• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Can the LX motherboard support 80GB hard drives?

D

DWF

Member
Hi everyone,

Things are getting tight in my 17gigs (13+4) so I'm hoping to be able to upgrade to an 80GB hard drive soon (WD most likely). The concern is that my Dell PC is rather old; it's got an LX motherboard.

Originally, it was equipped with a PII233, but I eventually flashed it with the Intel P14 bios to allow the use of the Celeron 533. I'm not sure if this bios can support large hard drives and I've been looking around the internet for information.

Does anyone know if the Intel P14 bios recognizes large hard drive sizes such as 80GB? Perhaps there is a newer bios for the LX motherboard that adds this support? Thanks for any help.

DWF

 
use the utilities from the hd manufacturer..😉 and you should have no problem..the BIOS might say its size wrong but the OS will know better
 
I'm afraid you're outta luck with 80GB. The limitation is 32GB, IIRC. The LX was an awesome chipset, but it didn't even support UDMA 33, only MWDMA 2. So go figure. You can always use an external PCI IDE card, though. May not be the most cost-effective option, but if you want to stick to your PC it's a great choice.
 
Large HDD support (at least up to 128 GByte) is not a question of chipset, but of BIOS support. Normally, if the BIOS took you above 7.8 GB, it'll take you up to 128. There have been various BIOS bugs around that introduced some inbetween limits, e.g. Award BIOS before 6/99 hangs with drives larger than 32 GB.
 

Ok.....but if I wanted to change to another bios, would the hardware support of the bios being replaced be lost after the change to the newer bios?
 
Best bet would be to buy a promise ata100 card,you can probably find one here in the For Sale forums right here.
 
"rickh, can you tell me what bios you were using with that LX mobo system? "

It is a Gigabyte GA-686LX3 with the last BIOS--dated 2000. I don't think there were even 80GB IDE drives in 2000. I bet it will work. RRRRRRRR
 
I'm afraid you're outta luck with 80GB. The limitation is 32GB, IIRC. The LX was an awesome chipset, but it didn't even support UDMA 33, only MWDMA 2. So go figure. You can always use an external PCI IDE card, though. May not be the most cost-effective option, but if you want to stick to your PC it's a great choice.
Click to expand...
All Intel 440 family desktop AGPsets support UDMA/33 via the PIIX4 Southbridge (Intel 82371AB/EB), including the i440LX. As Peter mentioned, there is no chipset limitation up to 128GB, only BIOS limitations.
 
One question concerning bioses:

If I flash with a new bios, do I lose any hardware support (or a feature of any kind) that the older bios may have?

Since I'm using the Intel P14 bios on my LX motherboard (Dell), which is the bios I used in order to utilize the Celeron 533, I'm worried that a different (newer) bios may not support this feature. Would I lose the feature if I "upgraded" the bios to a newer one?

DWF
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top