Making Windows 95 fly with advance/EV baseboard
Making Windows 95 fly with advance/EV baseboard
By Zatni Arbi
JAKARTA (JP): When my friend Michael from Regina's Bakery told
me he wanted to buy a new computer, I said to him, "Why don't we
have some fun? We'll buy the components and we'll assemble it
together." He immediately agreed. So we spent the following week
discussing his requirements and what we would put in his PC.
My friend wanted the fastest CPU available in Jakarta, the
best combination of motherboard, RAM and cache memory available,
and a one gigabyte fast SCSI-2 hard disk. He wanted his new
machine to be able to run Windows 95 applications at autobahn
speed.
According to a press release from Intel, which I had recently
received courtesy of SIMA, Intel has released the Pentium 150 MHz
and 166 MHz in addition to its Pentium Pro CPU line. However, at
the moment, the fastest CPU available in Jakarta is the Pentium
133 MHz. The two higher speed Pentium chips are expected to
arrive in one or two months. We settled on a 133 MHz tire burner.
When choosing the motherboard, I told Michael that the best
one on the local market was made by Intel itself. The
motherboard, named Advanced/EV by Intel, replaced the company's
older model Advanced/ZP. I had installed the latter in a Pentium
120 MHz before, and I wrote a little about it in my article on
SCSI.
For the SCSI subsystem, the choice clear: an Adaptec AHA 2940
SCSI controller card and a Quantum Fireball hard disk, just as I
wrote in my update of the SCSI interface.
Michael wanted a name-brand SuperVGA card, similar to the ones
used in high-end Pentiums from branded computer vendors. He chose
the Diamond Stealth 64 with 2 MB of VRAM. I had a little hassle
with this expensive product, though.
For the computer case to put everything together, I
recommended a medium height tower model which looked exactly like
the one Micron used for its award-winning Pentium PCs. In Glodok
it was even called "Micron casing". I liked it very much despite
its steep price.
For the floppy disk drive, the choice was easy: the Sony 3.5".
A winner for the 5.25" floppy disk drive is impossible t find
because this format is now being phased out. Michael decided that
he would buy one later.
We put his PC together in four hours one evening, and when we
finished we could smell the tires burning as the new machine
kicked off Windows 95.
Endeavor
Endeavor is the nickname for the Advance/EV motherboard. Intel
calls it a baseboard instead, and it was intended to be an OEM
product. An OEM, which stands for Original Equipment
Manufacturer, is a company that assembles PCs using components
from other vendors and then sells them under its own name.
The Endeavor is a full-sized motherboard and is made in
Ireland. It can use the more expensive Extended Data Out (EDO)
RAM or the less expensive Fast Page Mode DRAM SIMMs, or even a
combination of the two. A spec sheet from Corsair told me that
the best RAM SIMMs for this motherboard are the EDO version with
60 nanosecond speed. Michael wanted to buy the minimum required
amount of RAM to run Windows 95, knowing he could buy more as his
need arose. So he bought 16 MB of this EDO, 60 ns RAM. He bought
generic instead of a brand name, because my experience shows that
this component rarely malfunctions.
Endeavor can run in three different second-level (L2) cache
configurations: cacheless -- only by using the EDO RAM; with the
standard 256 asynchronous L2 cache; or with the 256 or 512 KB
pipelined burst cache. The performance, of course, differs
according to which configuration you choose. Second level cache
increases performance by reducing the delays that occur as the
CPU retrieves information from the main memory. The performance
level is therefore lowest without cache memory.
Michael decided to go all the way, installing a 512 KB
pipelined burst cache module made by Corsair. Actually, 256 KB
would be sufficient. Tests show that it is generally the point of
diminishing return in terms of performance.
The pipelined burst cache RAM comes in a module format,
similar to the RAM SIMMs. Endeavor has a customized slot called
CELP for it -- no screws or clips. The BIOS automatically detects
that EDO RAM has been installed.
In Britain and Europe, Endeavor is sold to OEMs with a
SuperVGA chip built in. In Indonesia it does not have a SuperVGA
system but there is a ViBRA SoundBlaster compatible subsystem on
board.
Endeavor is also Windows 95-ready with its plug-and-play
capability. The motherboard we bought came with four diskettes,
three for the built-in sound card and one containing the BIOS
upgrade. The BIOS upgrade will enable the motherboard to boot up
from a CD-ROM, when the required BIOS comes out. Being able to
boot from a CD-ROM will provide a great alternative for PCs
shared by multiple users. It will eliminate the need for a hard
disk, with each user just slipping in his or her own CD-ROM
containing the operating system and the applications he or she
needs.
The board has three PCI slots, two ISA slots, and one for
either the PCI or ISA. There are two IDE channels to connect up
to four IDE hard disks or an ATAPI CD-ROM drive. All the standard
I/O cables and connectors are included in the package. It is even
ready for infrared connection.
Much as I like Endeavor, it doesn't have on-board antivirus
protection.
The Micron case
The Micron-like case from Glodok really showed quality
workmanship. The power supply was made by Seasonic, the same
maker of the power supply in the EPS Technology's 386DX 33 tower
that I bought in the U.S. in 1990. Opening the case only involves
a single screw. Two latches at the back snap the cover to the
chassis. The front face can also be easily removed. There are
three 5.25" half-height and one 3.5" accessible storage bays.
This case also uses railings to hold peripherals such as a CD ROM
drive and a 5.25" floppy disk drive, so installing them or taking
them out is as easy as inserting and ejecting a 3.5" floppy
diskette.
The hard disk is placed vertically on a cage next to the power
supply. The cage swings out and upward, so installing the hard
disk is simple. You can screw in the hard disk or use the clips
that come with the case, either way it is easy to secure or
remove hard disks. There is room for two 3.5" half-height hard
disks.
There is no keyboard key lock, no Turbo switch, and no
processor speed display. Find an ad for Micron to see what the
case looks like. I don't know if Micron sources its cases from
the same company in Taiwan, but this case is great.
Fixing the motherboard to the chassis is simple. The only tool
needed is a screwdriver. All the clips are included and all the
cable plugs are clearly marked.
The only problem is that the top and left side of the cover
are plastic, which might warp in the long run. Obviously, you
can't put something heavy, like a UPS, on top of the case.
The Adaptec AHA 2940 and the Quantum Fireball hard disk worked
flawlessly and fast. The SCSI adapter automatically assign Drive
C: to the hard disk, and we were able to partition it and make it
the boot drive without having to reconfigure the adapter card's
BIOS or change the SCSI ID number of the hard drive.
However, I wasn't impressed by the performance of the
expensive Diamond Stealth 64 Video, which came with 2 MB of VRAM.
At first, although the box had the "Designed for Windows 95"
logo, Windows 95 did not recognize it as Diamond Stealth 64
Video. Instead it recognized it just as an S3-based SuperVGA
card. It then assigned the driver for S3 Vision864 PCI. The
result was terribly disappointing. The display was in the
interlaced mode.
It took a lot of fiddling to find the cure. It turned out that
I had to install the driver for the sound card first. Then I had
to install the DOS driver, misleadingly called GO95, and specify
the correct refresh rates I wished to use.
Loading this DOS driver forces Windows 95 to run in MS DOS
compatibility mode, and this reduces the overall performance of
the PC. An updated, native Windows 95 driver will fix this.
I didn't test the Video and MPEG player capabilities of
Diamond Stealth, since Michael wanted to take the Pentium
screamer home with him right away. However, at a glance, I didn't
like the screen display. The screen fonts were not as sharp as my
ordinary, Cirrus Logic-based SuperVGA card that only has 1 MB
DRAM.
As Michael left my house late that night with his new PC in
his hands, I reminded him that in just a year his Rp 5.5 million
speedster wouldn't be worth even half what he paid for it, so
he'd better make sure he really used the PC. That's exactly what
I tell anyone wanting to buy a computer.