A7V133 BIOS setting "byte merge": what does it do?

[dmcmahon]

Anyone know what "byte merge" does? What effect this has (if any) on ME, W2K, Linux? The doc isn't very clear and says it's supposed to be "enabled" by default, yet in my BIOS it's "disabled".

 

[ejsmith2]

It used to be disabled in mine too. Slap an 'enable' on that thing, and see if it locks the computer up.

 

[dmcmahon]

But, like, what does it @#$%ing do?!?

BTW I assume you're kidding about the lockup and it works for you?

 

[Guest]

Here's a clip of what Byte Merge does..... <i> Byte Merge
This exists where multiple writes to non-contiguous memory addresses are merged into one PCI-to-memory operation by the host controller, letting devices sort out the ones they want, which increases bus throughput and hence performance for devices that support it-not all PCI video cards do, so enable this unless you get bad graphics (this setting is intended to improve video performance). When enabled, the controller checks the CPU Byte Enable signals (8 of them) to see if data from the PCI bus can be merged. See also Byte Merge Support (next) and CPU-PCI Byte Merge.

Byte Merge Support
In this case, enabling means that CPU-PCI writes are buffered (Award). 8- or 16-bit data moving between the CPU and PCI bus is accumulated, or merged, into 32-bit chunks and held in a buffer, being written to the PCI bus when time permits.</i>