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BIOS
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CPU
settings, Northbridge settings and all of your onboard device settings
will be accessible under the advanced tab. I know I'm probably
just old school, but I like to disable everything in here that I'm not
using.
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The power tab
gives you access to the hardware monitor. It's very important to
keep an eye on your computer's vitals. In this tab, you can
monitor the temperature, fan speed and voltages. I would like to
have seen a few more voltages in here. I like to come into the
hardware monitor tab and see what my actual northbridge and memory
voltages are.
The tools tab has various
"tools" that you can use. This is also the place to change the
timer on initial bootup for the Express Gate splash screen.
Express Gate
Yes, you've seen this screen before, but now we are
going to talk about the Express Gate. A few months ago we were at
CES and were talking to David Speiser about Splashtop and the
integration of it into motherboards. A few of the Architects were
there and were asking us computer geeks what we would like to see in a
feature like this. I'm very excited to see this come to reality
and hopefully some of our suggestions weren't totally lame.
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When you click on the Web icon, it takes only a few
seconds before you have a web browser on your screen and you're surfing
the internet. The first time you log on, you'll probably get a
server not found error. Just go in and make sure your LAN
connection is set up. Once you are done surfing, click the power
button and you'll get a few options. You can power down, restart
or enter the OS.
This is what makes the whole thing work. A
little circuit card with a chip running a version of Linux. This
feature is still new and there are a few improvements I hope they can
implement. First off, there is no storage to speak of and Express
Gate can't access the HDD's. So if all you need to do is check
email or look something up on the internet, this will work for you.
If you need to print an email, you'll need to boot into the OS, because
there is no printer support. It would rock if you could have
Express Gate running while your computer continued to load in the
background. That way when you're done with Express Gate, you push
enter OS and you were in windows. All-in-all I think this is a
step in the right direction, and I'm happy to see it.
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