BIOS

ABIT uses a Phoenix AwardBios which is heavily customized to support uGuru.


The first page is called Standard CMOS and offers settings to change date/time, HDD and floppy settings.


Advanced BIOS has settings to adjust general BIOS settings like typematic rate and additional bootup-delays. Also you can disable the full screen POST image here, so that you can see the full output of the system startup. On a subpage you can change the order in which the system will try the available devices to boot from.


On another subpage you can disable certain CPU features, like the C1E power saving feature. I like to disable it when overclocking. The Execute Disable feature of the CPU can also be disabled here, when using Windows XP SP2 enabling this feature might help protect against buffer overflows in software. BIOS 1.4 for the ABIT AL8 adds an option to disable EIST here as well.

Memory Timings

In Advanced Chipset Features, DRAM Configuration, you find options to change your memory timings settings between Manual and Auto, which uses the data from the SPD chip on your memory modules.


You can change CAS Latency (tCL), Active-to-Precharge Delay (tRAS), Rad-to-Cas Delay (tRCD), and RAS Precharge Time (tRP), which are the standard timings for memory modules. Unlike Athlon64 systems, Intel's chipset does not offer any other options here.

Integrated Peripherals

On the Integrated Peripherals page you find options to control the behaviour of the SATA controllers. I like to disable the second SATA controller when not in use, since this speeds up boot time. Also you can limit the transfer mode of the PATA port and change several USB settings here.


Power Management options are like in any other BIOS - nothing special here.


PNP/PCI Configurations has no useful options either.