![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , January 27, 2005
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
DFI 855GME-MGF
The 855GME-MGF is one of the first retail motherboards able to use the much-vaunted Pentium-M line of processors. Read on to find out if this board should be your next major upgrade.
BIOS
DFI chose to couple the 855GME board with a BIOS based on the popular Phoenix AwardBIOS design. The BIOS has been customized for enthusiast use as well. The version installed for testing was DC10. Note that although the board IRQ configuration settings are listed within PnP/PCI Configurations menu, you cannot assign individual IRQ values to specific ports. The IRQ values can only be assigned as Reserved or to the general PCI device pool.
The Advanced BIOS Features menu contains various system initialization and boot-related options, including driver access order. With a USB-type external hard disk attached to the system at boot time, it appears as a selectable device within the Hard Disk Boot Priority submenu. The order of the drives listed within the Hard Disk Drives submenu can be modified using the + and - keys or the PageUp and PageDown keys.
The Advanced Chipset menu contains options for configuring chipset-related settings, such as memory timings, AGP bus-related settings, and the onboard VGA device settings. The onboard video device is enabled through the On-Chip VGA option, with the On-Chip Frame Buffer Size option controlling how much system RAM is dedicated to the video device for processing.
Setting the DRAM Timing Selectable option to Manual enables user configuration mode for the memory timing options. The following memory timing options are configurable: CAS latency; active to precharge delay; RAS to CAS delay; and RAS precharge delay. Note that on all memory timings listed, the numerically lower setting forces more aggressive memory operation.
The Integrated Peripherals menu contains various submenus for configuring the myriad of integrated devices on the board. The OnChip IDE Device submenu contains options for IDE and SATA port configuration, while the Onboard Device submenu contains options for onboard PCI device type configuration including USB port configuration. The integrated Realtek GigE controller status is set through the Onboard Lan Control option.
All integrated IDE and SATA ports are controlled using the OnChip IDE Device submenu. The Intel RAID boot BIOS becomes enabled with the SATA Mode option set to RAID. Note that the Intel RAID boot BIOS will only initialize with one or more SATA drives attached. When the SATA Mode option within the On-Chip Serial ATA section is set to IDE, the On-Chip Serial ATA option becomes user configurable. This option controls the boot up settings of the IDE and SATA ports. With it set to Enhanced Mode, the system will initialize up to 6 devices, 4 on the 2 IDE ports and 2 on the 2 SATA ports. Combined Mode only allows for a total of 4 devices, 2 on a single IDE port, and 2 on the 2 SATA ports. The Serial ATA Port0 Mode option controls whether the SATA ports replace the primary or secondary IDE port while operating in Combined Mode.
The PC Health Status menu contains real time statistics of all BIOS monitored system temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds based on fans connected to the monitored headers. Note that there are no user configurable options for controlling system events based on temperature, voltage, or fan speed thresholds.
The Frequency/Voltage Control menu is a centralized location for all system voltage and bus speed settings.
The CPU Clock option controls the main CPU FSB, with an upper limit of 250MHz. While 250MHz may not look like much at first glance, it is a very respectable ceiling considering that Pentium M processors are 100MHz FSB devices by default. The Async PCI/AGP CLK option controls the speed of the AGP and PCI buses, with settings available to lock them to a specific speed or base the bus speed on the current CPU FSB speed through ratios. The Memory Ratio option controls the system DDR memory speed, with listed settings corresponding to ratios based on the CPU FSB in the format DDR speed:CPU FSB. Note that the listed MHz settings next to the ratios may not actually reflect the true memory speed because the ratios are set up to support memory options at a CPU base FSB of both 100MHz and 133MHz. Enabling the FID/VID Ratio Change option allows for manual configuration of the CPU multiplier and voltage settings. The CPU multiplier is controlled through the CPU Ratio (FID) option, while the CPU Ratio (VID) option controls the CPU voltage. Notice that the upper limit of the CPU voltage is rather mediocre, but the lower threshold allows for compatibility with possible future lower power processors. One option that I’ve not seen integrated before into a BIOS is stability testing. With the Run Stability Test option enabled, you have the option of running a CPU or memory stability test. Basically, selecting one of the tests to run forces the BIOS to override the normal boot procedure and load the selected stability test on system initialization instead. This option is definitely a big plus for enthusiasts, and something that would be very nice to have on other boards.