Expert: Beejay - 6/8/2004

Question
I have a Pentium II 350 Mhz processor with a procomp motherboard & have some problems with bios.The bios
won't recognize hdd's larger than 30GB,sometimes it sees my tv tuner(during post) sometimes it doesn't.
Should i flash my bios?

Answer
Hi Gabe:

If drive is larger than 33.8 GB, you may have an Award 4.51 PG  BIOS with a 33.8 GB limitation;  a BIOS upgrade should solve the problem.  Go to the motherboard manufacturer's web site (if they are still in business) and download the latest BIOS version and the flash program.  In addition, a 32-bit file allocation table, called FAT 32, is required to acheive full capacity of the drive beyond 8.4 GB. These operating systems include Windows 95 ORS2 (Windows 95 B or C), Windows 98 and 98 SE (Second Edition), Windows Me, Windows XP, or an NTFS file allocation system (Windows NT).  Another factor for large capacity drives is whether the motherboard's IDE controller supports ATA133, ATA 100, or ATA 66 hard drives (the number after ATA refers to the megabits per second transfer rate in seconds, Mbps).  Pentium 4 boards will support ATA 133 or ATA 100 and slower drives.  Pentium III usually supports ATA 66 or ATA 33 drives.  Pentium II,  PI and Celeron usually support only ATA 33 or PIO4 drives.  If the BIOS is not keeping the hardware configuration correctly (TV tuner not included in BIOS config at times) the CMOS battery on the motherboard may be weak and a new one should be installed (CMOS, which stands for Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor, is the little 64 byte piece of RAM which stores the settings for the BIOS to work off of. It is because of the CMOS that the BIOS remembers your PC's configuration and is able to load it properly upon each boot-up).  With the computer off, and the AC cord disconnected from the power supply, remove the battery, and replace it with the same type; the number is etched on the top, and is usually 2032.  Radio Shack and computer stores (Best Buy) have these batteries. Contact me if you have additional questions, and feel free to visit my web site at http://www.geocities.com/b_feiner/  for computer building, troubleshooting, and upgrading tips and resource links.

Beejay

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