Salve a tutti. Scusate l'intromissione, ma vorrei varvi leggere quanto di
recente ho postato su vari forum internazionali circa il più opportuno BIOS
da adottare sulla "vecchia" mainboard ABIT AN7, in particolare a riguardo
del SATA BIOS Silicon Image entrocontenuto.
Magari la cosa non interessa a nessuno, ma sarei contento se a qualcuno le
mie esperienze in proposito risultassero utili.
Mi spiace che il testo sia in Inglese, comunque spero non ci siano troppi
problemi di comprensione.
In buona sintesi, a seguito delle numerose esperienze da me condotte negli
ultimi mesi al fine di far non soltanto "riconoscere", bensì anche "gestire
correttamente" dischi SATA da 1 TB alla AN7, sono oggi più che mai convinto
che la versione più opportuna da adottare per il Sil3112 BIOS sia la
"4.2.50" (4250.bin) e non le successive (le quali, compresa l'ultima 4.2.84,
creano vari problemi di boot e di differente geometria dei "dischi").
Altra cosa: state molto, molto attenti ad effettuare l'upgrade del BIOS
della AN-7 tramite il programma Phoenix "Bios Agent" e relativo "e-Support":
a me hanno inviato un BIOS errato che non consentiva poi l'avvio della
macchina. Ecco comumque il testo completo del mio "post". Ah, mi spiace ma
non posso allegare il file "AN7.zip", poiché eccede le dimensioni consentite
in questo Forum.
Hello,
I'm Paolo from La Spezia, Italy.
In the past months I did a lot of work on testing various SATA Sil3112
Bioses for my old ABIT AN7 motherboard. In that machine I have two IDE-ATAPI
500 GB HITACHI HDD's and two SATA 1 TB HITACHI HDD's; there is a number of
OS'es installed (MS-DOS 6.22, MS-DOS 7.10, Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Win NT4
SP6, Win 2KSP4, WIN XP Pro SP3, Win Server 2003 SP2, Windows Vista SP2,
Windows 7 RC and Linux Ubuntu).
All the OS'es are handled by the best OS manager I know (currently - and
unfortunately - discontinued by Avanquest): System Commander V9.04 and they
work 100% OK.
This OS Manager is installed in the first 2047MB FAT-16 partition (the
so-called "MultiFAT partition") of the first IDE HDD and provides booting
from any partition of the IDE and SATA HDD's.
My work around the Sil3112 BIOS started several months ago, when I decided
to replace my old 500 GB SATA HDD's with two 1-TB Units, in order to have
the newer ones not only recognized by the motherboard BIOS, but also by the
System Commander partitioning scheme.
After a lot of work, I found that in my situation the latest version of the
Sil3112 BIOS that can be used without any sort of problem problem is the
4.2.50 (file "4250.bin").
So I recommend you all to use this version of SATA BIOS: in my opinion the
later versions cause various problems concerning both the partition geometry
and the system boot.
In addition, I warn you all from using "Bios Agent/e-Support" for upgrading
the AN7 BIOS: there is the risk your machine no longer boots (unless you
have a BIOS Savior).
You can find more details in the text of a message I recently sent to
ABIT-Europe support (in the Netherlands) that appears below.
Glad if what I experienced is useful for anyone!
Regards,
Paolo
TEXT OF THE MESSAGE TO ABIT-SUPPORT (the "AN7.zip" file is also attached):
To:
support@u-abit.eu
Attention Mr. Jos Mommersteeg
Dear Jos:
some time has passed since your kind reply to my support request of July 12
concerning a possible BIOS upgrade for old ABIT AN7 motherboards.
In these months I ran many tests on my AN7: not only I upgraded the BIOS by
the one you sent me (the one that incorporates the SiliconImage SATA Bios
V4.2.50), but I went a step further.
By the proper use of the "CBROM" program I was also able to release the SATA
Bios component from the MB Bios File and to integrate other versions into
it, just for testing purposes.
I tried the following Sil3112 Bios versions: V4.2.50 (the one that is
integrated into the BIOS you sent), V4.2.76, V4.2.79, V4.2.83 and the latest
one V4.2.84.
Now I wish to let you know the results of my tests:
- V4.2.50: Without any doubt, it is the BEST Sil3112 BIOS version that can
be embedded into the AN7 Bios: it allows the use of 1 TB SATA HDD's (that
are regularly recognized) and does not show any additional problem.
- Later V4.2.76, V4.2.79, V4.2.83 and V4.2.84 version: all of them at first
seem to work properly (in the sense that 1 TB HDD's are recognized), but -
in particular with the V4.2.83 and the V4.2.84 versions - the Disk geometry
is different and incompatible with the V4.2.50 one. Furthermore, in some of
those later versions there are serious booting problem (you cannot boot from
a SATA Disk, from an USB disk or from both of them). This is particularly
evident when also IDE-ATAPI HDD's are present and a MULTI-FAT partition
resides in the first IDE HD.
I made a lot of tests by using Acronis DiskDirector 10 and Avanquest System
Commander 9.04 and the results were always the same.
In conclusion: the BIOS you sent me (an7_a19.bin combined with the latest
Sil3112 BIOS ROM 4250.bin) is in my opinion just the best possible one for
the AN7 motherboard, and it is absolutely not worth to replace its Sil3112
BIOS ROM with newer versions.
At last, I chose this one for my machine and I am very satisfied: I can use
my boot manager System Commander with no limitations and also I have full
access to my two 500 GB IDE HDD's and to my two 1 TB SATA HDD's.
So I thank you very very much for your assistance, Jos.
I would like that what I experienced could be of help for some AN7 users, so
please feel free to divulgate these info's as you like.
In this spirit, just a few words of warning against the use of the Phoenix
software "Bios Agent/e-Support" too: they send you a wrong BIOS version, not
a real useful upgrade!
I experienced this just when I was working on my AN7 motherboard: Bios Agent
advised me that a new BIOS Version was needed and I received from
"e-Support" a BIOS file that didn't work at all. Thanks to my BIOS Savior I
was able to revert to the original AN7 BIOS without consequences (but if a
"normal" user has not the BIOS Savior installed he has to remove and
re-program the BIOS chip in order to have his machine working again!).
Attached you'll find the compressed file "AN7.zip", in which you'll find all
the Sil3112 bioses I've tested and also the file I received from e-Support
for my AN7: in the "differences.txt" file there are shown the content of
their bad BIOS file (incidentally, it contains the 4.2.47 Sil3112 BIOS
Version that cannot handle 1 TB SATA disks!!!) in comparison with the one of
your right AN7_a19.bin file. No further comment is needed!
It was a pleasure for me to have met you, Jos!
Best regards and greetings from Italy!
Paolo
