Abit BE6 and BP6: badges extremely gifted BX

For that they have not read the report on the actuality of the hard disks, the UltraDMA66 is a new transference way between the hard disk and the computer. Up to the date, the most powerful available way was the UltraDMA33, which was allowing to reach a valuation of 33 Mb / century maximum theoretical transference

This quantity has been more than sufficient during enough time; nevertheless, the new hard disks, especially the models to 7.200 rpm, have "tops" of transference near to 30 MB/s (momentary, the speed comes up hardly it overcomes 10-15 MB/s), being necessary to evolve the IDE one more step. That does the UltraDMA66: it allows up to 66 MB/s of transference (another different thing is that the hard disk is capable of taking advantage of it...).

As we were saying in the report commented above, to use this technology we have several requisites:

1. That the hard disk is UltraDMA/66, of course.
2. That the cable is 40 pines with 80 drivers instead of 40 pines with 40 drivers.
3. That the operating system has support for DMA.
4. That the checker IDE supports UltraDMA/66.

This small chip of the photo, the HPT366 of HighPoint Technology, is the culprit of that a badge BX commits the wonderful heresy of supporting UltraDMA66. And since thanks to this chip we have two new channels IDE, in addition to the two that the chipset BX provides (that of course they have not been eliminated), the whole climbs up to 4 channels IDE, that is to say, up to 8 devices.

A new technology integrated to not standard chip, we will need to install a controler to the being for our operating system. ABIT includes a diskette with the controlers necessary for Windows 95, 98 and NT; the installation process is described so in detail in the manual (independent explanations for Windows 95, 98 and NT, with 32 images of the screen to illustrate the steps to be realized), that at first sight it can seem long or complicated; not further at all of the reality. One can go so far as to do in less than 1 minute, and the only difficulty consists of being able to read the exhaustive instructions... of course, in English.

Finally, ABIT takes charge also of the requisite of the cable: both basic badges include a special cable of 80 drivers, necessary to be useful UltraDMA66. This cable is very peculiar, with different colors in the connectors (black, gray, blue) as where there should get a job each one (master disk, I dial slave, motherboard); and remember that the sockets for this cable are of white color instead of black. Really, these badges are full of color!

The BIOS of the badges includes a pair of minimal modifications that allow to start from the first channel UltraDMA66 (the connector IDE3); of not being like that, the system would start from the first channel normal IDE (IDE1), which is only UltraDMA33. During the tests we have tuned in up to 7 devices to the system: a disc UltraDMA66, two UltraDMA33, other PIO4, two CDs-ROMs and a tape recorder of CD - ROM; apart from the enormous jumble of cables and the need to use a box supertoast to store so much pot, there was no problem; of course, insure of the sufficiently powerful thing have a power supply...