Written By:
Date Posted: June 10, 2002

The BIOS

    The BIOS of this board houses most of the important functions that can be controlled by the user, such as the CPU speed, memory speed/timing, on board hardware, and the health monitor.  So lets look at three of the unique BIOS screens to see what they offer that is different from other boards, as most of the other screens are the same for most boards.

    Here is where most of the overclockers' time will be spent in the BIOS, you can control many things in this screen.  The FSB control goes all the way from 100MHz to 255MHz (510 DDR) assuming that the jumper on the motherboard is set for 100MHz, which is a good idea if you are overclocking by multiplier.  The CPU multiplier goes from only 6X to 15X with a 12.5X multiplier being noticeably absent.  There is also a new feature that is enabled in the newest BIOS, as it shows the AGP/PCI frequency of the FSB you are using.  There is a switch for Watching-Dog Timer, which works by resetting to default CPU settings if an overclock fails, though it hasn't worked for me personally.  The CPU voltage settings go from 1.4V to 2.2V which is more than most Socket A motherboards are able to supply by 0.35V, which can mean allot when overclocking it.   The DDR DIMM voltage is also unusually varied as it allows for a 0.7V voltage increase where most newer motherboards only allow for a 0.3V or so increase.

    This is one place that gives the most information about you PC's current health status.  It also contains three very useful options, the first being to show the current health status during POST, a feature I personally like allot.  It also offers a warning temperature setting and also an automatic shutdown setting if your CPU gets too hot.

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