Asus P5LD2 Deluxe (Intel 945P)
BIOS
The BIOS of Asus P5LD2 is built on the AMI BIOS version.
The section dealing with memory settings contains only a standard set of latency timings - ("CAS Latency", "Precharge to Active"(Trp), "Active to precharge" (Tras), and "Active to CMD"(Trcd)).
The next parameter that affects the performance is setting the memory operating frequency.
So, the user gets all whatever divisors for the memory frequency - 1:2(DDR2-400), 2:3 (DDR2-533), 3:4 (DDR2-600), 5:6 (DDR2-667), and 1:1 (DDR2-800). At FSB = 266MHz (1066QPB), the divisors are as follows: 3:8(DDR2-400), 1:2 (DDR2-533), 9:16(DDR2-600), 5:8(DDR2-667), 2:3(DDR2-711), 3:4(DDR2-800), and 5:6(DDR2-889).
It should be noted that the board refused to run with Kingmax DDR2-533 memory at DDR2-533 frequency. So we had to run all the tests with DDR2-533 noname modules made on Samsung chips. There is another peculiarity to note: in the nominal modes, the board always sets the maximum memory frequency (by SPD). And the frequency divisor selected by the user starts running from a certain FSB speed (for 266 MHz bus processors, this mark is = 270 MHz).
As I already stated, the user can specify the number of lines for the PCI Express bus allocated to the second PCI-E x16 slot (2 or 4).
The board has a couple of features in the BIOS which may theoretically affect the performance. That is "HyperPath3"
and the "Performance Mode".
In fact, we didn't notice any changes in speed during operation.
Now move on to the section to do with the system monitoring.
The board displays the current temperatures for the processor and the system, rotational speeds of all the four fans, as well as voltage levels. Besides, for the processor cooler as well as for the CHA_FAN1 the improved Q-Fan feature is accessible, which allows adjusting the rotational speed versus the processor temperature.
Besides, you can trace the system monitoring readings from within Windows as well. To this end, there is the Asus PCProbe system monitoring utility. Programmers at Asus have also released the second version of this utility which is still a bit raw (issued an error upon start-up).
The board can operate with Asus LiveUpdate utility designed for updating drivers, reflashing the BIOS and changing the boot-up POST screen (the MyLogo2 feature). Finally, the board offers support for CrashFree BIOS 2 (restoring the damaged BIOS with a floppy or CD). Therefore, any experiments with the BIOS are safe enough.
Also, of note is that the BIOS settings can be displayed in several languages:
 |
Top Stories: |
 |
 |
|
MoBo:
| |
|
|
VGA Card:
|
|
|
|
CPU & Memory:
|
|
