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245 lines
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<TITLE>Linux PCI-HOWTO: ASUS-Boards</TITLE>
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<LINK HREF="PCI-HOWTO-4.html" REL=next>
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<LINK HREF="PCI-HOWTO-2.html" REL=previous>
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<LINK HREF="PCI-HOWTO.html#toc3" REL=contents>
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<A HREF="PCI-HOWTO-4.html">Next</A>
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<A HREF="PCI-HOWTO.html#toc3">Contents</A>
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<HR>
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<H2><A NAME="s3">3. ASUS-Boards</A></H2>
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<H2><A NAME="ss3.1">3.1 ASUS and the NMI (Parity) -- impact on Gravis-Ultrasound</A>
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</H2>
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<P>The newer trition PCI-Mainboards in 1995 did not seem to
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support parity-SIMMS anymore. Since I usualy took the cheaper
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nonparity-SIMMS anyway, I did not consider this a problem until I put
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the Gravis-Ultrasound into my machine. Under DOS the SBOS-Driver and
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Setup/Test utility does complain about "nmi procedure disabled on this
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p.c.". The manual says I'd better get a better mainboard in that case,
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not very helpful.
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<P>The gravis-ultrasound did work nice in the ASUS-SP3 and ASUS-SP4,
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inspite of this, but the gravis-ultrasound-max I have here got
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gmod to kernel panic on both boards, and sometimes when playing
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au-files via /dev/audio did strange things, like playing the rest of
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an older, previously played sound after the new one. The sounddriver
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does recommend a buffer of 65536 with the GUS Max instead of the small
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one like the GUS - why I do not know. I do not have such a problem
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with the newer ASUS TP4 XE boards, though.
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Both are equipped with 1M DRAM onboard. These problems are probably
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not related to the NMI-problem, but because of the sounddriver?
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<P>I heard not only ASUS but most of the newer PCI-Mainboards are lacking
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in parity/NMI-support.
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<P>Strange enough - the ASUS-TP4 (Trition Chipset) does work with the GUS Max
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- it does load the SBOS-Driver. I have to admit, I am confused.
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<P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss3.2">3.2 Various types of ASUS Boards</A>
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</H2>
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<P>
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<P>
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<H3>ASUS SP3 with saturn chipset I (rev. 2) for 486, </H3>
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<P>
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<UL>
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<LI> 2 x rs232 with 16550</LI>
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<LI> NCR53c810 onboard, </LI>
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<LI> slightly broken saturn-chipset I (rev. 2)</LI>
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</UL>
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<P>
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<H3>ASUS SP3G with saturn chipset II (rev. 4) for 486, </H3>
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<P>like SP3, but less buggy saturn chipset
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<P>
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<H3>ASUS SP3-SiS chipset, for 486</H3>
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<P>like AP4, but newer, SiS chipset, green functions and
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all the EIDE, rs232 with 2 16550 and centronics.
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Only 2 SIMM Slots, Does seem to work with AMD486DX4/120,
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but was not very reliably on NCR53c810 and various operating
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systems (Windows-NT, Windows95, OS2), after upgrading to a
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PentiumBoard ASUS SP4, all the problems vanished, so it must have
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been the board. Still does seem to work nice for Linux, though.
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<P>
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<H3>ASUS AP4, for 486, with PCI/ISA/VesaLocalbus</H3>
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<P>green functions, 1VL, 3 ISA, 4 PCI slots, only EIDE onboard,
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no fd-controller, no rs232/centronics. Very small size.
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<P>does recognice AMD486DX2/66 as DX4/100 only. This can be
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corrected with soldering one pin (which?) to ground, but I would not
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recommend a board like this anyway.
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<P>The one I tested was broken for OS2 and Linux, but people are
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said to use it for both.
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<P>The VesaLocalbus-Slot is expected to be slower than the normal
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vesa-localbus boards because of the PCI2VL bridge, but without penalty
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to the PCI section.
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<P>
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<H3>ASUS SP4-SiS, for Pentium90, PCI/ISA</H3>
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<P>like SP3-SiS, but for Pentium90/100.
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<P>
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<H3>ASUS TP4 with Triton chipset and EDO-Support</H3>
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<P>has the Triton-Chipset for better performance and supports
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normal PS2-Simms as well as Fast-Page-Mode and EDO modules.
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<P>
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<H3>ASUS TP4XE with Triton chipset and additional SRAM/EDORAM support</H3>
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<P>supports the new EDORAM and upcoming SRAM standards. At least
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SRAM is said to considerabely increase performance. Did for some
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reason not accept the 8M PS2-SIMMS working ok in ASUS SP4, after
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changing them against others, bigger looking ones, (16 chips instead
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of 8 if I remember right) it worked ok. Has been tested with P90 and
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P100.
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<P>
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<H3>...and many others now.</H3>
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<P>if you have new information on problems with them, please report.
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<P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss3.3">3.3 Benchmarks on ASUS Mainboards</A>
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</H2>
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<P>I tried to compare the speed of CPUs in two ASUS Mainboards: for 486 I tested
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the SP3 SiS (the one with one vesa-local-bus slot) and for 586 I tested the
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ASUS TP4/XE, each with 16M RAM, always the same unloaded system with another CPU,
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with whetstone and dhrystone.
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<P>I must admit, I have not read the benchmarks-faq yet, and will probably edit
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the section a loot soon. If you have any comments, please mail me.
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<P>I am especially confused about the amd486DX4/100 being faster on dhrystones
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than the DX4/120 version? I did not see that kind of inconsistency on comparing
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the P90 and P100.
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<P>Perhaps this was at fault: when I plugged in the amdDX4-100, I had
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the board jumpered for DX2-66. While the BIOS did report it as an DX4-100,
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the board might have used the wrong clockspeeds... but since DX2-66 uses
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33Mhz * 2 and DX4 uses 33Mhz * 3, this would have been correct?
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<P>The board running with DX4-120 is jumpered to 40Mhz * 3 = 120 Mhz.
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<P>Another thing I wonder about is why the whetstones-result does
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yield so even numbers on some machines?
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<P>
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<H3>ASUS SP3 with amd486DX4-100</H3>
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<P>
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<UL>
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<LI> Dhrystone time for 500000 passes = 7 by 63559 dhrystones/second</LI>
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<LI> Whetstone time for 1000 passes = 5 by 200.0000 Whetstones/second</LI>
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</UL>
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<P>
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<H3>ASUS SP3 with amd486DX4-120</H3>
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<P>
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<UL>
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<LI> Dhrystone time for 500000 passes = 8 by 56074 dhrystones/second</LI>
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<LI> Whetstone time for 1000 passes = 4 by 250.0000 Whetstones/second</LI>
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</UL>
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<P>
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<H3>ASUS SP3 with intel486DX2-66</H3>
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<P>
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<UL>
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<LI> Dhrystone time for 500000 passes = 9 by 50761 dhrystones/second</LI>
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<LI> Whetstone time for 1000 passes = 7 by 142.8571 Whetstones/second</LI>
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</UL>
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<P>
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<H3>ASUS TP4/XE with intel586-90</H3>
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<P>
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<UL>
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<LI> Dhrystone time for 500000 passes = 4 by 101010 dhrystones/second</LI>
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<LI> Whetstone time for 1000 passes = 3 by 333.3333 Whetstones/second</LI>
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</UL>
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<P>
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<H3>ASUS TP4/XE with intel586-100</H3>
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<P>
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<UL>
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<LI> Dhrystone time for 500000 passes = 4 by 102040 dhrystones/second</LI>
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<LI> Whetstone time for 1000 passes = 2 by 500.0000 Whetstones/second</LI>
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</UL>
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<P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss3.4">3.4 Detailed information on the old ASUS PCI-I-SP3 with saturn chipset from heinrich@zsv.gmd.de: </A>
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</H2>
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<P>
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<P>
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<UL>
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<LI> 3 PCI, 4 ISA Slots (3x16, 1x8 Bit)</LI>
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<LI> ZIF Socket for the CPU</LI>
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<LI> room for 4 72pin-SIMMs (max. 128M)</LI>
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<LI> Award BIOS in Flash-Eprom</LI>
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<LI> Onboard: NCR-SCSI, 1par, 2ser (with FIFO), AT-Bus, Floppy </LI>
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</UL>
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<P>The board does like most in that price class -- write-through cache,
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no write-back. This should not be significant, maybe 3% of performance.
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<P>The BIOS supports scsi-drives under DOS/Windows without additional
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drivers, but with the board come additional drivers which are said to
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give better performance, for DOS/Windows(ASPI), OS2, Windows-NT,
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SCO-Unix, Netware (3.11 and 4, if interpreted correctly)
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<P>Gert Doering (gert@greenie.muc.de) was saying the SCO-Unix-driver for
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the onboard-SCSI-Chip was not working properly. After two or three
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times doing: "time dd if=/dev/rhd20 of=/dev/null bs=100k count=500"
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it kernel-paniced...
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<P>The trouble some people experienced with this board might be due to them
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using an outboard Adaptec-SCSI-Controller with "sync negotiation" turned
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on. (This predates the NCR driver release; hence the use of the
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Adaptec.) Please check that in the BIOS-Setup of the Adaptec-1542C if
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you use one and have problems with occasional hangups!
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<P>There is a new version of the ASUS-Board which should have definitely
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less problems. It is called ASUS-PCI-I/SP3G, the G is important. It
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has the new Saturn-chipset rev. 4 and the bugs should be gone.
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They use the Saturn-ZX-variant and the new SP3G has fully PCI
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conforming level-triggered (thus shareable), BIOS-configurable interrupts.
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It has an on-board PS/2-mouseport, EPA-power-saving-modes and DX4-support,
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too. It performs excellently. If you can get the German computer magazine
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C't from July (?), you will find a test report where the ASUS-Board is the
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best around.
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<P>Latest information about ASUS-SP3-G: You might experience crashes when
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using PCI-to-Memory-Posting. If you disable this, all works
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perfect. jw@peanuts.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de said he believed it
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to be a problem of the current Linux-kernel rather than the hardware,
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because part of the system still works when crashing, looking like a
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deadlock in the swapper, and OS2/DOS/WINDOZE don't crash at all.
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<P>Someone else with a very old ASUS-SP3 (saturn-I chipset) reported crashes
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with using XFree86, which went away when he installed the very latest
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betaversion which seems to work around a bit of the problems.
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<P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss3.5">3.5 Pat Dowler (dowler@pt1B1106.FSH.UVic.CA) with ASUS SP3G</A>
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</H2>
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<P>
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<P>
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<UL>
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<LI> ASUS SP3G board (it is rev.4 == saturn II)</LI>
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<LI> AMD DX4-100 CPU (need to set jumper 36 to 1&2 rather than 2&3,
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otherwise it's set the same as other 486DXn chips)</LI>
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<LI> 256K cache (comes with 15ns cache :-)</LI>
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<LI> 16meg RAM (2x8meg)</LI>
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<LI> ET4000 ISA video card</LI>
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<LI> quantum IDE hard drive</LI>
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<LI> SMC Elitel16 combo ethernet card</LI>
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</UL>
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<P>Unlike some other reports, I find the mouse pointer moves very smoothy
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under X (just like the ol' 386) - it is jumpy under some, but not all,
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DOS games though...
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<P>Performance is great!! I ran some large floating point tests and found
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the performance in 3x33 (100MHz) mode to be almost 1.5x that in 2x (66MHz)
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mode (large being 500x500 doubles - 4meg or so)... I was a little dubious
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about clock-tripling but I seem to be getting full benefit :-)
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<P>The heavily configurable energy star stuff doesn't work with the
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current AMD DX4 chips - you need an SL chip
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<P>I really need a SCSI disk and a PCI video card :-)
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<P>(I had a phonecall by a person who had this problem with the buggy SMC FIFO
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chipset, after using X-window they hung.)
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<P>
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<HR>
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