![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , January 04, 2007
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
abit AW9D-MAX
The abit AW9D-MAX motherboard is abit’s premier offering for the Core 2 Duo line. With abit’s stellar reputation and the overclocking potential of the Core 2 Duo, this could be the match to beat...but it is not.
BIOS (continued)
The Advanced BIOS Features menu contains various options and submenus for system initialization, including hard drive boot up access order and CPU specific settings. All CPU specific settings, including thermal monitoring settings, are located within the CPU Features submenu. With a properly detected USB 2.0 hard drive attached to the system at initialization, the device shows as an available selection in the Hard Disk Boot Priority submenu. The priority of specific items in this menu can be changed using either the + and – keys or the PageUp and PageDown keys.
The Advanced Chipset Features menu contains all chipset related configuration settings, including the PCI-Express specific and memory timing specific settings.
With the DRAM Timing Selectable option set to Manual, all memory timing options are user configurable. Memory timing options available include the following: CAS latency; RAS to CAS delay; RAS precharge delay; and active to precharge delay (shown as Precharge Delay (tRAS)). Note that on the memory timings listed, the numerically lower setting forces more aggressive memory operation.
The Integrated Peripherals menu contains numerous submenus for configuring the onboard and system integrated devices. The On-Chip PCI Device submenu contains USB 2.0 and audio related settings, while the Onboard PCI Device submenu contains the IEEE 1394, Silicon Image RAID controllers and integrated NIC configuration options. The Serial1 ATA Controller options configures the 2 onboard SATA 2 ports, while the Serial2 ATA Controller configures the standalone onboard SATA 2 port and the e-SATA port.
The On-Chip IDE Device submenu contains all configuration settings for the IDE and SATA 2 ports tied to the ICH7R controller chipset. The overall operating status of the SATA ports is controlled through the On-Chip SATA option. With Combined Mode selected, a total of 4 hard drive devices can be used at one time, 2 on the IDE bus and 2 SATA devices. The PATA IDE Mode option configures which IDE channel the active SATA port emulate. When Enhanced Mode is selected, the system supports a total of 6 hard drive type devices. Furthermore, you have the option of enabling RAID mode on the SATA devices through the On-Chip SATA Mode option, as well as controlling the maximum port speed for the SATA ports through the SATA PORT Speed Settings option. Note that the Intel RAID boot BIOS will only show on startup with the On-Chip SATA Mode option set to RAID and one or more hard disks attached to the ICH7R controlled SATA ports.
The PnP/PCI Configurations menu determines the configuration settings for system IRQ and PnP devices. The PCI Latency Timer(CLK) option controls the latency on the PCI bus, which has can greatly impact overall system stability. While you cannot manually assign interrupt and IRQ settings, individual IRQ devices can be assigned to a specific resource pool from within this submenu. The IRQ Resources submenu becomes user accessible with the Resource Controlled By option set to Manual.