wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu (02/10/89)
I have some questions about the BIOSes made for PC's and XT's by
the Award and Phoenix companies.
I work with and maintain two XT clones: a Wugo (Taiwanese company)
"turbo" XT clone at home, and a Leading Edge Model D with a 30-meg hard
disk card at my church.
My home machine has an Award BIOS (version 2.03, 9/15/86). My church's
Leading Edge Model D has a Phoenix BIOS (version 2.13; I don't remember
the date, but I think it's somewhere in 1986).
Both machines seem to run fine. In particular, I have yet to encounter
any "100% IBM-compatible" software that gives me any problems on my home
machine.
However, I'm wondering whether there might be any point in upgrading the
BIOS on either of these machines. Hence, a few questions:
(1) I have been told that the BIOSes produced by Award and Phoenix are
very good, and that the two companies' products are essentially of
equivalent quality -- i.e., that there is no real reason to prefer
Award over Phoenix, or Phoenix over Award, or any third company over
either Award or Phoenix. Does anyone on the net have reasons for
agreeing or disagreeing with this claim?
(2) Does anyone on the net know whether there are bugs or misfeatures in
either of the above two BIOSes that are fixed in later versions?
Please note that I am not interested in upgrading either BIOS if all
a later version will give me is a wider range of hard disk or floppy
disk capabilities; the two systems in question already run just fine
with their existing hardware (including a 1.44Mb/3.5" diskette drive
on my home system).
(3) Does Award and/or Phoenix have a US address that I could write (or a
phone number I could call) in order to ask about the differences
between my BIOS version and their latest version? I am a bit hesi-
tant to try to find coherent BIOS version info from local computer
stores, because (a) most probably wouldn't know anyway, and (b) I
would just as soon spare myself any "you ought to upgrade to the
latest BIOS version, just on principle" sales rhetoric.
(4) How much should I reasonably expect to pay for a new XT BIOS ROM?
Please e-mail me; if I get any useful replies (and/or info from either
BIOS company), I will summarize to the net later on.
-- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 (213) 825-5683
3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA
wales@CS.UCLA.EDU ...!(uunet,ucbvax,rutgers)!cs.ucla.edu!wales
"The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank."rat@madnix.UUCP (David Douthitt) (02/13/89)
From article <20343@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, by wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu: | However, I'm wondering whether there might be any point in upgrading the | BIOS on either of these machines. Hence, a few questions: | | (1) I have been told that the BIOSes produced by Award and Phoenix are | very good, and that the two companies' products are essentially of | equivalent quality -- i.e., that there is no real reason to prefer | Award over Phoenix, or Phoenix over Award, or any third company over | either Award or Phoenix. Does anyone on the net have reasons for | agreeing or disagreeing with this claim? I've seen some other questions about Phoenix and Award BIOSes on the net, but I haven't seen anyone mention the AMI BIOS. I seem to remember a review of a number of motherboards in BYTE, and the author noted that the fastest machines tended to use the AMI BIOS. I'd be interested in any responses out there of Award vs. Phoenix vs. AMI. Thanks all. [david] -- ======== David Douthitt :::: Madison, WI :::: The Stainless Steel Rat ======== FidoNet: 1:121/1 or 1:121/2 {decvax|att}! UseNet: ...{rutgers|ucbvax|harvard}!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!rat ArpaNet: madnix!rat@cs.wisc.edu {uunet|ncoast}!marque!
liber@darth.UUCP (Eric Liber) (02/15/89)
> From article <20343@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, by wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu: > | However, I'm wondering whether there might be any point in upgrading the > | BIOS on either of these machines. Hence, a few questions: > | > | (1) I have been told that the BIOSes produced by Award and Phoenix are > | very good, and that the two companies' products are essentially of > | equivalent quality -- i.e., that there is no real reason to prefer > | Award over Phoenix, or Phoenix over Award, or any third company over > | either Award or Phoenix. Does anyone on the net have reasons for > | agreeing or disagreeing with this claim? > > I've seen some other questions about Phoenix and Award BIOSes on the net, but > I haven't seen anyone mention the AMI BIOS. I seem to remember a review > of a number of motherboards in BYTE, and the author noted that the fastest > machines tended to use the AMI BIOS. > > I'd be interested in any responses out there of Award vs. Phoenix vs. AMI. > Thanks all. . I have a Gateway 20mhz 386 machine. It originally came with an AWARD BIOS.. sorry i forget the rev... Anyway this version (3 something .. i think) WOULD NOT READ FLOPPY DISKS WHEN RUNNING WINDOWS 386. From the way it crashed i would lay even money on an interrupt problem. I replaced it (actually the vendor did at no charge) with a Phoenix bios 3.03 (i think again) and no more problems. I have HEARD (no hard evidence ) that the Pheonix bios does not like Novell netware. That is why my machine was shipped with Award .. they assumed that you would want to run networking on a 386 machine. (NOBODY needs that much speed ... :-) ). I have no information about non 386 bios' Eric (the red baron) Liber
jboot@morgoth.UUCP (Jim F. Roberts) (02/23/89)
In article <432@darth.UUCP>, liber@darth.UUCP (Eric Liber) writes: > > From article <20343@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, by wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu: [lotsa stuff deleted] > > I have HEARD (no hard evidence ) that the Pheonix bios does not like Novell > netware. That is why my machine was shipped with Award .. they assumed that > you would want to run networking on a 386 machine. (NOBODY needs that much > speed ... :-) ). > Hi. We have a Novell network here with > 20 WYSE pc286's that are behaving _reasonably_ well. If details are important, the BIOS versions are v 2.72, the Network OS is Advanced Netware 2.12, and the LAN adapters are a mixture of Corvus Omninet and 3Com Tokenlink. Two machines with the 2.72 BIOS do indeed have some occasional problems (won't load large applications on alternate Tuesdays in months ending in "r", etc). Our vendor claims that these problems will go away when we upgrade to v 2.75. If anyone out there is interested, I can email whether or not the BIOS upgrade helps. Jim Roberts -- LIVE: Jim F. Roberts, (617) 969-0050 ARPA: adelie!morgoth!jboot@harvard.HARVARD.EDU UUCP: {harvard | ll-xn | mirror | axiom}!adelie!morgoth!jboot