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New V5 bios before and after?
V5 might not have 100% bios before dialing home?

New MessageNew V5 bios before and after? (modified 0 times) friar
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Just out of curiosity I was reading through the stuff on the Circus City site at http://www.circuitcity.com (look under computers, then under 'internet appliances') and it says "...USB ports are not currently enabled, but will be in the future via software download." I assume from this that the stock from-the-box bios doesn't have full support for everything, that perhaps when it first 'dials home' it updates the bios with all the support. I don't know, just a guess. I know people are trying to isolate the part that deals with the new non-Yamaha sound support, and the image of the bios before and after dialing home the first time might be different. Hope this idea helps.
07-27-2000 11:44:42

New MessageRE:New V5 bios before and after? (modified 0 times) Randy
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Actually, friar, support for USB is already present vis-a-vis the BIOS before it dials home. Netpliance mentions "upcoming support" in order to answer new subscriber questions like, "What are these plugs for?" The upgrade, if it ever occurs, will be within the Netpliance software on the Sandisk rather than in the BIOS. That said, the new version 5 BIOS does include drivers for the new sound circuitry (obviously, since the units do produce sound). The problem is that the OLDER versions of the BIOS, which DO support hard drives, include the drivers for the previously-used Yamaha sound chip. In other words, the new v5 i-openers don't have to dial home in order for sound to be enabled either. What must happen for owners of new v5 i-openers is that someone hacks the BIOS to enable the newer sound components as well as the older ability to hack from hard disks. None of this will require phoning home, either.
07-27-2000 16:20:41

New MessageRE:New V5 bios before and after? (modified 0 times) friar
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Thanks Randy!
07-27-2000 19:37:24

New MessageRE:New V5 bios before and after? (modified 0 times) partly_cloudy
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Could someone please explain to me what the heck the BIOS has to do with the sound drivers? I've never seen BIOS support for any sound drivers in a PC BIOS. At best, the BIOS knows how to make a simple beep from a speaker. Except for the Plug & Play code assigning IRQs and DMAs, doesn't all the sound driver support get loaded with the OS?
07-27-2000 20:51:50

New MessageRE:New V5 bios before and after? (modified 0 times) phred
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On my desktop PC I have a cheap sound card. To have Windoze access it, it has to be configured (DMA, IRQ, etc.) This is done by a small program that runs (out of autoexec.bat) as the PC is booting. All the program does is place the sound card in some sensible state. Perhaps this is what the V5 BIOS is doing. Or perhaps it is not done in the V5 BIOS at all, but by the V5 QNX as it boots.
phred
07-27-2000 21:51:31

New MessageRE:New V5 bios before and after? (modified 0 times) ckbone
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Most of the M-boards I've seen that have on-board sound, have a BIOS setting to enable/disable the sound. This is so you could add your own sound card, without conflicts. Probably going back to a V1 BIOS, just disables this feature.....no sound for your V5 from the On-board sound chip. I don't think the drivers are in the BIOS, however, you still have to load the correct drivers for your OS. A USB sound solution will probably be the easiest.
07-28-2000 02:58:45

New MessageRE:New V5 bios before and after? (modified 0 times) New I/O Owner
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No, the drivers for this AD1881 are NOT in the bios. For some reason, out of the box V5's have sound but when you upgrade to the V1 bios this new sound chip isnt recognized as being on the MB. BadFlash and Programmer are working on a fix and have already sent me a chip to test, but it was NFG, and another is on it's way, so all the V5 owners keep your fingers crossed. And YES USB speakers do work, but put a tremendous drain on the stock 32Mb of memory. Howie
07-28-2000 07:39:18

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