Onboard sound on an XPS?

[rrando]

I bought a motherboard on Ebay, has number AA C37257-603 which someone (on the formerly aaltonen now poweredgeforums.com) said is a Dimension XPS number -
it has an on-board sound chip. I also have a nearly identical motherboard (from the same source) with no on-board audio, # AA C37257-605. The original bios was A01, so I downloaded and flashed with XPS Gen-1 A03 bios. I tried others (Gen-2 for example) but did not try to override the bios-type check. Because the Gen-1 flash worked without complaining, I concluded it must be a XPS Gen-1. Unfortunately, when I flashed the bios, I did not think to keep a copy of the old A01 version. The board runs fine (Celeron 2.4 + 2x512 ddr).

BUT...

This motherboard has onboard audio with 3 rear audio jacks -- I verified it definitely has an AD1980 (SoundMax) chip. However the bios does not have any sound options except to enable the PC speaker, and thus Windows XP Pro SP-2 device manager does not detect, and I can't use the on-board sound. First Question: Does the XPS Gen-1 have onboard sound? (Answer is no) So how do I get sound turned on or recognized in BIOS? Can I flash a bios from a similar board -- see my own answer posted below...

More oddities on this board, the service tag is blank (someone said this is a bios flash option, and there are utilities to do this). The southbridge intel chip has the word "Secret" followed by FW82801 EB as its chip ID instead of just the number - Apparently this is not so unusual.

The Gen-1 does NOT have onboard sound --- so perhaps this is an early or mismarked version of another model? CPU-z reports an i875-P chipset. I got other info off the board and ran various diagnostics (Everest, etc) and then compared the specs to some other Dell motherboards. Physically, the Gen-1, Gen-2, Precision 360, Poweredge 400sc, Dimension 8300 all have i875P chipsets and all have very similar layouts. In fact, the 400sc board is identical to the 360 (or almost). The main differences (I believe) are due to different fan configurations, and perhaps audio/video and network capabilities. Has anyone here flashed BIOS to/from an XPS from/to one of these other models?.

My board is installed in an SC420 case, all connectors hook up fine. I even bought and connected the front panel audio connector, (the connector jack is there, though the SC420 does not support it) but of course, the audio is not working. I modded the case (drill and dremel) to allow access to the hidden front panel headphone jack. (This board does not have on-board video).

on the ATX rear panel it has:
6-USB (4 + 2)
RJ45? to onboard network card (probably not gigabit)
3 audio jacks
2 serial, 1 parallel, ps-2 kb, mouse
and on the board itself:
4-pci
1-AGP (4x in bios, but could be 8x)
Pri and Sec PATA (IDE)
2 SATA
floppy
4 ddr slots
2 rear +1 front fan connectors
20 pin ATX power and 4 pin (12 v?) addl ATX connector
cd-audio
telephony
front panel audio

[TRow]

Welcome to the Forums!

Most likely boards that have audio chips installed are controlled thru the bios or by jumper. Dell loves to do stuff like this on many of their platforms. You could pick up a Audigy2 as a simple work around, as Ive seen them used for dirt cheap as of late. Hard to tell with OEM boards which Bios will work, I have a XPS Gen1 875P mobo with a few leaky caps thats sitting around if your looking to make a switch, PM me and lets talk a bit. Welcome to the Forums.

[rrando]

woot --- success.

I temporarily installed a floppy, downloaded Dimension 8300 bios A04 (last floppy version), created a floppy bios upgrade disk, added " /Classic /Forcetype" to the execute line in autoexec.bat, changed bios to boot from floppy, rebooted, and voila, my XPS now thinks its an 8300. Changed bios back to boot from HD, and rebooted again and the computer works, XP recognizes a bunch of new hardware and installs it (didn't think I was missing anything else besides sound) but although sound is seen, the driver is not installed (asks for the install disk, which of course I don't have) so it shows in the device manager as driver not working.

I then downloaded the audio driver installer for the Dimension 8300 (SoundMax) from Dell, and ran it. Rebooted once more and now I've got sound (the first time I've actually enjoyed hearing the Windows startup sound). Not 5.1 channel, but stereo -- all working at the rear jacks. I also have the front audio connector cable hooked up, but haven't checked the front panel headphone jack. Modded my SC420 case earlier to allow access to the hidden headphone jack, and bought the cable from someone, but I didn't make the access hole large enough for my headphones -- need to fix that. Also haven't checked the line input or mic input but I'll bet all these work too. The documentation on the Dell site for the 8300 states its got 5 channel audio and sure enough there are unconnected pads on my board where 2 more jacks would be -- dare I hope that all that is needed is a couple of connector jacks? Or possibly it needs some other surface mount chips (active or passive) as well. That would be a project beyond my skills. For now, I'll leave it alone. I have a Creative Live (24 bit 5.1) sound card I could use if I want.

I then upgraded to the latest A07 8300 bios to fix whatever (quite a bit according to the documentation on Dell)... I should be able to install Prescott or Celeron-D CPUs - but my system is working fine with a Celeron 2.4 and 2x512 ram (I have a P4 Northwood 2.4 which I may install after I get the SC420 - 6 heatpipe cooler I bought on ebay) Hopefully I can install some really quiet fans (or, if possible even NO fan) -- I haven't yet tried to get rid of one or more of the three fans (four if you include the one in the power supply) and not have it complain -- The 8300 is supposed to only have 1 fan (plus PS fan), but the connector is at the location marked "CPU fan" where my board does not have a connector. I have 2 rear (one is actually attached to cpu heatsink) and 1 front fan (also blows out the rear). The boot error log shows "CPU0 fan" errors. I may need to wire a jumper over to the speed sensor location from my fan connector.

Am still messing with some of the configuration items... but so far everything I've checked works. I will use my other XPS motherboard (the normal one without a sound chip) and the Celeron in another application -- possibly a linux box.

[unknowngod430]

how in the world did you flash it with a different bios? can it be done with windows flashers?
and does anyone know who makes the gen 4 mother board

[rrando]

On poweredgeforums.com there are threads about flashing bioses between the Dell 400SC, Precision 360 (which have identical motherboards) and the Dimension 8300 (which has a different network card). see here:
www.poweredgeforums.com/showthread.php?t=1679
They were exploring different video options on the various machines hoping to get improved performance. Naturally, the 8300 bios didn't support the gigabit network card. The trick is to get the older floppy (dos) based version of the bios program from Dell. Use the program to create a floppy, and edit the autoexec.bat file. Add the parameters " /Classic /Forcetype" without the quotes of course, after xxxxxxx.exe (name of the executable) and then reboot from floppy. It will ask you are you sure? etc. and of course, even though you aren't sure, you say yes and wait.... It didn't take long, and kept me informed what it was doing. This flash only took a couple of minutes. DO NOT power off while this is happening -- I've heard it can sometimes take a long time. For me my longest reflash took several minutes, completing just as I was beginning to get really worried. I've reflashed various bioses for upgrades probably 10 times, all successfully. I've also flashed a Dell motherboard to its Intel (generic) equivalent in order to try some mild overclocking. You might be able to use other techniques including running the Windows flashers from the command line (in a terminal window) -- with the extra parameters. If you do try this, let us know whether it worked or not.

You should only flash between similar motherboards (at least the same controller chip, intel 875P for example and maybe the same CPU socket type). If you do this, be aware it can permanently kill your motherboard (obligatory disclaimer -- its not my fault -- you've been warned). I have even heard of very limited success with bioses from quite different motherboards, but here success usually means being able to go back to the original bios in order to get a fully working computer again.

If you want to do something like this and have questions, feel free to PM me. In my case, it was motivated by the fact that I had an onboard sound chip on the supposedly XPS gen-1 board, but no sound options in the bios. This just bugged me for some reason. Researching this, the Dell board I found that had the most nearly the same features and the onboard AD1980 sound chip, was the 8300. I spent a lot of time verifying other board details first.

I read somewhere that Foxconn manufactures some of the recent Dell motherboards. They are very high quality and often very similar to the Intel desktop boards. Check the intel website.

[TRow]

Several minutes to flash would have freaked me out sideways with a twist.

[rrando]

A long while back, I did a bios flash that failed (on an Intel AN430TX - "Anchorage"). I started the flash, answered the prompts and the floppy ran for a short time, then the computer beeped and the floppy stopped. I thought, "It can't be done that quickly", so I waited. After 30 minutes, it seemed obvious that nothing else was going to happen so I powered off. Afterwords the computer just beeped during POST. The motherboard was dead. Then I found about a "blind" flash, an emergency flash recovery feature found on some motherboards. By setting the appropriate jumper, the computer loads and executes a bootable floppy, set up to require no inputs since the video, keyboard, mouse, etc are presumed to be unavailable. with nothing to lose, I tried it, and the floppy started, ran for a while and after about 10 minutes (with no clues, except that the floppy would occasionally start and stop) the computer eventually beeped and shut itself off. I removed the jumper and the floppy, and after fiddling with the bios settings was back (alive) again.