Dan thanks for fast response.
Weird from my pc I get page not found.
But from mobile phone I can normal enter your site. Maybe the ISP is the problem!

DEAT wrote on 2026-02-18, 21:53:

Chkcpu wrote on 2026-02-15, 21:48:

@DEAT, Okay, one down and one to go. :) Do you have a POST analyzer card to check at what code the Unicore BIOS hangs? […]
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@DEAT,
Okay, one down and one to go. 😀
Do you have a POST analyzer card to check at what code the Unicore BIOS hangs?

Cheers, Jan

Yep, here is a photo of where the POST card hangs:

The attachment 2026-02-17-19-52-32-424.jpg is no longer available

Hi DEAT,

Thanks fort he POST card photo of the point where the ECS P5ST-BR Unicore BIOS hangs.
This POST_31 is where the Memory test counter is put on the screen and the actual extended memory is tested in Protected Mode.

The previous POST_30 step is where the memory sizing is done. Seeing POST_31 on the analyzer card, we know POST_30 was completed and POST_31 was started by the BIOS.
Looking at the beginning of the POST_31 BIOS code, I see some instructions to setup the memory counter and loading the memory size as found in POST_30.
Then the “Press DEL to enter SETUP” line at the bottom of the screen is appended with “, ESC to skip memory test”, followed by displaying the Memory test counter itself just below the CPU Type line.

In your case, these text lines are not displayed, so the BIOS hangs before that during the setup code. I will look into the original P5ST-BR BIOS to see what is done differently here.

In the mean time, can your try the Unicore BIOS again and see if this works:
- Reduce the FSB to 75 or 66MHz.
- Limit the amount of RAM to 64 or 32MB
- Use another CPU, like a Pentium MMX or WinChip 2

Then one last question, can you still enter the BIOS Setup during the POST_31 hang?

Greetings, Jan

Chkcpu wrote on 2026-01-07, 18:26:

Hello Mad_Wolf,

Yes, I will send you the patched MD-4DUV(C) VER 3.1 BIOS via PM for you to test.

Cheers, Jan

Hi Jan,

I have an Acorp 5ALI61 with Award 4.51PG BIOS, it has 128GB HDD and K6+ support so I thought the bios is pretty recent. I think it is affected by a UDMA issue since the HDD and SD-IDE adapter are advertising UDMA5 but the drives are stuck in MWDMA2 mode. I wanted to ask if the Redfox AGP-ALI BIOS on your website in the patched BIOS section would have a fix for this issue?

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-02-25, 11:55:

Chkcpu wrote on 2026-01-07, 18:26:

Hello Mad_Wolf,

Yes, I will send you the patched MD-4DUV(C) VER 3.1 BIOS via PM for you to test.

Cheers, Jan

Hi Jan,

I have an Acorp 5ALI61 with Award 4.51PG BIOS, it has 128GB HDD and K6+ support so I thought the bios is pretty recent. I think it is affected by a UDMA issue since the HDD and SD-IDE adapter are advertising UDMA5 but the drives are stuck in MWDMA2 mode. I wanted to ask if the Redfox AGP-ALI BIOS on your website in the patched BIOS section would have a fix for this issue?

Hi NeoG_,

Do you run a 1Mbit VER:1.4 or VER:1.5 BIOS on your 5ALI61, or a 2Mbit VER:2.2 or VER:3.3 BIOS?
I’ve checked these four BIOS versions and they all support UDMA correctly. So no UDMA mode bugs in any of these BIOSes.
You should see UDMA33 or ATA33 indicated on the BIOS summary screen for any UDMA2 or faster drive. If so, your issue is not a BIOS issue.

Note that there are boards with the M1543C-B1 southbridge that can do UDMA4, but you need a 2Mbit Flashchip and the VER:3.3 BIOS to support that. Boards with the M1543C-A1 southbridge are limited to UDMA2 and can use one of the above 1Mbit or the 2Mbit VER:2.2 BIOS.

Cheers, Jan

I've been searching for weeks now for a solution to my issue - I really hope someone can help me with some hint.

My award 6.00pg and 4.51pg bios'es reject loading an expansion ROM for the a via sata adapter. It doesn't work from the adapters onboard ROM - and also not when the ROM is included in the BIOS. Adding the same ROM to another socket super 7 motherboard with Ami bios works fine.

So I found an answer in a forum, describing some filtering on which PCI ven/dev are allowed for expansion ROM loading. Unfortunately I can't find that forum article anywhere again.

Does any of you know about a filter that will only allow specific expansion ROMs? And if yes - have you got a hint for me on where to look for this "whitelist" function?

Kind regards
Anders

Chkcpu wrote on 2026-02-25, 19:19:

Hi NeoG_, […]
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Hi NeoG_,

Do you run a 1Mbit VER:1.4 or VER:1.5 BIOS on your 5ALI61, or a 2Mbit VER:2.2 or VER:3.3 BIOS?
I’ve checked these four BIOS versions and they all support UDMA correctly. So no UDMA mode bugs in any of these BIOSes.
You should see UDMA33 or ATA33 indicated on the BIOS summary screen for any UDMA2 or faster drive. If so, your issue is not a BIOS issue.

Note that there are boards with the M1543C-B1 southbridge that can do UDMA4, but you need a 2Mbit Flashchip and the VER:3.3 BIOS to support that. Boards with the M1543C-A1 southbridge are limited to UDMA2 and can use one of the above 1Mbit or the 2Mbit VER:2.2 BIOS.

Cheers, Jan

It is running VER: 1.5 dated 2001, I believe this is the unpatched 1MBIT beta bios available on your page (It was flashed by the seller before sending to me). The strange thing is that the BIOS is always complaining about lack of 80 wire cables on primary and secondary channel. This shouldn't matter with a UDMA33 controller, and also plugging in 80 wire cables doesn't make the message disappear, maybe this is just a quirk of a later bios that is aware of UDMA>2 as I didn't think UDMA33 was even 80 wire aware. I was able to confirm the drives can operate in UDMA using a SIL0680 PCI controller in the same computer with higher speed and lower CPU usage. But I was hoping not to use the extra PCI slot, the chassis is quite full.

The BIOS data page which shows before boot does say the drives are UDMA33/LBA, however in both DOS and windows the transfer speed is limited to less than 16MB/s and CPU usage is higher than expected. This lines up with HDAT2 reporting the UDMA devices operating in MWDMA2 mode. HDAT2 is also unable to send the ATA command to change transfer mode.

It is a bit of a head scratcher.

Chkcpu wrote on 2026-02-24, 10:29:

Hi DEAT, […]
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Hi DEAT,

In the mean time, can your try the Unicore BIOS again and see if this works:
- Reduce the FSB to 75 or 66MHz.
- Limit the amount of RAM to 64 or 32MB
- Use another CPU, like a Pentium MMX or WinChip 2

Then one last question, can you still enter the BIOS Setup during the POST_31 hang?

Greetings, Jan

Thanks for the response - I only just got around to testing now. I already have 64MB of RAM installed, I don't have any smaller sticks of SDRAM.

Reducing the FSB to 66 did nothing, neither did using a Pentium MMX. I can't enter the BIOS setup at any stage of the boot process.