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ASRock 4Core1333-eSATA2 Mainboard on Intel P31 Express Chipset (page 7)

Category: Mainboards

by Doors4ever

[ 12/26/2007 | 11:53 AM ]

BIOS Setup

ASRock 4Core1333-eSATA2 mainboard uses BIOS based on American Megatrends code. It looks far from traditional, so let’s get a little bit deeper into its details.

When you enter the BIOS (by pressing F2 key) you get into the Main section where you can only set the date and time. Other than that the page contains general system info.

Most settings can be found in the Advanced section that is split into a few pages.

You can guess the pages theme from the names, their features and contents are quite typical and will not be of any surprise for those who have at least once checked out their mainboard BIOS. However, the pages are too numerous. For example, Floppy Configuration page has only one single string offering to manually set the type of the floppy drive. Therefore, I suggest that we focus on first two pages, as they seem to be the most interesting and informative of all.

CPU Configuration page allows setting FSB and PCI Express bus frequencies and adjust the processor technology settings:

Overclock Mode may be set to CPU, PCIE, Sync and CPU, PCIE, Async. In the first case PCI Express frequency increases synchronously with the FSB that can be set in the interval between 90 and 500MHz. In the second case PCIE frequency may be set independently of the FSB speed in the interval between 87 and 114MHz. Boot Failure Guard parameter should theoretically track down failed POST procedures on startup, but in reality we didn’t manage to see it working. Every time the mainboard wouldn’t boot during overclocking we had to clear CMOS with a jumper and reset all parameters anew. The processor clock frequency multiplier cannot be adjusted.

Chipset Configuration page contains three groups of parameters: memory configuring, graphics card configuring and integrated sound, network and FireWire configuring. It also allows adjusting the voltages.

ASRock 4Core1333-eSATA2 mainboard supports processors with 1333, 1066, 800 and 533MHz bus. In the first three cases the memory can be set at 333MHz (DDR2 667) or 400MHz (DDR2 800). You can use the jumpers to set the memory at 256MHz (DDR2 533) for CPUs with 1066 and 800MHz bus, and this value will not be added to the previous ones, but will replace them. If you have to go back to 333MHz or 400MHz memory frequency, you will have to reset the jumpers to their initial position. CPUs with 533MHz bus have only one option available to them: 266MHz memory frequency set as DDR2 533 with the jumpers.

As for the memory timings, all of the few available parameters can be adjusted in the interval from 3 to 6, except DRAM RAS# Activate to Precharge. For this parameter you can set any value from 9 to 15, which is very strange, because in automatic mode the board would read from SPD and set this parameter to 18 without any problems.

However, most questions arise when we get to voltages adjustment on ASRock 4Core1333-eSATA2 mainboard. VCCM Voltage parameter (I assume this is processor Vcore adjustment) can be set to Auto, High, Middle, Low or Lowest. It is hard to say for sure what it actually means, because the user’s manual has no word about it whatsoever. Lowest should probably be a slight voltage increase over the nominal, Low – a little bigger increase, etc. although, maybe Auto stands for nominal voltage, Middle is a slight increase and Low – a decrease below the nominal value. NB Core Voltage and VTT Voltage parameters are set to Low by default and can be changed to High manually. The mainboard cannot adjust the memory voltage at all.

Other pages in the Advanced section are pretty standard, that is seen from their names, so let’s move on to H/W Monitor section now.

ASRock 4Core1333-eSATA2 mainboard allows monitoring two temperatures, rotation speed of two fans that can be connected to it, three major voltages (3.3V, 5V and 12V) and processor Vcore. You can also adjust the processor fan rotation speed, but this feature will function only for coolers with a four-pin fan connector.

Summing up I can conclude that ASRock 4Core1333-eSATA2 mainboard BIOS cannot boast very rich features, and most of them are not very convenient to use.

Now let’s take a look at the performance numbers and draw our final verdict to our today’s hero.