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5. Other

5.1 Knoppix

Yesterday (8/28/2003), I tried to boot with a Knoppix cd (3.2) and found out that the computer froze during the SCSI probes.

Here is a quick way to prevent this:

When you get the knoppix prompt, add noscsi and your lang settings and press enter:

boot: knoppix noscsi lang=fr

lang=fr is only to ensure that your language will be used even though we're overridding the append line.

5.2 Notes about parallel port networking (PLIP) and floppy bus

I recently found out several important hardware flaws on this mainboard. For example I could not get PLIP to work properly, if anyone has, let me know! I used a grey laplink parallel cable (also known as Null Printer Cable) a friend sold me and followed the PLIP Howto. I could watch activity on the pins using a dos tool, but nothing went through, it even gave a warning:

modprobe plip

tail /var/log/messages

kernel: plip: parport0 has no IRQ. Using IRQ-less mode,which is fairly inefficient!
kernel: NET3 PLIP version 2.4-parport gniibe@mri.co.jp
kernel: plip0: Parallel port at 0x378, not using IRQ.

So I had to go on with floppies, since the box didn't have a cdrom drive, and there, I found out that the 486 had a much faster writing speed, more than 10 seconds of difference writing exactly the same image to the the same floppy...

5.3 Links

Warning: If your board is working fine, then don't fix it. Anyway here are the cool links:

5.4 Sensors.conf for the K7s5a-pro

#Thanks to Art Wagner for this contribution (nospam-awagner@speakeasy.net)

chip "it87-*" "it8705-*" "it8712-*"

# The values below have been tested on Asus CUSI, CUM motherboards.

# Voltage monitors as advised in the It8705 data sheet

         label in0 "VCore"
         label in1 "Vcc2.5v"
         label in2 "Vcc3.3v"
         label in3 "+5V"
         label in4 "+12V"
         label in5 "-12V"
         label in6 "SB 2.5V"
         label in7 "SB 5V"
         label in8 "V battery"


         set in0_min 1.6 * 0.95
         set in0_max 1.6 * 1.05
         set in1_min 2.4
         set in1_max 2.6
         set in2_min 3.3 * 0.95
         set in2_max 3.3 * 1.05
         set in3_min 5.0 * 0.95
         set in3_max 5.0 * 1.05
         set in4_min  12 * 0.95
         set in4_max  12 * 1.05
         set in5_min -12 * 0.95
         set in5_max -12 * 1.05
         set in6_min  2.5 * 0.95
         set in6_max  2.5 * 1.05
         set in7_min   5 * 0.95
         set in7_max   5 * 1.05

         # vid not monitored by IT8705F

         ignore  vid
# If 3.3V reads 2X too high (Soyo Dragon, for example),
# comment out following line.
#    compute in2   2*@ , @/2
#
       compute in3 ((6.8/10)+1)*@ ,  @/((6.8/10)+1)
       compute in4 ((30/10) +1)*@  , @/((30/10) +1)
# For this family of chips the negative voltage equation is different from
# the lm78.  The chip uses two external resistor for scaling but one is
# tied to a positive reference voltage.  See ITE8705/12 datasheet (SIS950
# data sheet is wrong)
# Vs = (1 + Rin/Rf) * Vin - (Rin/Rf) * Vref.
# Vref = 4.096 volts, Vin is voltage measured, Vs is actual voltage.

# The next two are negative voltages (-12 and -5).
# The following formulas must be used. Unfortunately the datasheet
# does not give recommendations for Rin, Rf, but we can back into
# them based on a nominal +2V input to the chip, together with a 4.096V
Vref.
# Formula:
#    actual V = (Vmeasured * (1 + Rin/Rf)) - (Vref * (Rin/Rf))
#    For -12V input use Rin/Rf = 6.68
#    For -5V input use Rin/Rf = 3.33
# Then you can convert the forumula to a standard form like:
# compute in5 (7.67 * @) - 27.36  ,  (@ + 27.36) / 7.67
# compute in6 (4.33 * @) - 13.64  ,  (@ + 13.64) / 4.33
#
# this much simpler version is reported to work for a
# Eltite Group K7S5A board
#
      compute in5 -(36/10)*@, -@/(36/10)
#  compute in6 -(56/10)*@, -@/(56/10)
      compute in6 (4.33*@) -13.64 , (@ +13.64) / 4.33
      compute in7 ((6.8/10)+1)*@,  @/((6.8/10)+1)
#

     # Temperature
   set in0_min 1.6 * 0.95
   set in0_max 1.6 * 1.05
   set in1_min 2.4
   set in1_max 2.6
   set in2_min 3.3 * 0.95
   set in2_max 3.3 * 1.05
   set in3_min 5.0 * 0.95
   set in3_max 5.0 * 1.05
   set in4_min  12 * 0.95
   set in4_max  12 * 1.05
   set in5_min -12 * 0.95
   set in5_max -12 * 1.05
   set in6_min  2.5 * 0.95
   set in6_max  2.5 * 1.05
   set in7_min   5 * 0.95
   set in7_max   5 * 1.05
                                                                                                                                                
         label temp3       "Processor"
         set   temp3_over  70
         set   temp3_hyst  25
         label temp2       "Mainboard"
         set   temp2_over  70
         set   temp2_hyst  25
         ignore temp1


     # Fans


         label fan1"Processor's Fan"
         set fan1_min 1800
         ignore fan3
         ignore fan2

5.5 Some words

Using a modified BIOS, I was able to successfully overclock my Athlon 1000Mhz to 1050Mhz flawlessy, but when I messed with hdparm (30Gig Western Digital hard drive) using hdparm -c1 -X66 /dev/hda, I managed to corrupt my filesystem, so beware.

If you are a real tweaker, you might want to change your BIOS Logo and stuff, some people tried that and it worked OK, some others not, so they had to flash their BIOS again (blindly with a bootdisk and a working bios in it) to make the board work again. It is really up to you. Search Google or OC Workbench and you'll be on your way.

Good Luck! :-)


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