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3 Motherboard BIOS and Setup Utility
3.1 Introduction
The AP440FX motherboard uses an Intel BIOS, which is stored in flash memory and easily
upgraded using a floppy disk-based program. In addition to the Intel BIOS, the flash memory also
contains the Setup utility, Power-On Self Tests (POST), APM 1.2, the PCI auto-configuration
utility, and Windows 95 ready Plug and Play 1.0a. This motherboard also supports BIOS
shadowing, allowing the BIOS to execute from 64-bit onboard write-protected DRAM.
The BIOS displays a sign-on message during POST identifying the type of BIOS and a five-digit
revision code. The initial production BIOS in the motherboard is identified as 1.00.01.CT1.
3.2 BIOS Flash Memory Organization
The Intel PA28FB002BX 2 MB flash component is organized as 256K x 8 (256 KB). The flash
device is divided into seven areas, as described in Table 33.
Table 33. Flash Memory Organization
Address Flash Memory Area
FFFF0000H FFFFFFFFH 64 KB Main BIOS
FFFEC000H FFFEFFFFH 16 KB Boot block (Not flash erasable)
FFFEA000H FFFEBFFFH 8 KB ESCD Area (Plug and Play data storage area)
FFFE9000H FFFE9FFFH 4 KB Reserved for BIOS
FFFE8000H FFFE8FFFH 4 KB OEM Logo Area
FFFE0000H FFFE7FFFH 32 KB Reserved for BIOS
FFFD0000H FFFDFFFFH 64 KB Reserved for BIOS
FFFC0000H FFFCFFFFH 64 KB Reserved for BIOS
3.3 BIOS Upgrades
Flash memory makes distributing BIOS upgrades easy. A new version of the BIOS can be
installed from a diskette. BIOS upgrades are available to be down loaded from the Intel
Applications Support web site at http://www-cs.intel.com/oem_developer/motherbd/, or from
Intel’s FTP site at ftp://ftp.intel.com/pub/bios/. Be sure to have the BIOS identification that applies
to this motherboard.