOS goes, do this information help you out. I don't know if this is it or not, but this is what the FIC manufacturing specs for my board describe for the BIOS.

ACPI 1.0B, APM 1.2, PnP 1.0a, SMBIOS 2.3, DMI 2.0, WfM2.0,
Smart for HDD, USB 1.1, PC99, PCI 2.2

Appreciate any info you can give me.

Regards,
Jim
_________________
Compaq Presario 5WV254 (FIC AZ31 motherboard, OEM version)
AMD Duron 700Mhz - stock clock
VIA Apollo KT133/686A chipset
nVidia GeForce4 Ti4200
250w pcu
yada, yada, yada....

[atang1]

You have a Compaq bios.

You could email tech support at FIC to find out if their generic bios for AZ31 will be compatible for your motherboard. Generic bios means it covers all the version changes on all the motherboards of the same name.

[Tolemac]

pilot, go here and download the BIOS Wizard. It should tell you the info I need about your BIOS.
The Toms guide is the way to do it, but only with a pencil or a PCB trace pen (conductive ink pen). If you are going to keep your board, and cannot get the right BIOS for it, then this would be your best shot.
_________________
The Gift of Healing