flashed the mod bios, loaded the default settings, reboot and updated VGA driver to Sis uvga3_373 but still cannot find the 1440x900 option at the display adapter [list all modes].
the culprit was the installation method of the SiS driver
originally, after I uninstalled the old driver and reboot, at the Windows Found New Hardware prompt I just directed the prompt to where I put the latest SiS driver. Update and reboot. No luck there was no 1440x900 option.
I uninstalled the driver again, reboot and I just ignored the Windows Found New Hardware prompt. Instead I used the SiS setup programme unpacked from the SiS driver zip file.