X-bit labs

Meet Foxconn Mainboards: Foxconn 925A01-8EKRS2 and Foxconn 915A01-8EKRS2 Mainboards Review (page 8)

Category: Mainboards

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 12/14/2004 | 04:21 PM ]

Software

Mainboard manufacturers have recently been paying much attention to the software they supply with their products. We mean not the older versions of popular programs often included into the software bundle, but exclusive utilities for hardware monitoring, overclocking and so on, developed by the manufacturer itself.

The same bundle of three utilities comes with both reviewed mainboards from Foxconn:

• SuperLogo allows changing the picture the mainboard displays during the POST procedure;
  
  
  
• SuperUpdate updates the BIOS from Windows. It takes the new BIOS from a file on your computer or connects to the manufacturer’s website for that purpose;
  
  
  
• SuperStep is a hardware monitoring utility which can keep track of temperatures, fan speeds and voltages and can warn you if any of these parameters goes out of the acceptable range. This utility can also control the FSB frequency from inside the operating system.
  
  
  
  The adjustment of the FSB frequency with the help of SuperStep isn’t perfect. Our experience with this program says that this utility works correctly up to 216MHz FSB, hanging the system up otherwise.
  
  

The software you receive with your Foxconn 925A01-8EKRS2 or Foxconn 915A01-8EKRS2 mainboard doesn’t offer wide opportunities, but it’s still better than nothing. We hope Foxconn will continue to work to improve the software bundle it ships with its products.

Among the third-party utilities Foxconn supplies with its mainboards we’d like to single out Norton Internet Security 2004, a good personal firewall.