Operational Specifics

Like all good boards that have no defects of any kind, Foxconn A7DA 3.0 mainboard worked fine and without any problems. However, we had to deal with some peculiarities already during system assembly. The 24-pin power connector appeared to be turned with the lock facing inside. Serial ATA connectors also appeared rotated by 180 degrees. Moreover, things were real serious in this case: the connectors were numbered the other way around: not from top to bottom, but from bottom to top. However, all these differences won’t cause any problems neither to an experienced professional, nor to a mainstream user who puts together a computer maybe once every couple years.

Since so far we encountered no difficulties, let’s take a closer look at one of the company’s brand name utilities called FOX ONE.

Like many other brand name utilities bundled with the mainboards, this program allows monitoring and adjusting frequencies, voltages, temperatures and fan rotation speeds. It is even possible to enable automatic CPU overclocking: the mainboard will increase the clock generator frequency until the system freezes, after that it will slightly lower the frequency and declare system stability.

However, like the majority of manufacturers’ own utilities, FOX ONE is very inconvenient to work with. It is bulky, not very informative and has limited functionality compared with the mainboard BIOS. FOX ONE only looks good in mini-mode. In this case the program displays different system parameters on the screen in a cycle and the list can be adjusted to your taste.

In fact, this utility looks more or less OK in default mode. Those users who will feel like loading one of the available alternative skins, should probably get checked up by a psychiatrist. :) The first two themes are really something you don’t see too often.

And speaking of the things we really liked about this mainboard, I have to say that the algorithm used to adjust the rotation speed of the CPU cooling fan is really neat. The FOX ONE screenshots above show that the board reports unrealistically low processor temperature of only 19-20 °C. However, it is this particular temperature that mainboards rely on when they adjust the processor fan rotation speed. There were no problems in nominal mode, but during overclocking on Asus M4A78T-E mainboard, which we will use to compare against Foxconn A7DA 3.0 today, we had to completely disable this control algorithm and run all tests at maximum fan speed. Things are completely different with Foxconn A7DA 3.0: its BIOS offers extensive functionality for fan rotation speed adjustment and there is no need for any additional tools or utilities to get involved.

By lowering the “Start PWM Temperature” parameter from 35 to 25 °C we simply increased the startup rotation speed for the processor fan. By increasing the “Slope PWM Value” from 2 to 8 PWM we slowed down the mainboard’s response to CPU temperature changes, which ensured acoustically comfortable working conditions not only in the nominal mode, but also during overclocking. And most importantly, it didn’t affect the system stability in any way.