BIOS Setup

During our discussion of DFI LANPARTY DK X48-T2RS PCB layout, we didn’t find any serious issues that could be typical of LANPARTY DK mainboard series. Now let’s see how the transition from LANPARTY UT or LT to LANPARTY DK affected the BIOS settings and functionality.

The main menu looks like there are no visible limitations or changes at all. The sections are all pretty familiar. The functionality of the first few sections is also pretty common; we have already discussed them in our previous reviews of DFI mainboards and solutions from other manufacturers. So the first page we are going to dwell on will be PC Health Status.

The ability to correct CPU temperature using Adjust CPU Temp parameter is unique for DFI mainboards: you will not find anything like that on other manufacturers’ solutions. if the temperature setting is evidently higher or lower than the actual temperature, the user may calibrate the setting within ±15º interval without waiting for the new BOS update. It is a definite and indisputable advantage.

The board can automatically adjust processor fan rotation speed, the user just needs to set the border values. Unfortunately, this feature will only work if the fan has a four-pin power connector. The rotation speed of the remaining five fans cannot be adjusted, so the general verdict about fan rotation speed control potential is not very positive.

However, monitoring has been implemented just perfectly. The board controls all major voltages from the power supply as well as the processor core voltage, memory and chipset voltages, i.e. all the voltages that can be changed during overclocking. Moreover, monitoring does register CPU and chipset temperature as well as the temperature of the area around he processor voltage regulator. It also monitors rotation speed of five fans out of six that can be connected to the board.

Now we have come to Genie BIOS Setting page that includes all overclocking related parameters.

We are going to start with DFI’s unique options again. O.C. Fail Retry Counter sets the number of allowed failed restarts with given BIOS settings with the maximum of three attempts. After that the system will restart in safe mode or will load one of the four previously saved settings profiles. The number of the profile to restart with is set by the O.C. Fail CMOS Reload parameter.

CPU Clock Ratio and CPU N/2 Ratio parameters set the processor clock frequency multiplier, CPU Clock parameter determines the bus frequency (from 200 to 999MHz with 1MHz increment), and the resulting frequency value will be displayed by the informational parameter called Target CPU Clock. Boot Up Clock sets the starting FSB speed from100 to 410MHz with 5Mhz increment. The next three parameters deal with fine tuning of the chipset on Intel P45 Express based boards. They are usually located in a separate ClockGen Tuner sub-menu.

PCIE Clock parameter sets the PCI Express bus frequency from 100 to 250MHz. the memory frequency - DRAM Speed – can be selected from a list of ratios, but the resulting frequency depends on the FSB speed and will increase if you overclock your processor by raising the bus speed. You won’t need to calculate anything, the resulting memory frequency will be displayed by Target DRAM Speed parameter.

Three first settings in the Genie BIOS Setting section provide access to individual sub-sections dealing with processor-related parameters, memory timings and voltages. CPU Feature sub-section contains a complete set of processor technologies. Advanced BIOS Features section has everything it is supposed to have: nothing is missing there, unlike solutions from other mainboard makers.