Since my board is currently removed for Voodoo 3 fixing, I've been thinking of switching the jumper on the iP3 from "auto" to "100Mhz" to see if that has an effect. I've also been considering changing it from 1.55V (where it was set when I got it,) to 1.50V (what the CPU is wanting.)

Sorry for the necro, but do the modded GA-6BXC BIOS images on vogonsdrivers have any special features like larger HDD support or better RAM support?

Edit: And do they work with rev 1.7 boards?

There was little or no documentation with these BIOSes. GA-6BXC_F4c(beta) mentions support for 75GB HDD. The most I ever tried was 40GB.

IIRC the rev 1.7 vs 2.0 difference is:
- 2.0 has AGP Voltage supply jumpers "Voodoo Jumpers", for AGP cards that require more power then the onboard VRM can supply.
- 2.0 has a CPU VRM for coppermine core voltages.
- 2.0 has a turbo jumper with unknown effect.
None of that should matter for the BIOS.

Thanks.

It looks like I already had the latest BIOS on my 1.7.

I put a 400GB IDE drive in it and it shows up as 136GB or so - much better than 75GB!

I had also performed an AGP power mod by running a wire from the bottom of the ATX power socket to one of the voltage regulators next to the AGP slot, but it looks like I cut the wire off at some point to use it for something else.

Hi guys,

In my test the PowerLeap bios can't free up IRQ 9, even you disable ACPI in bios.

According tyuper's post, some bios setting the SMBHSTCFG register to use IRQ 9.

I have check PowerLeap bios chipset register setting and confirm they do that setting.

I modify that register setting from IRQ 9 to default SMI# value, now the PowerLeap bios can be truly free up IRQ 9 for MPU-401.

The UpgradeWare bios keep SMBHSTCFG register as default but hidden "ACPI function" in Power Management Setup page; I also modify UpgradeWare bios to unhide that option.

By now both version of bios can be free up IRQ 9.

File info:
File base on gerwin upload bios in here.

upgware2.bin:
Base on 4)upgware.bin to unhide "ACPI function" in Power Management Setup page.

powleap3.bin:
Base on 6)powleap2.bin to change chipset register 3bd2 from 100 to 000 for free up IRQ 9.

In my test PowerLeap bios seems support LBA 48bit, it can be report 4TB hdd size correctly.

stringray wrote on 2021-05-05, 18:01:

By now both version of bios can be free up IRQ 9.

Thanks stingray! I will surely use those modded BIOS files you provided.

I updated the VogonsDrivers entry for the BIOS collection, to link to your post here. (Unfortunately I don't know how to update the zip file there, without a whole lot of hassle and confusion)

I moved from a v.F3 bios to powleap3.bin and holy what a difference. Now it actually reads my Via C3 type/speed properly, bootup is crazy fast, no mem check, more bios options (better boot order config for example).. and no more random crashing. Thanks, and thanks gerwin for linking it.

Before I flashed powerleap3 I took a dump of the existing BIOS from my Gigabyte GA-6BXC motherboard (bought off eBay). Oddly, the BIOS screen claimed it was v. F3, however I found it does not match any existing v. F3 BIOS out there. I'm uploading it here for the sake of preservation.

Hi, here is another BIOS dump from a different GA-6BXC rev2.0 I bought off ebay. Also seems unique, so uploaded for preservation.