VOGONS


First post, by W Gruffydd

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I'm trying to get the board running to its fullest. Any driver assistance would be appreciated.

Since I only started building PCs in 2003, I'm accustomed to mobo manufacturers providing drivers on their website. Granted, the absolute latest drivers for third-party hardware like chipsets and ethernet were found directly from the manufacturers of this hardware, but at least the mobo manufacturers' drivers provided a starting point.

Since the Abit we knew is gone, I checked Wayback. However, there are no drivers listed for the LX6, even a year after the LX6 was released. Nor are there drivers labeled as LX anything on the 20GB full backup of Abit's FTP from well into the 2000s. Come to think of it, I don't see any drivers for Abit's legendary BX chipset boards, either. Were you supposed to get chipset drivers directly from the component manufactures during this era? I hope not, because I'm having a difficult time finding old Intel drivers for the LX chipset.

Never the less, here is what I've done so far.

  • Identified: Intel 440LX chipset = 82443LX northbridge + 82371AB southbridge
  • Installed: Windows 95 OSR 2.5.
  • Installed: PCI Bridge Batch File
    The LX6 Manual says that Windows 95 can't "recognize" the LX chipset without this, although I don't think this can be considered the chipset driver, as it only seems to affect part of the southbridge. Device manager will display "? PCI Bridge" and "? PCI Universal Serial Bus" errors under Other Devices if this is not installed. Even with OSR2.5 installed, I can confirm this is true.
    The URL recommended by the manual for downloading the batch file wasn't crawled, but the batch file itself, PCI_TX.EXE, is still on the 20GB ftp backup. Using PCI_TX.EXE removes the errors, and adds Intel 82371AB Power Management Controller under System devices and Intel 82371AB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller under Universal serial bus controller. These two are the only two things affected in the Device Manager; every other device uses the OSR 2.5 drivers dated 8-24-1996.

PIIX4 Southbridge
This is where it gets confusing.

Within the driver page I linked earlier, the Others link will give you a driver for the southbridge, 82371AB, more commonly known as PIIX4. It mainly appears to enable Ultra DMA/33 in IDE.

The release is 1.20:

Filename:PIIX412.EXE Date:8/14/97 NOTE : 1. New Release for use of Intel Chipset with Intel Master IDE Device Driver (Release 1. […]
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Filename:PIIX412.EXE
Date:8/14/97
NOTE :
1. New Release for use of Intel Chipset with Intel Master IDE Device Driver (Release 1.20)
2. supports Ultra DMA/33

However #1:
For installation of Ultra DMA/33 drives, the LX6 Manual references a driver disk that came with the mobo containing "Bmide_95." I can find no trace of this on Wayback or the FTP backup. I'm guessing the name stands for Bus Master IDE, but how might this compare to PIIX412.EXE?

However #2:
A vogons user claims that Windows OSR 2 included Bus Master drivers automatically. Yet, a Tom's article from August 1997 claims that while OSR 2 provided Bus Master drivers automatically for the PIIX in the 430FX chipset and the PIIX3 in the 430HX and 430VX, the release of PIIX4 in the 430TX required a new Intel or Triton driver yet again. The LX6 uses PIIX4 too.

Assuming I get the PIIX4 query sorted, is there anything else I should install or tweak in regards to supporting of the motherboard?

Other than that, I will enable DMA mode through the HDD properties in Windows.

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Reply 1 of 12, by Jade Falcon

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http://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?driverid=65842

http://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php? … 7999d5a941ddbb8

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/5029 … p-Board-AL440LX

also a hand full of abit drivers can be found here
http://abit.ws/page/en/motherboard/motherboard_archives.php

Reply 2 of 12, by W Gruffydd

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Thanks for taking a crack.

Jade Falcon wrote:

Fortunately, I have have multiple sources for every BIOS version.

I'll try this version of bm_ide95 later if I can't find anything with more information.

Good idea to try the Intel LX board for chipset drivers. Unfortunately, nothing they have here is for the chipset. Abit's board has no Yamaha components like Intel's AL440LX . The rest of these files are just BIOS and the manual.

also a hand full of abit drivers can be found here
http://abit.ws/page/en/motherboard/motherboard_archives.php

What a strange site! Is it a hosted mirror of a much later version of Abit's website? LX isn't listed, and I don't see any drivers for most Slot-1 boards that are listed. The Slot-1 boards which do have drivers, like the 440BX BH6, only list them for 2000/XP/64-bit. 😕

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Reply 3 of 12, by Jade Falcon

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Try driver guide for the lx440 drivers.
And no the abit site is not a mirror, its what's left of their website.

Reply 4 of 12, by BitWrangler

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IIRC you just used to get a single download of "intel chipset drivers" and it would install for everything that needed one.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 5 of 12, by W Gruffydd

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I found a Chipset Software Installation Utility from Intel circa 2001 here. Installing it added the following to System Devices:

  1. Intel 82443LX Pentium(r)II Processor to AGP Controller -- Driver 10/16/2017
  2. Intel 82443LX Pentium(r)II Processor to PCI bridge -- Driver 10/16/2017
  3. Intel(r) 82371AB/EB/MB PCI to ISA bridge (ISA mode) -- Driver 4/26/2001
  4. Intel 82371AB Power Management Controller, assigned under the PCI_TX.EXE driver I mentioned earlier, was changed to Intel(r) 82371AB/EB/MB Power Management Controller -- Driver 4/26/2001.

Intel 82371AB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller under Universal serial bus controller, also installed under PCI_TX.EXE, remains unchanged.

4/26/2001 is probably when the Chipset Software Installation Utility was created. 10/16/2017 was the date I installed PCI_TX.EXE, something which didn't appear to affect the first two updates, so I'm confused as to why the new drivers are using that date.

I've got to say, I expected more changes. Windows is also displaying my PII-300 as a Pentium Pro in system properties, despite it being set to 300MHz in BIOS.

Does anyone know the old url of Intel's download site, circa 1997-2000, so I can Wayback it? I'm interested in more period correct drivers.

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Reply 7 of 12, by BitWrangler

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Pre 2000ish Wayback machine coverage is very spotty btw.

Still some older versions floating around, not sure you ever get CPU Identified as other than P Pro by them though, that might take a windows update.

http://ftp.isu.edu.tw/pub/Hardware/MB_patch/Intel/

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 9 of 12, by W Gruffydd

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Darry and BitWrangler, you are gentlemen and scholars both. This is exactly what I'm looking for. Darry, how did you find Intel's old(er) driver page? BitWrangler, the Taiwanese are on point. An Taiwanese FTP already saved my bacon with Diamond Viper V330 (Riva128) and Diamond Monster Sound drivers.

That old intel site is a gold mine; I've already discovered tidbits like this:
Intel says you don't need to install their Bus Master IDE driver if you've got 95 OSR 2.x. Just use Microsoft's version! Mystery solved.

I don't have time to install drivers tonight, but I'll report back.

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Reply 10 of 12, by darry

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W Gruffydd wrote:

Darry, how did you find Intel's old(er) driver page?

I just got lucky with the Internet Archive . I have been doing a fair amount of spelunking there in the last year or two .
I am happy that you found the info you needed .

Reply 12 of 12, by W Gruffydd

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I installed the 1998 drivers. From the 2001 drivers, it adds (blue text only):

Intel 82443LX/EX Pentium(r)II Processor to AGP Controller -- Driver 10/16/2017
Intel 82443LX/EX Pentium(r)II Processor to PCI bridge -- Driver 10/16/2017

I also retro-flashed the BIOS, from something in '98 to the last one from '97. This added an entry under System Properties called "PCI ¶×¬y±Æ"

Yes, you read that correctly. :\

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