[ Main Menu / Shuttle HOT-569 / Shuttle HOT-569 Installation ]

Installing the Shuttle HOT-569

Main Menu | Specifications | Installation | BIOS Setup | Links

This page describes how I installed the Shuttle HOT-569 motherboard into my In-Win Q500 case. This isn't a step-by-step instruction manual (there are many sites listed below that do a much better job than I can). Instead, this page highlights some of the more unusual details about fitting a Baby-AT motherboard into an ATX-style case. Also, I don't have any pictures of the installation process or any of the parts that are needed for installation (I just don't have the server space). You can either use your imagination or check out some of the very good sites that do have pictures as well as more complete procedures for installing other components on my Hardware Links page. There are a bunch of sites listed there. Among them all, my top choices would have to be The PC Guide, Motherboard Homeworld, and PC Mechanic.

Please be sure to use a properly grounded wrist-strap to protect the computer hardware you handle from static electricity. They can be found at most any computer hardware store. Handle all components by their non-metallic edges only. And unplug the computer whenever you're working inside of it. It's much easier to replace a motherboard than it is to replace you. See The PC Guide for more safety tips.

• Taking Inventory

  • The Shuttle HOT-569 mainboard itself comes wrapped in an anti-static bag. Also included with the board are:
    1. (1) 40-pin 18-inch long IDE cable
    2. (1) 34-pin floppy drive cable
    3. (1) 9-pin serial cable (connected to an expansion slot plate along with the 25-pin serial port)
    4. (1) 25-pin serial cable (connected to an expansion slot plate along with the 9-pin serial port)
    5. (1) 25-pin parallel cable (connected to its own expansion slot plate)
    6. (1) 6-pin mini-DIN PS/2 cable (connected to its own expansion slot plate)
    7. (1) CD-ROM with the 430TX INF update and manual in PDF format. Use Adobe Acrobat to read it.
    8. (1) floppy disk with the Triones bus mastering drivers
    
    
  • The In-Win Q500 is an ATX/AT Combo full tower case. Included with the case are:
    1. Full Tower case with removable sides and top and slide-out motherboard drawer
    2. (1) 300 watt ATX power supply w/ 6 power leads and 2 floppy power leads
    3. (1) plastic front cover w/ 5 external 5¼" drive bays and 1 external 3½" drive bay
    4. (5) internal 3½" drive bays
    5. (9) metal risers
    6. (26) metal riser screws
    7. (26) metal expansion slot screws
    8. (1) plastic standoff (Grrr)
    9. (6) metal expansion slot inserts
    10. (3) EMI I/O backplates (one AT, two ATX - standard and stacked)
        • Note: My In-Win case came with the 'Aurora' and 'Venus Full-Up' ATX-style backplates. And I ordered the extra AT-style plate to fit the Baby-AT HOT-569 board I used. The AT backplate only has the cutout for the keyboard's 5-pin DIN connector. Drawings of the various backplates can be found on Shuttle's ATX Backplates and on Antec's ATX Backplates pages.
    11. (1) speaker
    12. (1) metal key flap
    13. (2) pair of plastic feet
    14. (1) momentary switch
    15. (1) reset switch
    16. (1) system LED
    17. (2) HD LEDs
  
  

• Sizing Things Up

  • For purposes of clarity, I'm going to call the holes in the case that accept the plastic standoffs 'standoff holes'. I'll call the holes where the risers screw down into the case 'riser holes' since they accept the riser and its screw. When discussing all of the holes, I'll call them 'mounting holes'. Although if some of them happen to not line up with the motherboard, I might call them some other sort of 'hole'. But we won't get into that! :-)
    
    
  • The Q500 tower case has a total of 21 mounting holes: 9 standoff holes and 12 riser holes (the threaded holes) that align with various types of motherboard form factors. The HOT-569 Baby AT mainboard has 5 holes with metals rings around them (for support) and 3 extra holes in the corners to attach it to the case. So at some point, something has to line up, right? (At least I hope so). You can use the black keyboard connector to help with proper orientation of the board. It is supposed to go out the back where the rectangular I/O backplate is. Once you have the general orientation, the next challenge is finding holes that actually line up between the case and main board. Note that the keyboard connector is even more important for alignment when a Baby-AT board is going into an AT-style case. There is only one hole in the back for the keyboard in AT cases, so aligning the board with the correct mounting holes is easier than in ATX cases. ATX cases have large openings where you fit various I/O backplates whose layout of the ports can vary significantly.
    
    

    Baby AT Motherboard: (in inches)
    +--------------------------------+ 
    | N              G             A |---/-
    |                                |   |3.1"
    |                                |   |
    |                              B |---/-
    |                                |   |1.8"
    |                                |   |
    | O              H             C |---/-
    |                                |+  |2.8"
    |                                |+  |
    |   P              I           D |---/-
    +--------------------------------+
      | |            | |           |
      /-/------------/-/-----------/
      0.9"    5.3"   0.9"   5.2"
    
    
    3/4 Baby-AT Shuttle HOT-569 Motherboard:
    
                            6.1
                      /------------/
                      |            |
         +---------------------------+ 
         |           G             A |-----/-
         |                           |     |3.1
         |                           |     |
         |                           |-----/-
         |                           |     |1.8
         |                           |     |
         |           H             C |-----/-
         |                           |+    |2.8
         |                           |+    |
         |                         D |-----/-
         +---------------------------+
                      |            |
                      /------------/
                            6.1
    
    
    In-Win Q-500 Case:
    
        3.35  1.4 1.45     6.1
      /------/---/---/-------------/
      |      |   |   |             |
    +--------------------------------+ 
    | N ?    K   T   G ?           A |---/-
    |                                |   |3.1
    |                R               |   |
    |   ?            S ?           B |---/-
    |                                |   |1.8
    |                                |   |
    | O      L   U   H             C |---/-
    |                                |   |2.8
    |                                |   |
    |   P              I           D |---/-
    |                                |   |
    |                                |   |3.4
    |            V   W           X   |   |
    |        M       J           F E |---/-
    +--------------------------------+
      | |    |       | |           |
      /-/----/-------/-/-----------/
     0.9 2.45  2.85  0.9    5.2
    

  • The ASCII drawings above compare the mounting holes typically found on Baby-AT motherboards with those on the Shuttle HOT-569 motherboard and in the In-Win Q500 case. On the HOT-569, holes A and D align with holes in the case that accept plastic spacers. Holes C, G, and H align with riser screw points. The HOT-569 is a 3/4 Baby-AT board and does not have mounting holes N, O, and P. Instead, its has extra holes in the corners near where N and P would normally be as well as one near mounting hole A. Cutting the bottom off of a plastic standoff and popping the head of the standoff through the hole will provide support for the motherboard on the corner holes that don't align with holes in the case. The Q500 case does not have mounting point 'Q' found on Full-AT boards; I'm not sure why it's missing.
    
    
  • The Q500 has four extraneous spacer holes (noted by the question marks) that don't line up with any of the standard form factor boards.
    
    
  • Which holes allow spacers and which take the threaded risers may vary from case to case. The two types of holes found in the In-Win Q500 are listed in the table below:

    Spacer Holes	A, D, E, I, N, O, P, W, X
    Riser Holes	B, C, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, T, U, V

    
    
  • Holes A, C, G, and H are common mounting points among the Full AT, Baby-AT, ATX, and Mini-ATX form factors. All the mounting holes for various form factors can be found in Intel's ATX Specification and Micro-ATX Specs. More information about the various form factors can be found at The PC Guide. I also have a page on ATX describing the mounting hole differences between the various standard form factors.
    
    

    I/O Backplate:
       ______          ______
      /    _ \        /      \
     |    | | |      |        |
     |    |_| |      |        |
     |     _  |      |        |
     |    |_| |      |        |
     |    |_| |      |        |
     |     _  |      |        |
     |    | | |      |        |
     |    | | |      |        |
     |    | | |      |        |
     |    |_| |      |    __  |
     |     _  |      |   /  \ |
     |    | | |      |   \__/ |
     |    |_| |      |        |
      \______/        \______/
    
        ATX            Baby-AT
    

  • The ASCII drawing above show the layout of two different I/O backplates. Mine resembles the Baby-AT style. Unlike ATX boards, AT-style boards do not have their ports integrated into the motherboard. Instead, they have a mess of cables that plug into headers on the motherboard. The ports are then usually mounted into an expansion slot cover that takes the place of where a PCI card should go. I mounted mine to the back of the In-Win case since there were special cutouts for them. Many cases that accept an AT board won't have extra space on the back for these ports; you'll just have to use a PCI expansion slot for them. The mess of cables from AT boards can be cumbersome sometimes, but it's much more flexible (literally) than ATX boards. Take a look at Shuttle's page on ATX backplates.
    
    
  • If you can't find a backplate that fits, you can either make one with some tin snips and a drill or just leave the thing off. However leaving it off does have some drawbacks. A missing backplate can affect the airflow in the computer case. If your case has a good airflow system, an opening in the back can upset this and reduce the amount of air flowing over key components by a significant amount. Also, the metal case helps contain the electromagnetic field generated by the various components inside the case. An opening in the case may violate a few local laws about EMI, especially in an office setting. And it may even contribute to a degradation of sound quality in any nearby speakers as well as affect the picture on the monitor. If you find yourself using the degauss button a lot, this may be the cause.
    
    
  • On the back of the In-Win Q500 above the cutout for the I/O backplate is the opening for the power supply. Below the I/O backplate are the seven openings for the expansion slots. When an AT-style board is installed, the top expansion slots are usually used for the mouse, parallel, and serial port connectors. Unfortunately, this often takes up the place where a PCI card could go, and would reduce the number of usable PCI slots. But on the Q500, there are extra cutouts on the back of the case specifically for the 9-pin serial, 25-pin serial, and 25-pin parallel ports. The HOT-569 comes with the parallel port and serial ports already mounted in expansion slot covers. The serial and parallel ports can be unscrewed and secured through the special cutouts. I also bought the PS/2 mouse connector which comes mounted in its own expansion slot cover. I left this one on its cover and inserted it into the top expansion slot. With ATX, you can avoid having to choose between which expansion slot to use for the I/O connectors since all of the ATX connectors (serial, parallel, mouse, etc.) are physically mounted onto the motherboard. All you need to worry about is what configuration they use so you can choose the correct backplate. Ain't this stuff fun?!?
    
    
  
  

• Installing the Hardware

  • You'll need to install the proper I/O backplate before putting the motherboard into the case.
    
    
  • The metal risers are used to hold the motherboard up off of the metal computer case (otherwise the motherboard would be grounded at numerous points and would short itself out when the power was turned on). They screw down into the threaded holes in the case (holes C, G, and H on the HOT-569). The motherboard then sits over them and the risers screws are screwed through the holes in the motherboard down into the tops of the risers. The screws hold the motherboard down onto the risers and the risers hold the motherboard up off of the case.
    
    
  • The plastic standoffs perform the same task as the metal risers. They hold the motherboard up off of the case. The bottom nubs of the standoffs sit down in the eyelet holes that have fat and narrow ends. The standoff is initially placed into the fat end and slipped up into the narrow slit. This holds the standoff in place. Plastic standoffs are basically a cheaper version of the metal risers, and aren't any better than the risers. Although they can often be more difficult to install. The Q500 case is a little different from most cases, however. The plastic spacers don't have nubs on the bottom that sit down into eyelet holes; instead they pop through the back of the sliding motherboard drawer and the motherboard can then be placed straight down onto the drawer and screwed down to the risers. In the In-Win case, both the risers and standoffs are mounted into the case drawer before the motherboard is installed. If this doesn't make sense, don't worry about it. It only matters if you buy a case like this, and even then it's easy to see what to do to mount the mainboard.
    
    
  • But most mainboards don't attach that way. More often than not, the risers are screwed down into the case before the motherboard is placed over the case. However the plastic standoffs are snapped through the motherboard holes first and then the entire motherboard (with attached standoffs) is placed into the case so that the bottom nubs on the standoffs are sitting in the wide bottom of the eyelet holes. The motherboard plus standoffs are then slid up into the tops of the eyelet holes until all of the standoff nubs are properly engaged into their slots and the motherboard holes are aligned over the metal risers. Yes, this sometimes is as difficult as it sounds. You can consult the book of wisdom: The PC Guide for a better explanation.
    
    
  • If one or more of the plastic standoffs is preventing the motherboard from sliding up into position, the bottom nub may be cut off of the standoff with a pair of wire snips. The standoff will still support the motherboard, but its nub will not hold it down into the hole. It's preferrable to get as many secure mounting points holding down the motherboard as you can. But sometimes some of those holes just don't want to line up. I would not go with less than a total of 2 metal risers and at that, you'd need to have at least 3 or more standoffs. You need to pay particular attention to the area of the motherboard underneath the black ISA slots, the white PCI slots, and the brown AGP slot (if you're installing something other than a HOT-569). Pushing the various cards down into these slots can really flex a motherboard. And if it isn't properly supported, it may crack. Of course, the better built the case is, the less likely you are to have problems with mis-aligned mounting holes.
    
    
  • The screws that hold the board down onto the metal risers shouldn't be too tight; instead they should be just snug. Also take a look at the traces on the motherboard (the tiny metal pathways in between the different components). If any of these come close enough to touch one of the screws that hold the board down onto the risers, this may short out the motherboard. Using a vinyl washer between the head of the screw and the motherboard will cure this problem. You could also use vinyl risers instead of metal ones if you can find some. Be aware that the risers are normally metal to allow EMI to dissipate into the case; if you completely isolate the motherboard from the case with vinyl washers excess EMI may cause interference with various components.
    
    
  • Once the motherboard is properly secured to the case, the keyboard connector should line up with its hole.
    
    
  • The parallel, serial, and mouse ports can then be plugged into their appropriate headers on the motherboard. The plug ends extend through the holes in the expansion slot and are held there with screws.
    
    
  • The power supply comes with either a 20-pin ATX-style power plug (that's what mine is) or two 6-pin AT-style power plugs (P8 and P9). Notice that the 20-pin plug from the power supply will only fit into the motherboard's ATX plug (PW1) one way. Even when it's aligned correctly, you might need some force to get it down in there, so try not to crack the motherboard if it doesn't want to go in.
    
    
  • If you have the two 6-pin AT-style plugs instead, be very careful when you're plugging the two power plugs (P8 and P9) into the board. The black wires are meant to be installed side-by-side (next to each other). The plugs are keyed so they will only go into the 6-pin slots one way, but you can plug them into each other's slot. If you do, and then turn on the machine, you'll fry the motherboard in no time flat. You'll only get one shot at this; so be sure you get it right. Remember: BLACK to BLACK.
    
    
  • The case On/Off switch (on the front of the computer) in my ATX case is a momentary switch. Unlike the older AT-style switches, it only has two wires running to it. These two wires connect the momentary switch to the ATX pin header on the motherboard (JP2). AT-style power switches normally attach with four wires directly to the power supply.
    
    
  • The speaker in my case is mounted to the front down near the bottom and attaches to the motherboard with a four-wire plug.
    
    
  • The computer should now be ready to accept the rest of the components; something I'm not going to cover. See the links at the top of the page for some good details on installing various peripherals. One suggestion I would make is to only assemble the essentials first. Leave the hard drive, sound card, and CD-ROM for later. Concentrate on getting the components together that will allow you to turn the machine on and see if all of its components are functioning correctly. The essentials include:
    1. Case
    2. Power Supply
    3. Motherboard
    4. Processor
    5. Memory
    6. Video Card
    7. Monitor
    8. Floppy Drive
    9. Keyboard
    10. Speaker
    
    
  • The keyboard, floppy drive, and speaker are essential? Are you kidding? Nope. Most BIOSes have a 'Halt-On-Error' that will stop the booting process if an error has occured. A missing keyboard is one such error. Whenever this happens, the computer always gives that wonderful 'Press F1 to Continue' message. Gee, thanks, that's useful! The floppy is sometimes needed to put some 'pull' on a power supply. Some won't come on if there's no electrical pull from a floppy or hard drive (and it's nice to be able to boot and run ctcm from the floppy to test if the CPU is set with the correct jumpers). The speaker is also one of the key components because it can relay error messages even if you're not getting any video. The BIOS beep codes are often the best way to diagnose a problem. See The PC Guide, PC Mechanic, and Computercraft for a listing of the various beep codes. But before you go leafing through the beep codes to see what your problem happens to be, check that the CPU, RAM modules (particularly any DIMMs), and video card are fully seated. It happens all the time.
    
    
  • Note that it is often easier to install the CPU and RAM into the motherboard before you stick the mainboard into the case. It may also be a good idea to set the CPU jumpers (multiplier, bus speed, and voltage) before you install the motherboard. Although you may just want to leave the Mini Jumper Pack on the voltage pins where it is and let the computer auto-detect.
    
    
  • Motherboard installation is pretty straight forward, but if things don't line up, it can be very frustrating. If you're trying to stick a new motherboard into an older case, contact the case (or system) manufacturer before going out and buying a motherboard. Your case (especially if it's from an OEM such as Packard Bell, Compaq, or IBM) may not fit any standard size mainboard. And you would need to get a new case along with the motherboard. Also be sure the power supply is up to snuff. A 100 watt power supply isn't going to be able to provide enough power for modern processors, memory, and motherboards. 200 watts is often the accepted minimum for machines with multiple hard drives and 32MB or more RAM. Getting a more powerful power supply is never harmful; the system will only draw the power it actually needs.
    
    
  
  

• Windows 95

  • Whenever a motherboard is changed underneath of the Windows 95 operating system, the drivers for all of the components associated with the motherboard need to be changed or the new hardware will either not run or will run very slowly. Windows 95 tries to detect new hardware whenever it encounters it, but it often fails leaving you with a flakey computer at best. The best method for assuring that all the new components are detected and installed correctly is to wipe the slate clean and delete the entire Windows 95 directory. But this also takes all the installed third-party programs with it. So you would not only have to re-install Windows 95, but also all of your other games, applications, and utilities. What a pain.
    
    
  • There are however two other methods that may work just fine without nuking the operating system.
    1. Delete Everything in Device Manager
       1. Before changing the motherboard, make backup copies of your Windows 95 registry files (SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT) and store them in a safe place.
          
          
       2. Before changing the motherboard, make a working boot disk (Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs | Startup Disk) that has your real-mode CD-ROM drivers on it. You'll have to hunt down and install your DOS-based CD-ROM drivers by hand. Windows 95 can't do that for you. If you installed the upgrade version of Windows 95, you may want to hunt down the first disk of Windows 3.x just in case you need to go through a whole new re-install (there are no guarantees this will work, and you may need to go through that drastic route, but hopefully not). And make sure that the boot disk actually works (try booting into DOS with it and see if your CD-ROM drive is accessible).
          
          
       3. After you've changed the motherboard and re-assembled all the peripherals, make sure it boots properly to the hard drive (use 'F8' to boot directly to a DOS prompt and make sure the hard drive(s) look ok in terms of size, partitions, and what files are there).
          
          
       4. Reboot the computer into Windows 95 but don't allow Win95 to boot normally. Hit the 'F5' key when it gives the "Starting Windows 95" message so that it will boot into safe mode. Safe mode will take a lot longer to boot than you're used to and will have a border around the entire screen area. The screen will also be in 640x480 mode with only 16 colors. This is normal.
          
          
       5. Once in safe mode, go into Control Panel | System | Device Manager and delete just about everything (including keyboard, floppy, IDE, and any ATAPI drivers). Although you don't have to delete the video card if it's not being replaced. But if you're changing the video card too, change the old driver to the 'Standard Display Adapter' VGA driver. You can then install the new video driver with the 'Have Disk' option in Device Manager later. With only a few exceptions, everything should get deleted.
          
          
       6. Close all the windows and then shut down the machine. Reboot and allow Windows 95 to run normally. It will take some time for it to go through all of the new hardware, but it should detect most everything properly.
          
          
       7. If Windows 95 asks you if you wish to reboot during the detection process, answer 'no'. Don't reboot until you've reached the desktop. Use 'Add New Hardware' if any devices weren't detected the first time. If you had to install any drivers that Win95 didn't have (such as drivers for an old CD-ROM), you will have to re-install them yourself using the 'Have Disk' screen within Device Manager.
          
          
       8. This should bring Windows 95 up to date with all of your new hardware and shouldn't require reinstalling any of its components or your third party software. There should now be some question marks under the PCI Bus heading in Device Manager. See the Driver Installation section below on how to remedy this.
       
       
    2. Re-run Setup
       1. Before changing the motherboard, make backup copies of your Windows 95 registry files (SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT) and store them in a safe place. Also make the bootable floppy (as described above).
          
          
       2. Boot directly to a DOS prompt (using 'F8') and re-run SETUP.EXE on the Win95 CD-ROM. You'll need your real mode CD-ROM drivers to be able to recognise the CD from DOS mode.
          
          
       3. For a list of Windows 95 SETUP.EXE switches, see Knowledge Database article Q128400.
          
          
       4. If you have an OEM version of Windows 95 that doesn't have the SETUP.EXE program on it, see the OSR2 FAQ for what to do.
          
          
       5. This method should leave all of your installed programs intact, but you'll need to reconfigure the customized Win95 stuff. And you'll have to re-install any additional Windows 95 components (like Service Pack 1, DirectX, etc.).
       
       
    3. Nuke It
       1. If all else fails, nuke it (DELTREE C:\WINDOWS). This must be done from a pure DOS-prompt, of course. And you'll need a bootable floppy disk and those pesky real mode CD-ROM drivers. If you have the Windows 95 update rather than the full version, you'll need the first disk from Windows 3.x (Win95 will ask for it). And you'll need the CD-Key from the Win95 CD holder. You didn't throw it away, did you?
          
          
       2. You can also just run FORMAT.EXE if you want to re-do the entire partition (including re-installing all the non-Win95 programs). Just make sure you have any important files backed-up before you do.
          
          
       3. You'll have to re-install all of your third party applications as well as DirectX and any Windows 95 updates (such as Service Pack 1) with this method.
       
       
  • For my upgrade, I had to re-run SETUP.EXE because deleting the entries in Device Manager would cause my computer to boot into an unusable screen that was mostly orange with some garbled graphics at the top third of the screen. I couldn't even get to the desktop. Hopefully, yours will go smoother.
    
    
  • Instead of moving the drive and then booting into Windows 95 in safe mode to remove all the items in Device Manager, you can delete them immediately before moving the drive over; it has the same effect. You could also run Regedit and in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, snip the entire Enum category. Some people report that this helps get rid of any 'ghost' components which might seem to hang around even after everything seemed to have been deleted within Device Manager.
    
    
  • Before trying any of this, it's a really good idea to have a working boot disk that allows you to access the CD-ROM from DOS. Backing up your important data is also a good idea. As is having the original Win 3.x disk in case you need to re-install. Hopefully it won't come to that. Good luck.
    
    
  
  

• Driver Installation

  • PCI Bridge / USB
    • The 430TX chipset was released too late for Windows 95 to recognize it properly. If you look in Control Panel | System | Device Manager | View Devices by Connection | Plug and Play BIOS | PCI Bus, there will be a question mark on the PCI bus category and the following items will not appear until the update is applied:
      1. Intel 82371AB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
      2. Intel 82371AB PCI to ISA Bridge
      3. Intel 82371AB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
      4. Intel 82371AB Power Management Controller
      5. Intel 82439TX Pentium Processor to PCI Bridge
      
      
    • Both Intel and Shuttle provide a patch to remove the offending question marks. The Shuttle patch also comes on the CD-ROM that was bundled with the motherboard. The patch updates the MACHINE.INF, MSHDC.INF, and USB.INF files. Note that this is not a driver update. The universal serial bus drivers are not added. This INF patch updates all versions of Windows 95 (4.00.950, 4.00.950a, 4.00.950b, 4.00.950c), but is not needed for Windows 98. Both patches do the same thing, but I used the Shuttle patch (the files were newer).
      
      
    • Note that if you have the retail version of Windows 95 (4.00.950 or 4.00.950a) or the non-USB version of OSR2 (Win95b 2.0), then the USB.INF file is not updated because these versions do not support USB.
      
      
    • The versions of Windows 95 include:
      1. 4.00.950 - Retail version. See article Q158238 for how to identify your version of Win95.
      2. 4.00.950a - Retail version with Service Pack 1 installed. Also known as OEM Service Release 1. This is the only version that can officially upgrade the retail version of Win95. See the OSR2FAQ for how to upgrade with OSR2.
      3. 4.00.950b - OEM Service Release 2.0 (no USB). Also known as 4.00.1111.
      4. 4.00.950b - OEM Service Release 2.1 (adds USB supplement).
      5. 4.00.950c - OEM Service Release 2.5 (adds IE4 interface).
      
      
    • For more detailed info about the INF update and common problems associated with this and the bus mastering drivers, see Intel's INF BM page.
      
      
  • Universal Serial Bus
    • Windows 95 is capable of supporting a universal serial bus port, but not all versions have this capability. The retail versions of Windows 95 currently available (4.00.950 and 4.00.950a) do not support USB and cannot be upgraded to support USB. Win95 version 2.0 (4.00.950b aka 4.00.1111 aka OSR2) can be upgraded with the USB patch, but this patch is only available through your OEM (such as Dell or Gateway) or through MSDN (Microsoft Developer's Network). Although some versions of the patch are floating around. See the OSR2 FAQ for more details. Win95 OSR2 versions 2.1 and later do not need to be upgraded with this patch; they already have it built in.
      
      
    • Unless you have Windows 98, you'll also need to install the 430TX INF patch above which will update the USB.INF file. You can patch it with either Intel's SETUPEX.EXE patch or Shuttle's PATCH20a.ZIP.
      
      
    • If you have OSR2 2.0 (without the USB drivers), you should install the USB update (USBSUP.EXE) before installing the 430TX INF patch. Otherwise the patch won't update the USB.INF file. See the OSR2 FAQ for where to get the USB update file.
      
      
    • Windows 95 OSR 2.1 does have some problems with USB implementation. The computer may hang if the computer enters sleep mode. There are also problems with hot-docking and power management. And some USB cameras may not get along with your video card in accelerated mode.
      
      
    • Unfortunately, most USB peripherals only have drivers for Windows 98. The USB update is not required for Windows 98.
      
      
  • Bus Mastering
    • Bus mastering drivers are a performance enhancement that is intended to alleviate the amount of work the CPU has to do in order to move data between the hard drive and the computer.
      
      
    • In order to use bus mastering drivers on the HOT-569, your hard drives must be capable of doing all of the following:
      1. Single Word DMA Mode 2 (SW2 DMA) 240ns min IDE interface cycle time
      2. Multi Word DMA Mode 1 (MW1 DMA) 180ns min IDE interface cycle time
      3. Multi Word DMA Mode 2 (MW2 DMA) 120ns min IDE interface cycle time
      
      
    • Intel has a page on their bus mastering drivers where you can download the drivers and find out more about what they do. Note that there have been many reports of problems with both the Intel and Triones version of bus mastering drivers (and bus mastering drivers in general).
      
      
    • Shuttle has their own version of the bus mastering drivers that on the floppy disk that came with the motherboard. The floppy that is bundled with the revision 2.0 motherboard are the June 6th 3.60e Triones bus mastering drivers. Shuttle has a page on the Triones bus mastering drivers.
      
      
    • If you have OSR2 2.0 (4.00.950b) or later, don't install either the Intel or Triones bus mastering drivers. Use Microsoft's REMIDEUP.EXE patch instead.
      
      
    • Windows 95 does not currently support bus mastering ATAPI (IDE-based) CD-ROM drives. Microsoft has a fix for the incompatibility. This patch (it's REMIDEUP.EXE) can also fix problems associated with bus mastering drivers.
      
      
    • If after installing the bus mastering drivers, your computer now takes forever to boot up or a CD-ROM (or older IDE hard drive) isn't recognized, see the bottom of the Hard Drives page on Tom's Hardware Guide for some possible solutions. But before you edit the Windows 95 Registry, it might be easiest to try the other solutions first. And if you do end up editing the registry, always backup the registry files (SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT) before you begin.
      
      
    • If after installing the bus mastering drivers, the DMA check box does not remain checked, see article Q159560.
      
      
    • If your ATAPI CD-ROM is not recognized on the second IDE port, see Intel's page for why. This isn't related to bus mastering.
      
      
    • The Intel bus mastering drivers are not compatible with ATAPI CD recorders.
      
      
    • For more detailed info on Intel's bus mastering drivers, see Intel's INF BM page.
      
      
    • After reading one too many horror stories surrounding bus mastering drivers, I decided not to install them; I didn't think they would be worth the hassle. But if you insist on experimenting with this, see BM Drivers for more information on bus mastering first. Good luck. You might need it.
      
      
  • IrDA
    • The HOT-569 can support an infrared device such as a remote keyboard or mouse. But Windows 95 needs a patch to be able to use an attached device.
      
      
  
  

• Tweaking the Motherboard

  • This section is about trying to get the most out of your system. I've included my BIOS settings and some benchmark comparisons to indicate what difference there is between the settings. Look in the Chipset section of the BIOS page for what each setting does.
    
    
  • My System
    1. Shuttle HOT-569 ver. 2.0 mainboard BIOS rev. WIQ07.
    2. AMD K6-233 (66x3.5). Sorry, I don't overclock.
    3. (2) 32MB 4-clock unbuffered 10ns Micron (Crucial) SDRAM DIMMs.
    4. Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 Pro w/ 4MB. S3 ViRGE/DX 375 driver.
    5. Western Digital AC32500 hard drive (PIO mode 4 max).
    6. Western Digital AC2420 hard drive (PIO mode 3 max).
    7. The rest shouldn't really make any difference in terms of performance.
    
    
  • Benchmarking
    • While using synthetic benchmarks is nice, it doesn't really relate to real world performance gains. Those can only be measured by how the computer feels when you use it (or by using a 'Real World Benchmark', but even they have their limitations). And the ctcm benchmark I used is even more selective since it only measures the speed when moving data between the devices on the host bus (processor, memory, cache). It doesn't touch disk transfer rate or video card speed. It's great for tweaking the various BIOS settings. But just because a certain result says your computer is 300% faster than with another setting doesn't mean you should expect the computer to run 3 times faster overall.
      
      
    • I systematically went through the various performance enhancing settings of the bios and benchmarked (using the newer multilingual version of ctcm (ctcm16r.zip)) each change to see what impact it had on overall performance. The percentage listed with each setting show how much is gained from My Setting over the Default BIOS settings. The default settings are a 'baseline' of 100%. My settings are either higher or lower percentages. A result of 4% means my setting is 4% higher than the baseline results. Lower performance is indicated in italics, such as: -3%.
      
      

    • ctcm Benchmarks
      Setting	Default	My Setting	Hit	Miss +Hit	Miss	FPU Miss	DOS	Win
      BIOS Features
      Internal Cache (L1)	Enabled	Enabled	--	--	--	--	--	--
      External Cache (L2)	Enabled	Enabled	--	--	--	--	--	--
      Shadow Video	Enabled	Enabled	--	--	--	--	--	--
      Shadow C000~DFFF	Disabled	Enabled	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
      Chipset Features
      Auto Configuration	Enabled	Disabled	--	--	--	--	--	--
      DRAM Timing	70ns	N/A	--	--	--	--	--	--
      DRAM Leadoff Timing	10/6/3	10/6/3	--	--	--	--	--	--
      DRAM Read Burst Timing	x333/x444	N/A	--	--	--	--	--	--
      DRAM Write Burst Timing	x333	x222	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
      Fast EDO Leadoff	Disabled	N/A	--	--	--	--	--	--
      Refresh RAS# Assertion	5 Clks	4 Clks	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
      Fast RAS# to CAS# Delay	3	Disabled	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
      DRAM Page Idle Timer	2 Clks	2 Clks	--	--	--	--	--	--
      DRAM Enhanced Paging	Enabled	Enabled	--	--	--	--	--	--
      Fast MA to RAS# Delay	2 Clks	1 Clk	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
      SDRAM CAS-Lat/RAS-to-CAS	3/3	2/2	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
      Auto Detect DIMM/PCI Clk	Disabled	Enabled	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
      SDRAM Speculative Read	Disabled	Enabled	0%	0%	1.1%	4.6%	1.6%	1.1%
      System BIOS Cacheable	Disabled	Enabled	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
      Video BIOS Cacheable	Disabled	Enabled	0%	0%	1.1%	4.6%	1.6%	1.1%
      8-Bit I/O Recovery Time	NA	NA	--	--	--	--	--	--
      16-Bit I/O Recovery Time	NA	NA	--	--	--	--	--	--
      Memory Hole at 15M~16M	Disabled	Disabled	--	--	--	--	--	--
      PCI 2.1 Compliance	Disabled	Enabled	0%	0%	1.1%	4.6%	1.6%	1.1%
      Total Difference	N/A	N/A	0%	0%	1.1%	4.6%	1.6%	1.1%

      
      
    • Any differences in the benchmark only showed up in some of the settings. SDRAM Speculative Read, cacheable Video, and turning on PCI 2.1 compliance. Strangely, the speed increase was not cumulative. Turning on all of the affected settings resulted in exactly the same performance increase overall as individually. I'm not sure why. And I was really surprised that changing the DRAM read and write timings seemed to have no effect. It's possible that the settings for SDRAM are set in the 569 BIOS and the different choices in the BIOS only apply to FPM and EDO DRAM. Or maybe I just used the wrong benchmark? I don't know.
      
      
    • While it isn't shown in the table above (the default for L1 and L2 cache is on), turning off the Internal (L1) and External (L2) caches has an enormous impact on performance. ctcm benchmarked a maximum of 3200% slower with the L1 cache off. Turning off the L2 resulted in a maximum of 67% loss in performance. Turning off both slowed the machine down by as much as 4900% (it was 49 times slower).