BIOS Updates forum

BIOS patch is currently:
TRM-P5T30B4-V1.12 - patch J.3 02/17/2005 - J. Steunebrink

at: http://home.hccnet.nl/j.steunebrink/P5tb4_j3.zip

The drive's full capacity is recognized and is functioning (thank you Jan!)

BUT...

UDMA functions not working right. Drive is UDMA-5 and operates at Level 5 when UDMA is set to AUTO in BIOS setup program - no good! Intel 430TX chipset support only UDMA-2.

80GB hard drive is Western Digital. UDMA-limiting utility (DLGUDMA.EXE) for older WD drives only - doesn't work on current WD models.

Is there a patch can be done?

I read this at http://www.ryston.cz/petr/bios/award.html
and it looks easy to fix, but I do not know how to do it. Can patch be made?

"3. UDMA mode limitation
In the older Award BIOSes was the HDD set to highest supported mode, it was not problem when only UDMA33 HDDs were produced, but later problem arised: HDD was programmed to e.g. 66 MHz and chipset maximum was 33 MHz, the result was unreliable operation. There are some solutions, switch off UDMA in BIOS setup at all, or use special program supplied by HDD manufacturer and switch off ATA/66 support. Better way is to implement this directly into the BIOS code. FYI:
UDMA mode 2 = ATA/33
UDMA mode 4 = ATA/66
UDMA mode 5 = ATA/100
UDMA mode 6 = ATA/133"

Thank you.

Does your UDMA get activated in Windows? Is your HDD malfunctioning because of its improper detection? Is your system slow or hanging?

UDMA gets turned off by Windows because BIOS instructions programs 80GB drive to run at UDMA-5 instead of UDMA-2 (assuming you set UDMA function to AUTO in BIOS setup)

Drive functions only in DMA-MW2 max, and only if you switch off UDMA in BIOS setup.

Accordingly, activating UDMA in BIOS setup, potential data loss as BIOS method of activating UDMA is incorrect for modern (above UDMA-2) drives.

Implemented changes into my BIOS found at:

http://www.ryston.cz/petr/bios/ga586t2_mod.html

under section "Ultra DMA mode limitation"


BIOS instructions now limit machine operation to UDMA-2.

Solved!!!

WD must have a newer utility out there. They must.

Anyway, there's a patcher called BP (www.rom.by)....

I tried it on Jan's patched BIOS, and of the messages it outputs is:

"UDMA for "big"-HDD on UDMA33_only_MB fix: -> fixed."

...so there's hope....

The main problem is that it repatches the 32 and 64GB bug, so it may collide with Jan's manual patch. It should be tried on a fresh, untampered with, copy of the BIOS.

I called WD's tech support. I got through to level 2 support after being chastised by a script reader and the level 2 support told me that current WD drives have no way to limit UDMA on the drive itself and that's why the utility to change it has been removed from their website. I don't know if that is true, but that's what I was told on the phone.

Thank you for the link to the BP program. I tried it on BIOS from board mfg. It corrected the issues I wanted fixed: 127GB hdd, UDMA-2 max, but it also removed the USB keyboard support from my original BIOS.
(I don't NEED USB keyboard support now, but later I might - can't test to see if it's going to work in DOS or not without keyboard), but I think I will keep Jan's BIOS with my UDMA-2 patch - it works just as well as far as I can tell.

There should be some manual options to fix only Bugs you want to have fixed - check BPROM documentation/help

After further checking, BP did NOT remove my USB keyboard - I flashed the wrong BIN file!

BP could not have changed it anyways, after what I read of it. It does not modify original code.

Thanks everyone