Barco EOS Owner's manual

Brand: Barco

Model: EOS

Type: Owner's manual

This newsletter is a service of Barco Control Rooms. 12 January 2006

The information provided should be treated as confidential.

Please contact rudolf.winghart@barco.com for remarks and suggestions. page 1 of 4

ProductNews

12 Jan 2006

Keeping pace with current PC technology is a key factor for a state-of-the

art display wall controller. The new TransForm A4 generation of the

TransForm A Processor incorporates new, future-proof technologies like

Serial-ATA, USB and PCI Express and comes with improved system

performance.

Sales release

TransForm A – 3.6 GHz CPU, 1 GByte, 4 PCI slots

Overview

The switch to the next generation of mainboards was triggered by the discontinuation of the

current mainboard and the matching type of Pentium CPU. The product innovation entails the

benefits of new features, standards and interfaces but naturally affects the specifications in

both directions

Following evolution in PC technology, at the end of the current mainboard time has come to

face up to the facts of a reduced number of standard PCI slots. Instead of previously 6 PCI

slots, the new mainboard provides only 4 of them. To some extent this minus is balanced out

by 3 new PCI Express (PCIe) slots.

Special attention has to be paid to compatibility and spare and replacement part

management, due to the change in internal interface types for disk drives etc.

Specification

Besides the reduced number of PCI slots the system now provides more standard memory,

more max. memory and a higher processor performance in combination with new

PC technologies like Serial-ATA disk drive interfaces, the PCI Express system bus, USB

keyboard connection, DDR2 memory technology, … and all at the same list prices as before.

As the core component of the T

RANSFORM A PROCESSOR, it is the mainboard that mostly

accounts for the change in specifications, but following technology trends also additional

changes will be introduced with this step.

The T

RANSFORM A PROCESSOR now is driven by a Intel Pentium IV processor 660, featuring

3.6 GHz, a front side bus running at 800 MHz and 2MByte of on-chip second level cache.

Depending on the application this results in an increase of performance between 5% and 25%

compared to the former 3.4 GHz system.

The new T

RANSFORM A PROCESSOR comes standard with 1 GByte of main memory and has two

free memory sockets for an optional expansion up to 3 GByte (using 2x 1 GByte memory

modules). This is not only an implicit price reduction, but also allows upgrading without the

need of removing the memory modules from the basic configuration.

The 4 PCI slots allow inserting up to 4 T

RANSFORM A expansion cards in Processor-only

configurations or connecting up to 4 T

RANSFORM A OMNIBUS units. In order to save the PCI

slots as much as possible for expansion cards and O

MNIBUS interfaces, the 3 additional

PCI Express slots will be made available for PCI Express Ethernet adapter cards.

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The information provided should be treated as confidential.

Please contact rudolf.winghart@barco.com for remarks and suggestions. page 2 of 4

ProductNews

Therefore two new PCI Express based 10/100/1000 Mbit network adapters will be introduced.

A single channel standard adapter card is available to extend the onboard Ethernet port. For

redundant Ethernet configurations there is a new dual channel server adapter. While the dual

channel server adapter is limited to one card, up to 3 standard Ethernet adapter cards can be

added to the system

Please note:

There is always an integrated 10/100/1000 Mbit onboard Ethernet port on the mainboard!

Thus systems requiring only one Ethernet port do not need an extra network adapter card.

In the field of disk drive interfaces also a replacement process is ongoing. The more flexible

and robust Serial-ATA (SATA) interface is driving out the 80-pin flat ribbon cable based

Parallel-ATA. For T

RANSFORM A the SATA interface will now become standard for all 3 available

disk subsystem types, RAID-1, RAID-5, and the standard single disk.

It has also to be mentioned that the floppy disk drive will no longer be a standard part of the

system. But of course it will continuously remain available as an option and as a spare part.

USB keyboard & mouse

With the update of the T

RANSFORM A PROCESSOR also the USB interface technology will be

introduced for connecting mouse and keyboard to the T

RANSFORM A PROCESSOR. While the

current mouse already supports USB, a new keyboard of type Cherry G81 will be added to the

product portfolio and the proprietary PS/2 based keyboard/mouse-extender will be

substituted by a 3

party USB extender. Standard extension length will again be 20m but

optionally up to 50m will be supported using off-the-shelf Cat5 cables.

Transition handling

RANSFORM A4 (RSAGS33890 and RSAGS33891) is hereby released for sale!

The BFO configurator and price book will include the new articles from January 15

, 2006 on.

All orders for RSAGS33282 and RSAGS33283 (T

RANSFORM A6 PROCESSOR) will be manually

checked. In close cooperation with project management and the respective sales executives

the orders will be upgraded to the new T

RANSFORM A PROCESSOR, TRANSFORM A4 wherever

applicable.

Orders for T

RANSFORM A6 (RSAGS33282 and RSAGS33283) later than January 15

will require

an SSR.

Please note:

For the time of the transition, a reliable management of the remaining quantities of the

components in question requires a tight control of orders and deliveries. The goal is to ensure

that projects which have been offered as a T

RANSFORM A6 solution in a Processor-only

configuration can be carried out as planned. Furthermore a sufficient amount of the

components will be reserved for spares, repair and system extensions.

This newsletter is a service of Barco Control Rooms. 12 January 2006

The information provided should be treated as confidential.

Please contact rudolf.winghart@barco.com for remarks and suggestions. page 3 of 4

ProductNews

TransForm A Processor components

Starting February 2006, every T

RANSFORM A configuration will come with the new version of

the T

RANSFORM A PROCESSOR. As with the previous version, the device is available as non-

redundant and redundant version and can be equipped with a standard hard disk, RAID-1 or

RAID-5 hard disks.

The following table lists the article numbers for the T

RANSFORM A PROCESSOR and its optional

components:

Item Description Comment

RSAGS33890 TransForm A Processor non-redundant power supply,

3.6GHz, 4xPCI slots

1 GByte DDR2 RAM

RSAGS33891 TransForm A Processor redundant power supply,

3.6GHz, 4xPCI slots

1 GByte DDR2 RAM

RSDRV33930 TransForm A hard disk Hard disk, 80GB, SATA

RSDRV33940 TransForm A RAID-1 disk system RAID level 1 disk system with

2 hard disks, 2x80GB,SATA

RSDRV34020 TransForm A RAID-5 disk system RAID level 5 disk system with

3 hard disks, 3x80GB, SATA

RSNET33950 TransForm A Gbit Ethernet Adapter PCIe 10/100/1000 Mbit

RSNET33951 TransForm A 2 ch. Gbit Server Adapter PCIe 10/100/1000 Mbit, redundant

RSTAS34010 TransForm A Kbd Extension USB 20m

RSPSU33960 TransForm A power supply module Backwards compatible

RSDRV33939 TransForm A spare hard disk 80GB, SATA

RSDRV33949 TransForm A spare RAID-1 hard disk 80GB, SATA

RSDRV34029 TransForm A spare RAID-5 hard disk 80GB, SATA

RSMEM33910 TransForm A memory 512 MB DDR2 Not compatible to type DDR!

RSMEM33911 TransForm A memory 1 GB DDR2 Not compatible to type DDR!

System requirements and compatibility

Generally it is recommended to operate the system using the current software versions

POLLO Release 1.8, Windows Driver Release 4.0 and X Windows system Release 4.0 or newer.

Although the PC architecture and extensive testing ensure a high level of compatibility, there

are still some issues when upgrading or replacing faulty components in a

RANSFORM A PROCESSOR or in a former EOS/ARGUS base unit.

The Compatibility FAQ below lists all known issues.

This newsletter is a service of Barco Control Rooms. 12 January 2006

The information provided should be treated as confidential.

Please contact rudolf.winghart@barco.com for remarks and suggestions. page 4 of 4

ProductNews

Compatibility FAQ

Issue Solution

Mainboard replacement

for systems using

5 to 6 PCI slots

The new mainboard of type D2156-S is applicable as a replacement

component if all PCI cards of the system fit into 4 PCI slots.

Otherwise a D1567 mainboard from the emergency stock should be

used. It is however assumed that exceeding 4 slots is not caused by

PCI Ethernet cards, as these cards could be replaced by PCIe

Ethernet cards!

Mainboard replacement

for Windows systems

employing obsolete

QuadVideoCard

FRG-2739-0x

The Q

UADVIDEO CARD FRG-2739-0x is not working in Windows

systems with the D2156-S mainboard.

This incompatibility issue is met by a sufficient amount of the

former D1567 mainboard on stock. At the cost of a higher price and

additional slots and by the benefit of higher performance also the

replacement of the Q

UADVIDEOCARD with the superior solution

consisting of Q

UAD ANALOG VIDEO CARD and OMNISCALER could be

taken into consideration.

Mainboard replacement

for X Window systems

with Failsafe Mode

Failsafe Mode on X Window systems with the network adapter

NET-2792-1x cannot employ the D2156-S mainboard. Preferably

Extended Safety mode should be used in such cases.

Mainboard replacements

for X Window systems

using onboard LAN port

Only from version 4.0 onwards the X Windows System contains

driver support for the onboard LAN chip.

For a driver update for former versions contact Customer Support!

Parallel-ATA vs. Serial-

ATA hard disk drives

The former Parallel-ATA drives mounted in their respective drive

frames will remain available as spare parts. Currently there is no

need to switch existing systems to Serial-ATA.

Power supply

The new standard power supply is superior and backwards

compatible to its predecessor and thus will also replace it as a

spare part. There was no change in the redundant power supply.

Main memory

In contrast to the former DDR type memory modules, the new

mainboard now specifies DDR2 type memories. DDR and DDR2 are

not compatible. Therefore in case of upgrading memory or

replacement of memory make sure to use the correct memory type!

PCI Ethernet adapters vs.

PCI Express Ethernet

adapters

The former PCI Ethernet adapter cards still can be used in PCI slots

of the D2156-S mainboard of a new T

RANSFORM A4 system.

PCI Express version of

Multiport I/O card

Currently there is no PCI Express based Multiport I/O card foreseen!

The Multiport I/O card is a standard PCI card and can therefore be

used in PCI slots of the D2156-S mainboard of a new T

RANSFORM A4

system.

Firmware version of

UGX Graphic Card and

AGX Graphic Card

(BIOS)

The firmware version of the UGX G

RAPHIC CARD AGX-3281 has to be

version 07 or newer when used in combination with a D2156-S

mainboard.

The firmware version of the AGX G

RAPHIC CARD AGX-3000 has to be

version 14 or newer when used in combination with a D2156-S

mainboard.

Rudolf Winghart

Product Manager

rudolf.winghart@barco.com

Barco EOS Owner's manual

Barco EOS Owner's manual

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