![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , October 26, 2006
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
abit AB9 Pro
abit is a long time favorite of the PC enthusiast and gaming crowds alike. Today we take a look at one of their feature-packed P965 Express motherboards for Core 2 Duo and see if the new "Universal abit" is worthy of the old "ABIT" name.
abit Utilities
The abit AB9 Pro comes with three bundled utilities, uGuru, Blackbox, and Flashmenu. abit’s uGuru chip technology allows real time monitoring of several motherboard features and systems. Including fan speed, voltages, CPU temperature and it covers the general health and status of the motherboard and CPU. Also it allows for real time tweaking of FSB, and memory values for overclocking. All this can be done in Windows without having to restart the system to make changes or test them.
The uGuru application has three main sections. They are accessible when the corresponding left side button is clicked from the main panel of the application. They are ABIT EQ, OC Guru, and FAN EQ. ABIT EQ is responsible for system voltages, temperatures, and fan speeds. The OC Guru displays system statistics on CPU frequency, FSB, board voltages, and power cycle events and information. FAN EQ shows real time statistics on temperature thresholds and voltage settings for all six onboard fan headers.
The ABIT uGuru applications also supports different skins so you can customize the look of the application. The Default (Full) setting shows all available system statistics. The Default (Simple) option shows minimal CPU related information. When the Mini Panel (Show CPU Info Only) skin is selected, the same information displays which is found in the Default (Simple) view, how ever the size of the application windows is reduced to a small vertical bar.
The settings menu is accessed by clicking on the settings button found in the main application screen. The menu has been divided into several submenus. Five to be exact, they are: ABIT EQ, AutoDrive, Fan EQ, OC Guru, and General. The ABIT EQ menu controls display and monitors settings for the voltages, temperature, and fan speed statistics found on the main page of the interface. From the AutoDrive menu, ABIT has provided profiles that allow you to create overclocking profiles for different applications. The Fan EQ menu controls voltages and settings for the onboard fan headers, as well as temperature thresholds. As the name "OC" Guru implies, the OC Guru controls FSB and voltage settings for the motherboard. The General menu has interface refresh and startup settings.
The ABIT Flash Menu application allows you to flash the system BIOS in Windows. It allows you to archive the existing BIOS. By clicking on the settings window an advanced settings menu appears and from here, you can configure the post flash behavior. You may clear the CMOS checksum, update the PNP area and the DMI information and lastly the BIOS boot block.
The ABIT Black Box is for reporting errors. It is a useful technical support tool that allows the application to gather system information from your hardware configuration so that it can be passed to abit's technical support. This helps a great deal when the end user doesn't know that much about their hardware. It allows the technical support to get more exact information about the system than the average user can provide. I'd like to note here that on my test board and system configuration, the Black Box software was unable to gather power supply and memory information. In such an event, ABIT does provide a manual entry form for this. You may also choose to enter information manually, rather than allow the Black Box software to gather the information.