Technical Manual “Cool FrontRunner” Version 2.7 or or
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Set the peripheral board to 8-bit access only
17.06.2008 Page 12 of 43
Use a peripheral board that decodes the SBHE signal correctly on 16-bit accesses.
2.5 National MacPhyter Ethernet Controller
The National Semiconductor MacPhyter is a fully integrated 10/100 Base-TX LAN solution and consists of both the Media Access Controller and the physical layer interface combined into a single component solution.
The 32-bit PCI v2.2 controller provides enhanced scatter-gather bus mastering capabilities and enables the MacPhyter to perform high-speed data transfers over the PCI bus. Its bus master capabilities enable the component to process high level commands and perform multiple operations, which lowers CPU utilization by off-loading communication tasks from the CPU: two large transmit and receive FIFOs of 2 KB each help to prevent data underrun and overrun while waiting for bus accesses. This enables the MacPhyter to transmit data with minimum interframe gap.
The CSMA/CD unit of the MacPhyter allows it to be connected to either a 10 or 100 Mbps Ethernet network. The CSMA/CD unit performs all of the functions of the 802.3 protocol such as frame formatting, frame stripping, collision handling, deferral to link traffic, etc. The CSMA/CD unit can also be placed in a full duplex mode, which allows simultaneous transmission and reception of frames. In full duplex mode, it adheres to the IEEE 802.3x Flow Control specification.
The PHY unit of the MacPhyter supports Auto-Negotiation for 10BaseT-/100BaseTX Half Duplex and 10BaseT-/100BaseTX Full Duplex modes.
The signals of the Ethernet interface are located on the IDC10 header “Ethernet”. An adapter cable from IDC10 to RJ45 connector is available.
2.6 Watchdog
A watchdog is implemented by an Analog Devices ADM691 Reset/Watchdog circuit. It is accessible through some general-purpose ports of the Super I/O. controller. Additionally a red LED lights up, which is located on the topside of the board.
Please refer to chapter 5.4 for programming watchdog functions.
2.7 CPU Temperature and Hardware Monitoring
AMD Geode
TM
GX [email protected] processor contains a temperature sensor to monitor the CPU temperature. The current temperature is shown in the PC Health Status screen of BIOS setup.
Additionally the environment temperature is measured and shown in the PC Health Status screen.
It also can be used to control a 5 Volt environment fan, which must be connected to the supervisory connector.
Please refer to chapter 5.5 how to read out temperatures and fan speed.
The Cool FrontRunner does not need any cooling measures at the standard environment temperatures from –20 °C … +60 °C.
2.8 On Board Power Supply
The on board power supply generates all necessary voltages from the single supply voltage of 5 volts. The voltages are observed by the Southbridge and are shown in the PC Health Status screen of BIOS setup.
