Abit AA8 (Intel 925X Alderwood)
BIOS
The BIOS of Abit AA8 is based on the Award BIOS version, and at first glance is not different from boards of the previous generation.
In the memory operation settings section, there is nothing of a surprise: a standard pack of latency timings ("CAS Latency", "Precharge to Active"(Trp), "Active to precharge" (Tras) and "Active to CMD"(Trcd)).
This should be that way because there aren't any fundamental differences between DDR2 and DDR.
But the parameter for setting the memory operating speed is in the mGuru section dealing with overclocking and system monitoring.
The available set of memory frequency divisors is in direct dependence on the "N\B Strap CPU" parameter which detects the type of the processor used.
Therefore, the user gets access to all possible memory frequency multipliers, both increasing and reducing.
Another feature of the mGuru chip is the following: all the BIOS settings can be stored in the memory of the mGuru chip (another possible option - in the non-reflashable area of the BIOS) as a named profile. For example, you can make two profiles: "Normal" and "Overclocked", respectively with the nominal settings and overclocking parameters.
To store a profile, the F6 key is used, and F7 - for loading.
Now move on to the section to do with the system monitoring. It is also in the mGuru section.
Because of the large number of features and parameters, the section is partitioned into groups.
The first group, "Temperature Monitoring", displays the current values for the processor temperature, system and two sensors from the power module. Also, the user can activate the processor overheat signalization and enable the automatic system power-off feature upon attaining a certain temperature.
The second section is purely informative and displays the current voltage levels.
At that, programmers at Abit first introduced the feature of warning and automatic system power-off if the voltage drops exceed the admissible boundaries (user-defined).
Then, look into the "Fan Speed Monitoring" section responsible for the system fans.
AA8 keeps track of the rotation of all the fans which can be plugged to the system (remember that there are 5 respective connectors onboard). Moreover, you can assign signals of deceleration or stoppage to every fan, as well as enable the function of system power-off in case the fan has stopped.
Besides, you can trace the system monitoring readings from within Windows as well. For that, there is the Abit EQ utility for system monitoring.
Finally, there is the "FanEQ Control" with which the user can set the dependence of fan speed on the processor temperature.
This allows decreasing the noise levels considerably when the system is not overloaded (actually, it is hard to attain high results because of the excessive heat emission of Prescott processors).
Now a few words on the Abit FlashMenu utility which is meant to reflash the BIOS and also runs in the Windows system.
Resume: the BIOS of Abit AA8 board offers a really wide feature-set. This especially applies to the system monitoring section which has no analogs at its potentials (we actually haven't yet looked into other boards on i915\i925 :). Besides, the feature for saving all the BIOS parameters as a profile is definite plus.
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