X-bit labs

Biostar TP35D2-A7 and TP35D3-A7 Deluxe Mainboards Review (page 5)

Category: Mainboards

by Doors4ever

[ 08/27/2007 | 12:51 PM ]

The first option worth mentioning is the Smart Fan Option tool for fan rotation speed management. If you select this option, you can access a window with additional settings.

Everything looks very nice, even three-pin fans are supported. However, do not attempt to change anything there: all these options are not for real – they are virtual. If you decide to calibrate a fan, for instance, then you will see no Smart Fan Option in PC Health Status section at all upon next boot-up – it will simply vanish without trace! It is the first time in my experience that the BIOS demonstrates illusionist’s capabilities like that. Certainly, the processor fan rotation speed couldn’t be adjusted in any way, no matter if the option could be accessed or not.

I would like to point out that Biostar TP35D2-A7 mainboard can display major temperatures, voltages and fan rotation speeds with the help of Show H/W Monitor in POST tool. I would like to stress that this feature should be pointed out, but not regarded as an advantage. Unlike EPoX mainboards that have had feature like that for a while now, the data chart is displayed after the system boot-up is complete. Even if you notice that the fan is not rotating or one of the voltages is too high, you will have no time to respond adequately by accessing the BISO and fixing the settings. Moreover, you can only see the table if the FDD controller is operational. If you disable it, the boot-up gets sped up so greatly, that you will simply be unable to notice anything at all.

So, looks like the only advantage of the PC Health Status section of the Biostar TP35D2-A7 mainboard is its pretty detailed monitoring data. Besides the main parameters, it also shows the chipset North Bridge voltage and memory voltage, which not every mainboard monitors these days (take the Gigabyte boards, for instance).

It is a very smart decision to place all processor and memory overclocking options of the Biostar TP35D2-A7 mainboard into one single section called OverClock Navigator Engine. A commencing overclocker can use automatic overclocking option to get the CPU to run 5-10%, 15-25% or 25-30% faster, but since processors on Core micro-architecture boast very good overclocking potential overall, this may not be sufficient in most cases. Our Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 test CPU, for example, can clock from 266MHz to 490MHz FSB, which is over 80%, therefore, we move on to manual parameters adjustment right away.

Everything looks pretty good and work fine. If you disable EIST technology the multiplier can be reduced to the minimal value of 6x. FSB frequency can be adjusted from the nominal up to 700MHz, and PCI-E – in the interval between 100 and 200MHz with 1MHz increment. The memory frequency can be set at 533, 677 or 800MHz. 677MHz is a typo that keeps moving from one BIOS version to the next one. In fact, the board sets the memory at standard 667MHz in this case. It is also very convenient that you can adjust only those memory timings that you need, leaving all other settings at their default values.

The CPU can receive up to 0.787V of additional voltage with pretty small 0.0125V increment. FSB Termination Voltage and MCH Voltage can be set at 1.35V, 1.45V or 1.55V. The supported memory voltage interval stretches from 2.0 to 2.6V with 0.1V increment.

The info-lines that report the current multiplier, PCI Express bus frequency, memory frequency and nominal processor Vcore are an indisputable advantage. Moreover, Biostar TP35D2-A7 BIOS also allows running the built-in MemTest86+ benchmark.

Well, we have already talked about a lot of things, but this is certainly not the end of the Biostar TP35D2-A7 features list. Now it is high time we discussed CMOS Reloaded Program section that allows saving and loading the BIOS settings profiles. The user’s manual claims there can be up to 50 profiles saved, but I managed to see only 10. Nevertheless, this is more than enough, because Asus mainboards, for instance, allow saving only two profiles, abit mainboards – only 6.

Each profile is dated automatically. You can also provide a description for each of them.

In conclusion to our BIOS discussion I would like to say a few words about BIOS update procedure. In case of our Biostar TP35D2-A7 mainboard we once again come across a situation when a guaranteed advantage turns into an obvious drawback because of faulty implementation. Unfortunately, the BIOS reflashing utility can only work with floppy disks and doesn’t save the current BIOS version anywhere.