What do the BIOS Suspend Mode codes mean?

S1 stops the CPU, but it still draws power (it just halts). In S3, the CPU loses power. Only the RAM is given power. Chances are, your OS is going to control sleep states.

There are lots of fixes that have been added since A02. You should look at a list of fixes and decide if any of them would help you.

Great info, thanks for the response. The rest of the story is that I recently added a 19" LCD monitor to the Me-driven 4300 and the machine is really choking on it (frequent BSODs when booting). I downloaded the newest NVIDIA GeForce 3 display drivers (for the card that was originally shipped with the machine) but something still isn't right. Once it's up and running, though, it seems OK, so I want to leave it running until I can figure out a fix (which is why I raised the question about the upgraded BIOS). The Windows Power Scheme settings are all set to *never* but the display still slumbers as it always did. Don't know if the hard drive is running constantly or not.

The other issue concerning a possible BIOS upgrade is the recent addition of a USB 2.0 PCI card. The computer recognized it OK, and nothing seems amiss. So I ordered a USB 2.0 external drive, but don't know it will work at the higher 2.0 speed. So a related question for anyone here who knows is whether the 4300 USB function is integrated in the motherboard and will limit the USB speed despite the new card.

Many thanks

The motherboard does not limit the speed or function of USB ports on a PCI card.  The USB 2 PCI card will provide prots that run as USB 2 ports.  The existing ports, integrated on the motherboard will continue to function as USB 1.1 ports.

Steve

Thanks for the additional info, Steve.

Looking forward to USB 2.0 speed!

Regards