Abit AW8-MAX v1.0

BIOS:

The AW8-MAX Phoenix BIOS is nearly identical to that of the AW8 BIOS, with the exception of some diminutive changes such as the integrated peripherals, but for those that hadn't read our original piece on the AW8, the BIOS pages includes uGuru Utility, Standard CMOS Features, Advanced BIOS Features, Advanced Chipset Features, Integrated Peripherals, Power Management Setup, and PnP/PCI Configurations. Loaded up on the Abit AW8-MAX was a Phoenix AwardBIOS and we had flashed to the latest official release at the time of testing (v14) with a BIOS string of i955-W627EHF-6A79IA1AC-14. For enthusiasts/hobbyists, a majority of the tweaking will occur from the uGuru Utility where a number of the overclocking options can be found. These OC Guru options consist of the CPU operating speed, external clock, multiplier factor, N/B strap CPU as, DRAM Frequency (CPU:DRAM), CPU core voltage, DDR SDRAM voltage, and MCH & PCI-E 1.5 voltage. As far as the voltage possibilities go, the CPU voltage maxes out at 1.7125V with voltage steps in 0.025V increments. The DDR2 voltages are able to range from 1.75V to 2.30V in 0.05V (and 0.10V) steps. Ending off the voltage control the MCH & PCI voltages can be altered from 1.50V all the way up to 2.00V with 0.05V increments. For the Front Side Bus manipulation, the minimum value allowed is 133MHz, while it can max out at 400MHz. For the power cycle statistics inside OC Guru, the PC uptime, PC uptime total, PC power cycles, PC reset button cycles, AC power on total time, and AC power cycles can be viewed. The next ability of the BIOS uGuru Utility is Abit EQ, which allows for temperature, voltage, and fan speed monitoring along with FanEQ control. In each of these different monitoring applets, the present reading can be seen in their respective units along with enabling a shutdown or beep control if the reading exceeds a custom high or low limit. On the temperature monitoring page, the CPU, system, PWM1, PWM2, PWM3, and PWM4 temperatures can be viewed while the viewable voltages are the CPU core, DDR, DDR VTT, DDR VTT 1.2V, MCH & PCI-E 1.5V, MCH 2.5V, ICH 1.05V, ATX +12V (24-pin), ATX +12V (4-pin), ATX +5V, ATX +3.3V, and finally the ATX 5VSB can be read. Moving onto the fan speed-monitoring portion of Abit EQ, the system's CPU, Northbridge, system, auxiliary fan #1, auxiliary fan #2, auxiliary fan #3, OTES1, and OTES2 RPM monitoring. Allowing for the proper ratio of noise level to performance, Abit EQ allows the specifying of FanEQ groups that can dynamically adjust the CPU and Northbridge fan headers PWM duty cycle/DC fan voltage based upon the reference temperature and manually specified control temperatures for the low and high extremes. In addition to the uGuru capabilities accessed from the BIOS, Abit also offers uGuru software for Microsoft Windows XP, which allows monitoring these specific areas as well as manipulating the values for attaining a higher overclock. In addition, Abit also maintains FlashMenu, to easily flash your motherboard BIOS, and a host of other Windows utilities, which are regarded quite well by the enthusiast community. Unfortunately, at this time Abit hasn't yet ported any of their exclusive software over to GNU/Linux. However, the OSS community offers several GPL programs for interfacing with portions of uGuru under Linux. One of the programmers to work on a Linux port to read uGuru hardware sensors is Olle Sandberg with his small utility he has dubbed oGuru. This relatively simple C program is able to read numerous temperatures, voltage, and fan sensors although no manipulation or advanced features are permitted. However, in our tests oGuru wouldn't function as stated with the AW8-MAX due to a difference in Abit uGuru memory locations. For more information on this small oGuru project, there is a host of information at Abit's forums along with information on building your own module or GKrellM plug-in. Unfortunately; LM_Sensors hasn't expressed interest in officially supporting Abit uGuru with its Linux sensor packages. Getting back on track with the rest of the BIOS, majorities of the items are generic to Phoenix AwardBIOS' and in the event of the AW8-MAX, they all functioned accordingly. On the advanced Chipset page, the CAS, RAS# to CAS# delay, RAS# precharge, and precharge delay can all be manipulated as expected. In the instance of Abit's v15 AW8-MAX BIOS, the tCL CAS can change from 3 to 6, while both the tRCD and tRP support 2 to 6 timings, and the tRAS operation can vary from 4 to 15.