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- Date:
- Sunday , August 20, 2006
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP
ASUS brings us an Intel P965 chipset in the form of the P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP motherboard. It features Intel Core 2 Extreme and Core 2 Duo support as well as many other features. But how does it fare from the enthusiast’s point of view?
BIOS
ASUS used the American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) BIOS with the P5B DELUXE. Version 507 was used for testing and is shown here.
The Standard CMOS features section should be familiar to most of you. Here you set the date and time, as well as basic language options, floppy disk drive options and here, some basic IDE functionality has been included on this page. As is the current trend at ASUS, there is a system information page, which contains information about the processor and installed memory. BIOS version and the BIOS build date are here as well.
On this main page, you can enter the IDE Configuration sub menu. Here you can configure most of the needed SATA options. It is worth noting that any standard PATA device is configured through the J Micron controllers BIOS and not here. There is no real BIOS level PATA support here and the single included EIDE channel is attached to the JMB 363 controller instead of the ICH8R Southbridge. Under the IDE Configuration menu you have three modes of operation to use the onboard SATA controller, IDE, AHCI or RAID. If RAID is selected, then another menu option will appear. This option toggles the SATA RAID Boot ROM. Hard disk write protection and IDE Detect Time Out settings are also represented here.
The Advanced tab of the BIOS is where the ASUS JumperFree Configuration can be found. This utility is where all the work gets done for the overclocking crowd. For those of you looking to purchase a board like this for that purpose, you'll no doubt spend much time becoming familiar with this section. There are many other sections under the Advanced Tab as I mentioned before, we will come back to the others a bit later.
Once you enter the JumperFree menu, the title changes to "Configure System Frequency/Voltage". As with most motherboards and of course ASUS boards in particular, extra options show up once you start changing values from Auto to Manual. This board is no exception. The first option is Ai Tuning. Once set to manual, many new options become visible. CPU Frequency is the option that controls the FSB of the processor. This value multiplied by the clock multiplier becomes the CPU's new speed. This BIOS version supports FSB speeds of 266MHz to 650MHz. So there is lots of headroom when it comes to FSB speed settings for your CPU with this board.
DRAM Frequency is the next setting. AUTO, DDR 2-533MHz, DDR 2-667MHz, DDR 2-800MHz, DDR 2-889MHz and DDR 2-1067MHz are all choices listed here. PCI Express Frequency is adjustable from 100MHz to 150MHz and is pretty standard across most motherboards I've ever worked with. PCI Clock Synchronization allows you to lock your PCI bus at 33.3MHz which is of course a must have feature. The next setting is memory voltage. Memory voltages range from 1.80v to 2.45v and are adjusted with this setting. CPU core voltage is the next option and the range is 1.1000v to 1.7000v. FSB Termination Voltage ranges from 1.2v to 1.45v and NB VCore is adjustable from 1.25v to 1.65v while the SB is adjustable form 1.50v to 1.80v. The ICH Chipset Voltage has three settings, Auto, 1.057v and 1.215v.
LAN Cable status is the next option. This option can be used to check network cables, and is therefore useful in trouble shooting network issues, when a cable is suspected of being the problem. This is fairly standard with most new ASUS motherboards, but it is a nice feature though I doubt it gets used much. USB Configuration follows the LAN Cable Status menu. This section allows basic adjustment of legacy USB support, port 64/60 emulation, and BIOS EHCI Hand off. The next section of interest under the Advanced tab is the CPU Configuration menu. Here you can adjust your CPU multiplier, CPU thermal management, Execute Disable, and HyperThreading options.
Under Advanced Chipset Configuration you'll find the Northbridge and Southbridge Configuration menus and the Northbridge menu is where your memory timings are actually found. This makes very little sense to me, but I will cover that in more detail later. Like most settings that default to "AUTO", once they are set to manual, or in this case disabled you will find additional settings to configure. You will find CAS Latency, RAS to CAS Delay, RAS Precharge, RAS Activate to Precharge, Write to Recovery Time, TRFC, TRRD, Rank Write to Read Delay, Read to Precharge Delay, and Static Read Control options. You will also find the Initiate Graphic Adapter option and the PEG Force x1 settings here as well.
Under the Southbridge Configuration there is only one option to be found. The option you will find here is the PCIEX16_2/PCIEX1_1 Force option. This sets the mode of the secondary PCIe x16 slot to x4 or x1 mode. x4 is the default option.
Onboard Devices Configuration is the next section. Here you will find the settings to enable or disable the HD Audio Controller, as well as make adjustments to the Front Panel Support type. The IEEE1394a controller can be enabled or disabled here, as well as both LAN adapters and the J Micron SATA/PATA controller. The final option under Devices Configuration is the serial port address settings. The last section under the Advanced Tab is the PCIPnP menu. Here you can toggle PnP OS to yes or no, and adjust PCI latency timers as well as VGA Palette Snooping. IRQ's can be reserved or set for PCI Devices, but you can not assign individual IRQ's to slots or specific devices.
Power is the next tab on the list. Here you can find suspend and ACPI options as well as Advanced Power Management. The last option on this page is the Hardware Monitor. When I would attempt to enter this section with BIOS versions 505 and 507 the system would appear to hang for 10 seconds or longer and then I would be taken into the Hardware Monitor sub menus. Once inside the menus you can adjust CPU temperature warnings, as well as view the current CPU and Motherboard Temperature zones. CPU fan speeds for various zones may be adjusted here, and you will find the ASUS Q-Fan options here as well. Q-Fan for those of you that do not know, is designed to keep your system fans running quiet by keeping the RPMs down on he fans, and adjust their speed according to temperature. Additionally, VCore and other voltages are displayed here in real time.
The next tab is the Boot tab. Here you can configure the boot device priority, adjust other boot settings under the Boot Settings Configuration menu, or setup BIOS passwords. Most of this tab is self-explanatory. Tools are the next and final tab before the exit menu. This section has two things in it of consequence the ASUS EZ Flash 2 and ASUS O.C. Profile configuration which will both take you to nearly identical menus where you can browse for BIOS files (even from non-NTFS formatted media.) and browse for overclocking profiles. I used both features and found them to be easy to use and very handy. Under the OC Profile sub menus you can create, save or load OC profiles. Again this utility is really easy to use and is self-explanatory.