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Installation
If you have installed a motherboard
before, then the same routine is obviously used for
the DFI. If however you are new to installing the
motherboard, or even would like a refresher, the best
route is to use the Quick Start Guide supplied.
The instructions have been laid out very easily with
pictures showing you what you should roughly be doing,
so you can't really go wrong. DFI seem to have missed
one part out though, and that's connecting the front
buttons (Power and Reset), so you will need to look
at the main User Manual to turn it on! Maybe this
is a mistake that DFI have left out or it was intentional,
but I cant see a reason why they would go through
every step but this one.
If you are using Windows 2000 or Windows
XP, whether you are using the onboard SATA controller
or not, I would always recommend installing the SATA
controller drivers supplied. If you are using SATA,
then you have no choice otherwise the Installation
will not see the HDD on the controller!
Again, if you are new to this, when you start the
2000/XP setup it says "Press F6 to install 3rd
party SCSI drivers" - you need to press F6 and
later on you are then prompted to insert the driver
disk - this is the floppy disk supplied by DFI (shown
in the image on the previous page)
When you have completed the Windows
installation, its time to put in the Drivers/Tools
CD from DFI to get your system to a proper working
state.
(click for larger image)
All the drivers are laid out in their
own unique section going through Chipset, Graphics
(not needed for this board), Audio, USB and Network.
After you have installed all the relevant drivers
(and your System Manager is happy!), you can then
install the Tools on offer.
(click for larger image)
Here is listed the Silicon Image drivers
and utility to see the status of your drives. The
hardware monitor is in fact WinBond's hardware monitor
showing you all your voltages and your fans including
main temperature readings
Interestingly, DirectX 9 is included
on the CD. Although for broadband users this may seem
a bit pointless, but this will be a godsend for those
low bandwidth users! Instead of having to wait another
30+ minutes just to get the latest DirectX, it is
waiting for you on the CD! A nice little touch!
McAfee VirusScan Online is simply that
- an Antivirus suite supplied by McAfee with the Control
Panel. It doesn't include firewall software, but there
is a link in the AV Control Panel for a free 30-day
trial.
RadarSync is DFI's "keep your system
up to date" utility!
When this has been installed, it will run in the background
scanning your system then checking on DFI's site for
any BIOS and driver updates.
Unfortunately after clicking Details
to find out what this was, this update didn't tell
us what we were getting and what version it was!
After the file has downloaded, it
then asks you if you want to install it....we will!
Clicking Install launched the BIOS Update
utility (Winflash)....so I'm assuming it was a BIOS
update then!
(click for larger image)
After a reboot, we were then brought
back to the Desktop which nicely told us:
Just to see what you have downloaded,
if you open up the main Radar Panel, you can see what
you have downloaded and installed so far.
OK, so now we have our system completely
up to date, lets see those benchmark numbers!
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