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The original Intel driver I tested was designated 3.01 and was designed to be used with Win95 OSR2 and later versions (versions 950b and 950c). The date of the piix.z file is 6-20-97. This version should not be used with the original versions of Win95 or Win95A (versions 950 and 950a). The newer Intel BMIDE 3.02 driver is a much better choice for these OS's.
The Intel 3.01 driver seems to suffer from higher CPU utilization and poorer multi-tasking abilities, and in my opinion, is a less desirable choice than the native OSR2 driver. And with that remark, I am somewhat dissapointed that Abit continues to package this driver with their motherboard installation CDs as recently as with the BH6 motherboard (Abit's CD Rev. BX-1.40 is the most recent version I have seen).
Installation of the driver is straight forward and I have heard of very few problems with installation. Unfortunately, removing the drivers is often more difficult, with a trip through the registry or reinstallation of OSR2 often necessary to remove all changes made by the driver installation.
Note: The Intel BMIDE driver is found on the disk included with the Abit based motherboards or from Intel as BMIDE_95.EXE.
The tests were performed on a clean installation of Win95 OSR2 as in all of my driver tests. The system was rebooted after each file's installation and before each benchmark. The HD was also defragged before each benchmark was run.
The test results for the default installation of OSR2 with DMA enabled is shown in Chart 1.
Chart 3 - AMD K6 250 MHz. (83 X 3) Intel BMIDE 3.01 (Abit BMIDE_95)
| Device | USBSUPP | USBSUPP +
Intel BMIDE Driver |
USBSUPP +
Intel BMIDE + PCI_TX |
| Disk Drives | Generic type 46
Check DMA box avail. |
Quantum Fireball
No DMA box avail. |
Quantum Fireball
No DMA box avail. |
| HD Controller | PRI IDE single fifo | PRI BM IDE | PRI BM IDE |
| HD Controller | SEC IDE single fifo | SEC BM IDE | SEC BM IDE |
| HD Controller | Std IDE controller | 82371AB PCI BM
IDE controller |
82371AB PCI BM
IDE controller |
| ?Other | ? PCI bridge | ? PCI bridge | ? Removed |
| ?Other | ? PCI USB | ? PCI USB | ? Removed |
| System Devices | DMA controller
Check 64 KB & 4 GB |
DMA controller
Check 64 KB & 4 GB |
DMA controller
Check 64 KB & 4 GB |
| System Devices | PCI Std Host Bridge | 82439TX Pentium Processor to PCI Bridge | 82439TX Pentium Processor to PCI Bridge |
| System Devices | PCI Std ISA Bridge | PCI Std ISA Bridge | 82371AB PCI - ISA |
| USB | . | . | PCI USB universal
host controller and Root Hub |
| . | . | . | . |
| Test | USBSUPP | USBSUPP +
Intel BMIDE Driver |
USBSUPP +
Intel BMIDE + PCI_TX |
| WinBench 98 v 1.0 | . | . | . |
| CPUmark 32 | 646 | 646 | 646 |
| FPU | 818 | 818 | 817 |
| Business Disk 98 | 1240 | 1200 | 1180 |
| High-End Disk 98 | 3490 | 3410 | 3400 |
| CPU Utilization | 8.34% | 44.7% | 45.3% |
| Avg Seek (ms) | 14.5 | 14.5 | 14.3 |
| Transfer - Beginning | 11200 KB per sec | 10900 KB per sec | 10800 KB per sec |
| Transfer - End | 9520 KB per sec | 9070 KB per sec | 9290 KB per sec |
| Win95 Build | 1212 | 1212 | 1212 |
| . | . | . | . |
| Threadmark 2.0 | 5.77 MB per sec @ 27.84% Utilization | 4.57 MB per sec @
34.38% Utilization |
4.93 MB per sec @
33.41% Utilization |
| . | . | . | . |
| HD Tach 2.00 | . | . | . |
| Transfer Rates
Max - Min - Avg In KB per sec |
11071 - 6544 - 9562 | 11068 - 6546 - 9561 | 11076 - 6551 - 9564 |
| Avg Seek -
Peak Transfer Rate |
15.5 ms
21.1 MB per sec |
15.6 ms
20.7 MB per sec |
15.2 ms
20.9 MB per sec |
Next - Tyan 3.10
BM Drivers
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& Default MS Drivers |
BMIDE Drivers |
BM Drivers |
Triones v. 370 |
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BMIDE Drivers |
Intel Drivers |
& BM Links |
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