ALIX system board
8
2/21/2008
Technical data
Power supply
+12V DC, ~ 0.007A off state, typical about 0.4A active
Peak power can be higher, suggest a 15W supply.
Center pin = positive, sleeve = ground, 2.5 mm diameter.
Temperature range
0 to 50°C.
Dimensions
ALIX.1C = 6.7 x 6.7” (170 x 170 mm)
Known issues / warnings
The PCI slot supports 3.3V cards and riser cards ONLY. Do not attempt to insert a 5V adapter or
riser card “the wrong way” – you may damage ALIX or your adapter card.
If using header J15 to feed power into the board, use the 12V and GND pins only, do NOT feed
5V into the board.
Commell MP-541D miniPCI dual Ethernet card will not work. This card quietly uses another ID
select line for the second Ethernet channel, which the BIOS does not know about.
Linux boot may hang if no monitor is attached. According to customer reports this issue can be
avoided by grounding pin 12 (DDCDAT) of the VGA connector. This seems to be caused by a
VGA BIOS issue, FS and GS segment registers not restored when no monitor present. This can be
worked around by adding push fs / push gs / pop gs / pop fs instructions around the int 10h call
that tries to get the video settings (ah = 0fh).
Getting started…
-
Connect a 12V DC power supply to the DC jack J2. 2.5 mm center pin = positive, sleeve =
ground. Power supply should be able to supply at least 12W for some margin. To avoid arcing,
please plug in the DC jack first, then plug the adapter into mains.
-
Connect VGA, keyboard and mouse as needed. To connect a PS/2 mouse, use an off-the-shelf
PS/2 keyboard / mouse splitter. Some splitters may cause the BIOS to hang, test without or
swap keyboard and mouse connections if this happens.
-
Insert a bootable CF card. Hot swap of CF cards is not supported !
-
Power on. If a jumper is installed on the SWI pins of front panel header J26, the board will start
up immediately. Connect a pushbutton switch to these pins for manual control and software
controlled power off.
You should see BIOS startup messages etc.
Setup options
ALIX uses Award BIOS for more features and operating system compatibility. Press Delete during
startup to enter setup. Press Escape to get a boot menu. (BIOS 8/21/07 and later).
All manuals and user guides at all-guides.com
