chapter

S YSTEM O VERVIEW
The Compaq Armada 6500 Family of Personal Computers uses a 266-, 300-, 333-, or
366-MHz Mobile Pentium II (MP2) processor in an ISA/PCI/AGP bus architecture. It
is a compact, lightweight, high performance desktop replacement computer for the
power user who desires the maximum performance available in a very mobile package.
The computer, shown in Figure 2-1, docks only with a custom set of peripherals
designed for its own use.

Figure 2-1. Compaq Armada 6500 Personal Computer

System Overview 2-1

Standard Features

Pre-installed Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT 3.51

Supported Operating Systems: Windows NT-3.51 and 4.0,
Windows 95, Windows 98
Windows 95/Windows 98 keyboard
Hot-Docking capability to Convenience Base and Mobile Expansion Unit
14.1 XGA LCD panel
Removable 6.4 GB hard drive
Integrated Touchpad pointing device
Twelve cell Li-Ion battery pack which is warm swappable
Fast charge of battery while system is off or suspended
Battery charging while system is on
64 MB of SDRAM memory onboard
Two 144 pin SO-DIMMs for maximum memory of 320 MB
(using 128 MB DIMMs)
Modular bay for diskette drive, hard drive, DVD-ROM, LS-120 (SuperDisk),
and CD-ROM drives, all hot/warm swappable
Internal 56 kbps modem and 10/100 Base-T Ethernet via internal PCMCIA slot
(UMI slot)
Keyboard controller with integrated power management support (Hitachi H8)
Flashable ROM BIOS, H8, and UMI firmware
Simultaneous CRT/LCD support including different resolutions, color depths,
and refresh rates
Hotkey popup setup (boot-time only)
Zoom video support via bottom system CardBus slot
Integrated Status LCD Display

2-2 System Overview

External Ports/Connectors

160-pin docking connector on the bottom of the system

Removable smart battery pack
Fast IR window with support for 4 Mbps data transfer
Two CardBus slots with bottom slot support for zoom video card
Audio connectors for speaker/headphone out and microphone in
One PS/2 connector for mouse or external keyboard with support for Y cable for
two devices
RJ-11 Modem jack with internal connection to UMI slot
RJ-45 Ethernet jack with internal connection to UMI slot
AC input connector
One DB-15 VGA connector with support for DDC-2B monitor detection
One DB-9 Serial port connector
One DB-25 Parallel port connector with support for ECP, EPP, Bi-directional, and
standard mode
One low-power USB port, with standard Type A connector

Power Management

Advanced Power Management (APM) v1.2 compliant

Advanced Configuration and Power Management (ACPI) v1.0 compliant
Support for Standby (S1), Suspend-to-RAM (S3), and Suspend-to-Disk (S4)
Power management settings can be customized by the user
Hotkeys for setting level of performance vs. battery life
Smart batteries which provide accurate battery power gauge
Dock device power management
Active Thermal Feedback (ATF) support
Lid switch suspend/resume
Power/Suspend button with system override

System Overview 2-3

System Architecture
The system architecture is shown in Figure 2-2.

Docking I/F
PCI Bus

PDD[15:0]

HDD Conn
SDD[15:0]

ISA Bus
QPDD[15:0]
R/WDATA#

Q_S/W
AD[31:0]

SD[7:0]

SD[15:0]

CPU

Super I/O

PCI/ISA

PDA[7:0],SOUT,SIN,IRTX,FIRRX
SIO/PIO/IR

97338

PDA[7:0],DOCK_SOUT,DOCK_SIN
USBP1+/-

PIIX4

D[63:0]#
SDRAM
X8

DIMM
X2

AD[31:0]

Host
Bridge

TPS
2014
SD[7:0]

MD[63:0]#

SCP

443BX
(AGP)

FLASH ROM

SD[7:0]

VMD[63:0]#

USBP1+/-

DC/DC B/D
(DCDC,USB CONN)
DOCK_KBD_DATA,DOCK_MS_DATA,IICDATA

IICDATA EEPROM

H8

GAD[31:0]

VIDEO
DRAM
X2

BAY Conn

KEYC,KEYROW,PS2_KBD/MS_DATA,TP_DATA

INT KBD/TOUCHPAD
/EXT KBD/MOUSE

CRT_R/G/B

ATI
3D RAGE
LT Pro

CRT CONN
DDDA,DOCK_R/G/B
LCD_TXOUT0+/-,1+/-,2+/-

Z-UV[7:0],
Z_Y[7:0]

AD[31:0]

CardBus
TI1210

LCD CONN

UC_CAD[31:0]

TV_Y,C,COMP
Single Slot
RJ-45

AD[31:0]
ZV BUFF

SDATA
CardBus
TI1221
A/B_CAD[31:0]

ITALIC : ANALOG DATA

S/PDIF

MIC
Slot B
Slot A

AD[31:0]

RJ-11

TPS2211
Z_SDATA,
Z_LR

MIC IN

AOUT_L/R
SDATA_IN/OUT

MAESTRO
2E

TPA0102

SPK_RIGHT/LEFT

ES1918

Figure 2-2. Compaq Armada 6500, Block Diagram

The system is made up of four main buses: the host bus, the AGP bus, the PCI bus, and
the ISA bus. The Intel 440BX chipset controls all four buses. The 82443BX interfaces
the host bus to the AGP and PCI buses and is referred to as the Northbridge. The
PIIX4E interfaces from the PCI bus to the ISA bus and is referred to as the
Southbridge.
The host bus is connected to:
Pentium II processor
Secondary cache (L2)
Chipset Northbridge (82443BX)

2-4 System Overview

XA3-0
XSD

The AGP bus is connected to:

Northbridge Chipset (82443BX)
Video controller (3D RAGE LT Pro)
System SDRAM

The PCI bus is connected to:

Northbridge Chipset (82443BX)
Southbridge Chipset (PIIX4E)
CardBus controllers
Audio subsystem

The ISA bus is connected to:

Southbridge Chipset (PIIX4E)

Flash ROM
H8 System Control Processor (SCP)
Audio subsystem
Super I/O Controller (SIO)

CPU
MP2 300/66 MHz with 512 K of L2 cache
MP2 333/66, 366/66 MHz with 256 K of on-chip L2 cache

Chipset
Intel 82443BX Northbridge
Support for all Intel Pentium II processors
Unbuffered and Registered SDRAM DRAM support (x-1-1-1 access @ 66 and
100 MHz)
Enhanced SDRAM Open Page Architecture Support for 16- and 64-Mbit DRAM
devices with 2 K, 4 K, and 8 K page sizes
PCI bus interface

PCI Rev. 2.1, 3.3 V, and 5 V, 33 MHz interface compliant

PCI Parity Generation support

Data streaming support from PCI to DRAM

Delayed Transaction support for PCI-DRAM reads

System Overview 2-5

AGP interface

Integrated DRAM controller supports single AGP-66/133 compliant

device (3.3 V)

AGP Specification Rev 1.0 compliant

AGP data/transaction flow optimized arbitration mechanism

AGP side-band interface for efficient request pipelining

AGP specific data buffering

Supports concurrent CPU, AGP and PCI transactions to main memory

AGP high-priority transaction support

Advanced power management features

Supports Standby (S1), Suspend-to-DRAM (S3), and Suspend-to-Disk (S4)

Static Stop Clock support

Dynamic power down of idle DRAM rows

SDRAM self-refresh power down support in suspend mode

Stop clock grant and halt special cycle translation (host to PCI Bus)

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) compliant power

management

492-pin BGA package

3.3 V core and mixed 3.3 V and GTL I/O
Interfaces directly to the PIIX4E

Intel PIIX4E Southbridge

3.3 V with 5 V tolerance
PCI-to-ISA bridge

Supports full ISA or Extended I/O (EIO) bus in positive decode or subtractive
mode

Supports PCI DMA with 3 PC/PCI channels and Distributed DMA protocols
(simultaneously)

Supports serialized IRQ protocol

PCI Rev. 2.1 specification support

Built-in Real Time Clock with wake-on-alarm capability (ACPI/OnNow compliant)

SMBus interface

2-6 System Overview

Advanced Power Management support

3.3 V Operation with 5 V Tolerant Buffers

Power-On Suspend (S1), Suspend-to-DRAM (S3), Suspend-to-Disk (S4), and

Soft-off (S5) System States

All registers readable and restorable for proper resume from 0.V suspend

Global and local device management

Supports thermal alarm

Support for external microcontroller

Full support for ACPI Rev. 1.0 specification and OS directed power
management

Two separately configurable IDE controllers with Ultra-DMA-33 support

Integrated 16 x 32-bit Buffer for IDE PCI burst transfers

Two hot-swappable USB channels with legacy keyboard/mouse support

324-pin mBGA package

DRAM
One bank of 64bit 64 MB synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) memory onboard
Two 144 pin SO-DIMMs (Bank 1 and 2)
All DRAM is 3.3 V 66 MHz or faster self-refreshing SDRAM

PCI Bus Devices

NOTE: All internal PCI buses and PCI components operate at 3.3 V.

CardBus controllers
TI1221

Support for Zoom Video slot

Support for serialized ISA IRQs

Supports two PC Card/CardBus slots with hot removal/insertion

Burst transfers to maximize data throughput on the PCI/CardBus bus

16-bit distributed DMA support

Supports ring indicate

System Overview 2-7

TI1210

Single slot CardBus controller for UMI modem/LAN combo card

Single socket PCMCIA interface

Supports one PC Card/CardBus slot with hot removal/insertion

Automatic low power mode for improved power consumption

Five programmable memory windows and two I/O windows

16-bit distributed DMA support

Supports ring indicate

Video Controller
ATI 3D RAGE LT Pro

64-bit memory interface

Advanced Graphics Platform (AGP) 2x bus with sideband support 133 MHz
throughput

Floating-Point Setup Engine for high-performance 3D and CAD

Motion compensation for full-screen MPEG-2 video without external

acceleration hardware

4 MB 3.3 V 100 MHz Video SGRAM

Support for Zoom Video

Built-in support for LVDS data bus to LCD display

Built-in NTSC and PAL TV support

Simultaneous display of CRT+LCD or TV+LCD, including separate images

DDC 2B support for external monitors

Advanced power management features (automatic power-down, Standby, and

Panel-off)

2-8 System Overview

Audio
ESS Maestro 2E/ES1918 CODEC

Hot docking 6-pin interface to expansion audio mixer (ES978)

Monophonic full-duplex using two DMA channels

Self-timed joystick port

IS interface to internal stereo D/A for external ZV port

Complete general interrupt mapping, including sharing of all interrupts

Stereo 16-bit, Wavetable and FM synthesizers, MPU-401 MIDI support

ISA Bus Devices

NOTE: All internal ISA buses and ISA components operate at 3.3 V.

BIOS ROM
Intel 28F004BV

4 MB boot block flash ROM

System Command Processor (H8)

Hitachi HD647343

Support for two external PS/2 ports and internal Touchpad simultaneously

IC bus master for communication to docking interface components, EEPROM,

Status LCD

Hotkey interface

Secure password protection

System power plane control and power sequencing

Battery management interface for charging and smart battery gas gauge

Active thermal interface for CPU thermal management

Status LCD/device monitoring interface

System Overview 2-9

Super I/O
National Semiconductor PC97338

FDC controller with Japanese diskette support

IEEE 1284 Parallel port

Serial-Infrared support: IrDA 1.1 (115 Kbps and 4 Mbps)

Full Plug-and-Play support

Two 16550 UARTs

UMI Modem/LAN
Xircom CEM56

Internal single type II PCMCIA slot (UMI slot)

Flexible method of supporting an internal modem, LAN, or modem/LAN combo

card with the least amount of difficulty surrounding European modem approvals

Slot supported only with Compaq approved cards

Power Subsystem

System DC/DC

Based on the MAX786 and LT1372

MAX786 provides stable 3.3, 5.0 V from a DC source of 6.5 to 25 V

LT1372 provides stable 12 V from a DC source of 6.5 to 25 V

2-10 System Overview

CPU DC/DC

Cache I/O DC/DC

Based on the LT1372, provides stable 5.0 V from the system DC/DC source

Clock Power DC/DC

Based on the LT1624, provides stable 1.8 V from a DC source of 6.5 to 25 V

Audio DC/DC

Based on the LT1435, provides stable 3.1, 2.9, 1.8, 1.6 V from a DC source of 6.5
to 25 V

Based on the LT1118, provides stable 2.5 V from the system DC/DC source

AC Cube

Provides 24 VDC +/- 5% at 100-240 VAC

45W minimum output

12 cell Li-Ion battery

Mechanical
Size 9.85 (250 mm) x 12.4 (315 mm) x 1.4 (35.5 mm)
Weight less than 6.0 lbs. with weight-saver bay module
Construction thin wall .040-.050 (1.0 1.2 mm) high-strength polyamide
with 30% carbon fiber plastics with EMI shielding properties
Features

Bottom-mounted docking connector for vertical docking

Side-access module bay for diskette drive, CD-ROM drive, LS-120 drive, DVDROM drive, second hard drive

Removable main hard drive

Easy-to-access memory upgrades

Ergonomic design

System Overview 2-11

Docking Product Summary

Mobile Expansion Unit Features

Second module bay with support for 12.7 mm and 17 mm bay devices (all system
devices, plus Zip1 drive)
Three speakers which include two tweeters and one sub-woofer
Video output (NTSC/PAL) via RCA or S-video jacks
AC-3 (Dolby Digital) sound via S/PDIF interface
Industry-standard MIDI/Joystick port
Mechanical

Size - 9.75 (250 mm) x 12.0 (315 mm) x 1.0 (25.4 mm)

Weight less than 1.8 lbs. with weight-saver bay module

Construction Thin wall (0.50 0.60) (1.2 mm 1.5 mm), high strength
polycarbonate with 10% glass fiber plastic

Top-mounted docking connector for vertical docking with the system

Bottom-mounted docking connector for vertical docking with the Convenience

Base

Self-guiding docking action between the system and the Mobile Expansion Unit

Solenoid-locked latch mechanism for software controlled docking and security

Convenience Base (Port Replicator)

Battery charger
Parallel port
Serial port
CRT port
(2) PS/2 ports
USB port (second USB channel, pass-through port from system)
DC in jack
RJ-45 jack (if UMI combo card present in the system)

Zip is a trademark of Iomega Corporation

2-12 System Overview